Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT \n \nA Series of Distractions \nLisa Sookraj \n \n\t"A Series of Distractions" is a novella that examines the fragmentary nature of the sentence, the story, the photograph and life itself. Montréal writer Gail Scott refers to works created in the middle space, the in between. This is where my writing exists, between genres and between situational states in characters’ lives [stuck between a rock (youth) and a hard place (well-adjusted adults)]. To illustrate the disjointed way thoughts tend to connect under pressure, the prose is interspersed with shorter lines that appear like poetry on the page. \t \n\tThe narrative follows Julie Watt, a struggling young photographer in Montréal, and focuses on her shifting relationships (to herself, her work and her boyfriend Peter). Julie seeks progress in place of redundancy, but while clinging to stasis. As such, the writing often examines moments of ‘unplot’ – the minute events of daily life accompanied by the inner associations of the protagonist. The writing conveys 'the real' in a charged way, revealing the complexity of situations which seem simple on the surface. A quote from Susan Sontag is fitting: "Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality." \n\tThe notion of time and the speeds at which it moves in differing stages of our lives and psychologies is integral to the story, at the heart of which lies uncertainty and anxiety. Theories on photography (from Sontag and Roland Barthes) offer insight as to how Julie views the various aspects of her life, and often, how the author perceives prose. \n
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.028 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.010 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.022 | 0.008 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".