Transcript The Science of Scientific Writing

The Art of Scientific
Writing
Overview
• Reading-to-Learn
• Ways to teach basic elements of
scientific writing.
Barbara Davis, Tools for Teaching –
“Helping Students Write Better in All
Courses”
• View writing as essential for learning – both in class
and out of class
• Discuss the general standards for good writing – give
the context, purpose, and audience appropriate for
the class – let students know you value clarity, good
organization, and correct usage
• Underscore the fact that writing is a process: from
developing ideas, to finding a thesis, drafting,
revising, and presenting the finished work to readers
BARBARA DAVIS, TOOLS FOR TEACHING –
“HELPING STUDENTS WRITE BETTER IN ALL
COURSES”
• Underscore the fact that writing is a process: from
developing ideas, to finding a thesis, drafting,
revising, and presenting the finished work to readers
• Give students the chance to talk about their own
writing, especially with peers
• Explain thesis statements – it is not simply a topic, it
is an assertation about a topic
• Encourage specificity in their writing
• Assign ungraded in-class writing assignements
• Use peer reviewing in class
DOUGLAS DOWNS AND ELIZABETH WARDLE, “TEACHING
ABOUT WRITING, RIGHTING MISCONCEPTIONS:
(RE)ENVISIONING “FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION” AS
“INTRODUCTION TO WRITING STUDIES”
• FYC presumes a universal writing discourse
in academia that can be transferred from one
area to another: “Yet more than twenty years
of research and theory have repeatedly
demonstrated that such a unified academic
discourse does not exist and have seriously
questioned what students can and do transfer
from one context to another” (552).
DOUGLAS DOWNS AND ELIZABETH WARDLE, “TEACHING
ABOUT WRITING, RIGHTING MISCONCEPTIONS:
(RE)ENVISIONING “FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION” AS
“INTRODUCTION TO WRITING STUDIES”
• The authors advice moving away from First
Year Composition as teaching “how to write
in college” towards a course that would be
about writing itself. Thus moving away from
writing as a basic, universal skill to writing as
a subject in its own right.
NANCY SOMMERS AND LAURA SALTZ, “THE
NOVICE EXPERT: WRITING THE FRESHMAN YEAR”
• One of the big surprises: most students, both strong
and weak writers, said that writing was crucial for
feeling a part of an academic community, and that
they learned more and made ideas there own (as
opposed to classes without writing, which they
describe as regurgitating other people’s ideas – a
memorable quote from a student in a linguistics
class: “I felt like an academic tourist”)
DARTHMOUTH WRITING PROGRAM – WRITING IN
THE HUMANITIES
• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/
humanities/write.shtml
DARTHMOUTH WRITING PROGRAM – WRITING IN
THE HUMANITIES
General Advice
• Every field of study has its own particular purposes,
methods, and goals
• Before you can begin a writing assignment in the
humanities, it's important that you understand why
people in the humanities write.
• They have as their center not the interpretation of
hard evidence, but the interpretation of texts.
DARTHMOUTH WRITING PROGRAM – WRITING IN
THE HUMANITIES
Evidence and Methods
• Humanities scholars read texts closely, looking for
patterns, examining language, considering what is
not present in the text, as well as what is
• The pattern of discourse in the humanities usually
goes like this: a writer makes a claim, supports that
claim with textual evidence, and then discusses the
significance of the passage he has just quoted
DARTHMOUTH WRITING PROGRAM – WRITING IN
THE HUMANITIES
Structuring the Argument
• One of the things that most frustrates students of the
sciences and social sciences when they encounter a
humanities writing assignment is that there is no
formula for structuring their papers.
• In the humanities, however, form is dictated by
content. In other words, what you intend to say will
determine how you are going to say it
DARTHMOUTH WRITING PROGRAM – WRITING IN
THE HUMANITIES
Preferred Style of Writing
•
•
•
Every reader, no matter what his profession or academic discipline,
prefers prose that is clear, concise, and coherent – however, there are
differences
In the sciences, sentences and paragraphs are usually short.
Adjectives - except those that are absolutely necessary - are avoided.
The passive voice is regularly employed. First-person pronouns are
suspect. And rhetoric - or the kind of language that one uses to
convince others that your argument is correct - is outlawed
When writing a humanities paper, language and the way it is used in a
paper is nearly as important as that paper's content. You will
manipulate language to emphasize importance, to show the subtle
relationships between ideas, and so on.
Reading-to-Learn:
Four Strategies
• Annotation: You probably do this
• Double-entry Notebook: An organized way
to distinguish between phrases and meaning
• Free-write: Read straight through then write
down all of the questions/reactions you have
• Argument Mapping: Use a diagram to
understand the structure of an article
• What strategies do your students actually
employ?
Reading-to-Learn:
Where and How
• Students are taught their reading skills
largely in high school by their English
and Social Studies teachers
• Common Core Standards
• Reading in sciences is still largely
ignored – though training can begin very
young
Reading to Learn in Humanities
• Types of reading students are doing in humanities.
Frequently, writing is taught through analyzing literature,
fiction.
• Syllabuses. Often, they are “discrete”. No textbooks are used,
just a number of texts chosen by the instructor.
• Critical thinking is encouraged and possible from early start. It
is important not only to understand the text, but to look for the
meaning that does not lie on the surface (with fiction, poetry).
Reading to Learn in Humanities
• Approaches to the readings. Developing the ability to deal with
the text at a micro- and macro-level. (Exercises in close reading.
Texts as fractals. At the same time, it is important to read the
whole texts and not skip any parts).
• One of the major battles in teaching reading literature is teaching
students not to retell the fictional text, but analyze it. Which
involves specific devices: seeing motifs, characters, style –
seeing a text as a text and always remembering that this is a
narrative.
• On the other hand, a human dimension is always there, and
“objective” tone (required in writing) is a later result. The
immediate response often starts with a personal emotion – you
have to teach students how to convert it into the analytical mode.
• Multiple interpretations of texts (especially, fiction) are OK
Reading-to-Learn:
Science is Different
• Science texts are more “lexically dense” and
vocabulary laden than writing in other
divisions
• Students often have trouble remembering
notation and are scared by scientific
shorthand (Greek letters)
• There are two (or three) distinct genres of
scientific writing: research, textbook, pop
Reading-to-Learn
• Why do you think students should read
for your class? What is an argument
against it?
• What sorts of readings do you expect
your students to be able to do?
• What sorts of readings do you want
them to be able to do?
Adjusting to Science:
Annotation
• We’ll throw out free-writing and argument
mapping
• Adjusted Annotation: Use different colors to
underline or highlight:
–
–
–
–
New scientific vocabulary
Steps in an experiment
Results
Inferences and Explanations
• Write short summaries of main points after
each section
Adjusting to Science:
Triple Entry Notebook
• Students divide a sheet of paper into three
columns
• In one section goes new terminology
• In the second goes symbols
• In the third goes formulae and/or a one
sentence explanation of what the term means
• Students are really building a reference sheet
for their reading – would/should you let them
bring their reference sheet to class?
Reading Assignments
• Introduce the strategies you prefer
before or during their first reading
assignment
• Model the behaviors you want to see:
– How can you model a triple-entry
notebook?
– Annotation?
• Break down a sample text in class
Reading Assignments
• How might you choose a reading for
your students?
• What is the right mix of pop, textbook
and research writing for your class?
Reading Assignments
• Check in to make sure students do the
reading:
– Writing summaries
– Application assignments
– Online comprehension quizzes
• How might you break down a more
complicated research article?
Managing Expectations and Outcomes
• How do you think your students would
perform?
• What would the learning curve for these
assignments look like?
• How might it help you?
The Scientific Voice
• How would you characterize the voice
of a scientific writer? How does
scientific writing sound?
• Typically, writing in the third person,
avoiding slang, etc..
The Scientific Voice
• How do students usually write at the
start of the semester?
• Major difficulties: prove vs. support; use
of conversational language; level of
detail; vocabulary
The Scientific Voice
• Assignments:
• Reading to write: what do students
notice about published scientific
articles?
• Writing to write: can students write a
report of a simple experiment in such a
way that someone else can replicate it?
In-class assignments
•
To help students learn to cope with deadline pressure:
–
Give students a scientific article and an hour to find five sources for
comments/critiques.
•
Have students read a short article in class during the first hour
of class and write a 300- to 500-word critique in the second half
of class.
•
Have students read a complicated/ difficult paper and review
the article in class to teach what to ignore and what to focus on.
–
Then assign a complicated article and have students do a group presentation
in class.
Why APA Format?
• Based on what you know about the APA
format so far, what makes it highly
applicable to the scientific voice?
Mock Proofreading
The Truth About Hypotheses
• Error #1: Hypotheses are never found to
be true because statistical tests that
support hypotheses are probability
statements.
– Appropriate language indicates that
hypotheses are supported, adopted, or
accepted.
Mock Proofreading
Proper In-Text Citations
•Error #2: The proper format for in text
citation for two authors is Garon and
Mantel. Garon & Mantel is only used for
parenthetical citations (Garon & Mantel,
1994)
Mock Proofreading
Singular And Plural: Parallel
Structure
• Error #3 & #6: Good writing requires that there
be parallel structure between subject and
verb; plural subjects should have plural verbs
and singular subjects should have singular
verbs.
• Several words commonly used in
psychological writing have the appearance of
being singular when they are plural (ex. Data)
Mock Proofreading
Et al.
•Error #4: Meaning “and others” in Latin, et al. is used only
after a reference has been cited fully once in the text and
if there are three or more authors in the citation.
•Since the Garon and Mantel reference has only two
authors, it is incorrect to use et al. here.
•The one exception to this rule occurs when the initial
citation has six or more authors. In this case, et al. can be
used on every citation.
Mock Proofreading
The Significance of Significance
•Error #5: Results are not “very," "almost," or “slightly”
significant. A p-value of .01 is not more significant than .05 or
less significant than .001. A statistical test is significant or it is
not.
•For non-scientists, the term significant is synonymous with
“important”, "meaningful," or "noteworthy." However, when
scientists use the term significant, they typically have a quite
different meaning in mind--namely that a given result is
statistically significant.
•Results that are statistically significant may not necessarily
be noteworthy findings.
Mock Proofreading
Participants Are Subjects Too
• Error #7: The terms "subject" and "sample”
may be used when discussing statistics. In all
other cases, "participant" or "respondent" is
preferred because such terms convey a
sense of active involvement in psychological
research.
– Note, however, that this rule only applies when
writing about people.
– Even though animals are vital for psychological
research, it is acceptable to describe rats, mice,
and cats as subjects.
Mock Proofreading
Biased Language
• Error #8: To reduce bias in writing, identify all
participants appropriately. The terms “girl” and
“boy” are only appropriate for those of high
school age and younger. Since the participants
are identified as adults, the proper term would
be “women”.
– The imbalance of the terms “girl” and “men” suggests
a bias against women on the part of the author.
Mock Proofreading
Is it Twelve or 12?
• Error #9: Numbers below 10 are spelled
out (e.g., “two”), numbers 10 and above
are generally written in numerical form
(e.g., “200”).
– See section 3.42 of the APA manual for the
exceptions to this rule (ex. Dates, ages,
and money should be expressed in
numerical form, like “2 weeks ago”)
Other Elements of Scientific Style
Active Voice vs. Passive Voice
• While active voice helps to create clear and direct sentences,
sometimes writers find using an indirect expression is rhetorically
effective in a given situation, so they choose passive voice.
• Also, writers in the sciences conventionally use passive voice
more often than writers in other discourses. The passive voice is
effective in such circumstances because it highlights the action and
what is acted upon rather than the agent performing the action.
• The dispatcher is notifying police that three prisoners have escaped.
• Police are being notified that three prisoners have escaped.
Other Elements of Scientific Style
•
Don’t editorialize. Avoid evaluative terms such as “horrible,”
“ridiculous,” etc. Let the facts you present speak for themselves.
– Examples (avoid):
– “It would be foolish to ignore the evidence in favor of this theory.”
– “This study completely failed to prove the author’s point.”
– “It is obvious that [this theory] is correct.”
•
Do express your point of view through an objective presentation
of evidence.
– One of the main goals of scientific writing is the objective
reporting of information.
– Of course, you will have a point of view (your thesis).
– You want your readers to arrive at the same conclusion that you did
by objectively weighing the evidence that you present.
Other Elements of Scientific Style
• Don’t write a novel. Do not weave a tale of
suspense complete with foreshadowing, flashbacks
or surprise endings.
– Don’t wait until the end of the paper to give the
punch line!
• Do tell a story. Your paper should be a
straightforward tale of a specific question in want
of an answer.