Writing and Science

Owned by George Rhinehart
Last updated: Aug 18, 2020

INQUIRY DESCRIPTION            

WRT 205 courses in “Writing and Science” will examine relations between science, rhetoric, and society, focusing on the production and circulation of scientific concepts across genres and audiences. Students will develop research-writing abilities through the study and practice of rhetorical reading, source selection and evaluation, and interdisciplinary consideration of research methods and values. Students will conduct at least one sustained project and also produce varied texts incorporating research, such as reports, new media presentations, science writing composed in genres produced for non-specialist audiences, and a digital portfolio. 

Below are two possible trajectories on which to approach this inquiry. Detailed explanations of each trajectory, readings, and assignment sheets are offered in links below.1

Trajectory 1

Trajectory 2


These trajectories were developed in consultation with leaders and members of the 2016-2017 inquiry working group and the 2017-2018 Lower Division Committee. Special thanks to Chris Feikes for providing the basis for Trajectory 1 and Henry Jankiewicz for providing the basis for Trajectory 2 



TRAJECTORY 1

Central goals of the course include forming a class research community, developing strategies for reading public science texts rhetorically, and identifying preliminary research interests and questions. Students compose public commentaries, science writing for nonspecialists, and a poster session.

Students read a text such as Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, considering science as a rhetorical activity. At the same time, they read other scientific genres, particularly those geared toward a public audience, engaging many of the same issues and topics addressed in the text (for example, He-La cells, “the common rule” applying to human subjects and medical research, and issues of social justice as related to health care). Students consider different approaches to writing about issues in genres ranging from government texts informing the public about new regulations governing privacy and informed consent to a RadioLab podcast about tumors and cells. Throughout the project, students read and consider the material consequences of scientific research. They consider Skloot as a researcher and writer of public science, attending to her sources, methods, and rhetorical choices.

Students read scholarly/scientific articles along with public responses to them. They analyze the genre features of both the article and the responses. The purpose of this analysis is to encourage students to consider genre and audience, particularly how authors work to reach readers with different levels of expertise. Students will discuss how their own majors (and areas of expertise) impact their reading and response to the material. 

Students then write their own comments to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. They are encouraged to frame their responses in connection with their majors, life experiences, and other factors that may inform their understanding of the issues raised in the book. The class responds to each other’s comments. Following these responses, students compose a “Public Commentary” that focuses on an area of personal interest related to the book. While no external research is needed for this assignment, students are expected to quote, paraphrase, and respond to their peers.

Early in the course students also interview people about research goals and practices—academics, scientists, professionals, basically anyone who does research. As students share their interview responses, the class “listens in” for shared and divergent practices and apparent values across disciplines, methods, and forms. 

The second project is centered on public science writing, and students research self-selected topics on whichever core inquiry themes arose earlier in the course (informed consent for medical research, for example). The class develops a working definition of “public science,” and students select and study public science models, develop an understanding of audiences vis-a-vis different genres, and compose in a public-science form of their choosing. While students may choose to compose longer, linear research prose, they are not limited to this. Students study their topic as it is conveyed/represented/ debated in a variety of public-science platforms: mainstream newspapers, blogs, podcasts, long-form magazines, etc. As most engaging scientific topics are controversial and complex, students use primary research, surveys, questionnaires etc. to help support them with the audience analysis and awareness that should inform their invention and composing. 

During the third unit, students produce a poster as individuals or in teams. Students may produce full-size posters using the SU Plotter printers, draw/paint and design on poster board, or create a digital poster. In most cases, students will produce a poster that relatesto what they already researched, but, as students learn, simple “translation” usually isn’t possible or desirable, and new research will prove necessary. To understand the purpose and possibilities of poster sessions, students study models of posters used in different research and professional contexts, read guidelines, attend poster sessions, and experiment. There is considerable preparation for the poster session itself as the session conversations are as important—potentially more important—than the posters. Students read their peers’ draft posters and prepare notes for the research conversations. The reflections capture learning and questions that arise. 

Along with the WRT 205 foundational readings provided here, below are readings that may be useful for this trajectory:

 

Public Commentary

“Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects.” Federal Register, 19 Jan. 2017, http://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/19/2017-01058/federal-policy-for-the-protection-of-human-subjects.

From the Archives: Crownsville State Hospital.” The Darkroom: Exploring Visual Journalism from the Baltimore Sun, http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2015/01/crownsville-state-hospital/.

“Henrietta's Tumor.” Radiolab, http://www.radiolab.org/story/91716-henriettas-tumor/.


Kirby, Jeffrey. “Balancing Legitimate Critical-Care Interests: Setting Defensible Care Limits Through Policy Development.” Taylor & Francis, American Journal of Bioethics, 6 Jan. 2016, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15265161.2015.1115141.

The above link is to an abstract with public comment topics listed to the right of the abstract. The particular article topic isn’t important; this is just one example of the Target Article/Public Commentary journal sequence students emulate (using Blackboard discussion forums).

LaBarre, Suzanne. “Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments.” Popular Science, 24 Sept. 2013, http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments. 

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Books, 2017. 


Public Science Writing

Alcoff, Linda. “The Problem of Speaking For Others.” The Problem of Speaking For Others | Alcoff.com, http://www.alcoff.com/content/speaothers.html.

Funk, Cary, and Lee Rainie. “Public and Scientists' Views on Science and Society.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 29 Jan. 2015, http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. “Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds.” The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds.

Rogers, Michael. “The Double-Edged Helix.” Rolling Stone, 25 Mar. 1976, http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-double-edged-helix-19760325. 

Wagner, Laura. “Neil DeGrasse Tyson Gets Into A Rap Battle With B.o.B Over Flat Earth Theory.” NPR, NPR, 26 Jan. 2016, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/26/464474518/neil-degrasse-tyson-gets-into-a-rap-battle-with-b-o-b-over-flat-earth-theory.

Research Conversations/Poster Session

“Public Discourse and the Writing of Science/Poster Resources” SU library Research Guide
https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/wrt205science

Tufte, Edward. Edward Tufte Forum: PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports, http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB.

Select teaching materials can be found here. 

TRAJECTORY 2

In this trajectory, students consider how scientific information works in public discourse. They consider questions that may be philosophical (for example, how is science related to reality? who are we as humans?), ideological (is science compatible with religion?), or ethical (what should the limits of genetic engineering be?). The class considers the rhetorical nature of scientific research as compared to research in other disciplines; public understandings and uses of scientific findings; and the transformative power of scientific knowledge for understanding ourselves as humans. Students explore what sort of research is advisable, or possible, for citizens who have an interest in making informed critical decisions about public policy relating to scientific matters.

Unit 1 introduces students to key themes and concepts of the course relating to rhetoric, research, and science. The assignments are largely framed in the form of research questions that students confront through readings and their own research. Students consider definitions of rhetoric and interview each other, examining what they understand science to be and through what channels they know about it. They also talk to a scientist, if one is available. Readings focus on how science operates, considering issues of rhetoric and objectivity. After learning about specific rhetorical characteristics of scientific texts, students look for them by annotating an experimental article. 

Students then read a textbook account contrasting inquiry processes in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and they develop an infographic to reinforce salient differences (regarding what is worthy of inquiry, modes of proof, methods, etc.). Each student then writes up an interview with a faculty or graduate student researcher, and the findings are compiled and shared with the class. In the final phase of the project, students evaluate and compare/contrast the deductive textbook descriptions of disciplinary research with what the class as a whole actually found in the field. 

The second major project is an essay in which students introduce, critically evaluate, and synthesize a set of science-based readings on a single (assigned) topic and which culminates in a final, informed commentary on the topic. For instance, a theme could be brain science and the male/female/trans gendering of the brain. Students discuss and blog in response to five readings representing four widely different perspectives on the brain and gender. In the process, concerns like search methods, use of databases, citing practices and so forth are addressed. One activity, for example, tracks a citation from a text and assesses how credible it was and how the author used the original source. In their synthesis essays, students are asked to address three of the course readings and add two sources of their own from genres that have not yet been discussed in class (for example, a TED talk or blog article). 

The third project asks students to gain an understanding of a current, science-based policy issue and write a position paper. To prepare for this, students read and respond to articles on current issues involving science (for example, the culture wars on science, the scientists’ march on Washington) and engage in classroom debates in which students come to preliminary judgments on policy decisions (for example, the vaccination debate, whether/how to limit genetic engineering). For the position paper, students propose their own research topic in the form of a formal, oral presentation, and write a prospectus. The focus is on researching and assessing claims, reporting on the state of a controversy, and weighing in with a policy recommendation.

In mid-semester, students write a reflection on some aspect of their writing experience in the course and beyond. At the end of the course, students assemble a portfolio in which they reflect on their own work in light of the course objectives and in light of how they see themselves confronting writing tasks in the future.  

Along with the WRT 205 foundational readings provided here, below are readings that may be useful for this trajectory:

Intro to Research, Rhetoric and Science

Berrett, Dan. “Skimming the Surface.” Inside Higher Ed, 11 Apr. 2011, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/04/11/study_of_first_year_students_research_papers_finds_little_evidence_they_understand_sources. A short article on contemporary students’ shallow use of sources.

Casti, John L. Paradigms Lost: Tackling the Unanswered Mysteries of Science. Avon, 1989. [Preface and Chapter 1, “Faith, Hope, and Asperity”][Note: Casti, later in his career was exposed as a flagrant plagiarist, to a bizarre degree. Still, this chapter is useful for looking at science writing.] [PDF]

Hult, Christine. [Inquiry Processes in the Disciplines.] Excerpts from Researching and Writing Across the Curriculum (2nd ed.). Wadsworth, 1990. [PDF]

Quinn, Daniel. Chapter 7 from Ishmael.  Bantam, 1991. [PDF]

MacLennan, Jennifer. “What Is Rhetoric?” Mr. Bauld’s English, http://www.mrbauld.com/rhetoric.

Martin, Emily. “The Egg and Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male/Female Roles.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol.16, no. 31, 1991, pp. 485-501. [PDF] 

Synthesis Essay

Brizendine, Louann. Chapters from The Female Brain. Harmony Books, 2006. [PDF]

Brizendine, Louann. Chapters from The Male Brain. Three Rivers Press, 2010. [PDF]

Fine, Cordelia. Selections from  Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Intro, [PDF]

Eagleman, David M. “Life After the Monarchy.” Chapter 7 from Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. Vintage/Random House, 2011. 193-224. [PDF]

Henig, Robin Marantz. “Rethinking Gender.” National Geographic, Jan. 2017, pp. 49-72. [PDF]

Joel, Daphna. “Are Brains Male or Female?” YouTube, uploaded by TEDx Talks, 8 Oct. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYpDU040yzc. 

Stafford, Tom. “Sex Differences in Cognition Are Small.” Mind Hacks: Neuroscience and Psychology News and Views. 14 Feb. 2017, https://mindhacks.com/2017/02/14/sex-differences-in-cognition-are-small/.

Writing About a Scientific Controversy

Achenbach, Joel. “The War on Science: The Age of Disbelief.” National Geographic, Mar. 2015, pp. 34-47. [PDF]

Select teaching materials can be found here.