Basic Goals and Assumptions of the Course

Science Writing is designed to prepare students for the most common forms of scientific reporting. Our pedagogy follows the paradigm of composition practiced in the Rutgers University Writing Program, commonly referred to as the dialogic or "conversation model," in which students are encouraged to situate themselves within a discourse and to recognize the social settings that structure all acts of writing. This is not a course that gives students practice writing empty forms; it's a course about learning to convert information into knowledge and action in a specific context. Although we will cover basic guidelines for clear, concise, informative science writing, students need to recognize that we can never teach them the specific "forms" of writing they will need at their workplace, since every journal, newspaper, or online publication forum (or culture of writing) will use unique formats and styles. But we can teach them how to develop good research skills, audience awareness, and attention to models as guides to a writing culture's expectations. We hope to teach writing as a basic skill in any career, not as a set of templates to use in a specific job.

The main work your students will undertake this semester is a portfolio of various assignments, including an online source review, a news brief, an interview with a Rutgers scientist and story based on that interview, a news summary, a book review, and a feature story about new and interesting research. We want our students to leave class feeling capable of using information and rational argument to make decisions and inform others. Instead of merely reporting the facts and details about research, we want our students to be able to decide what to include in their writing based on identification and definition of current problems, location of the paradigms and approaches determining a researcher's methodology, and a recognition of the implications and applications of the research they are reporting . Students should ideally try to situate their work within the context of audience expectation and awareness, publication source requirements and philosophies, their own interests and ideas, and the facts themselves. They should not focus exclusively on their plan or on answering questions about "how" research proceeds; they need to answer "why" (or, "why this way") as well. If they do that, they will come to recognize that their assumptions and ideas are already embedded in a conversation where there are at least some points of consensus. In other words, they will have entered the discourse of their chosen field.

In order for students to join the conversation in their field, they will often have to read a variety of source material at varying levels of abstraction, from newspaper articles to academic journal entries. Therefore, as in all composition courses, our emphasis in teaching needs to be as much on strong reading as it is on strong writing. The difficult readings are intended to give students a chance to practice reading and making sense of difficult texts -- something many of them are surprisingly ill prepared to do.

Since the assignments for the course requires individual effort and active student participation, teachers usually encourage students to work in groups, not only for peer review of drafts, but for peer discussion of readings. Students sometimes resist the group approach, feeling more comfortable with teacher comments. One way to de-emphasize your own role in their learning process is to create the illusion that the classroom is mimicking a workplace or research setting. Gone are the days of the individual researcher or reporter who works alone with no collaboration or feedback. Encourage them to use each other as resources for practice in the group dynamics currently informing most of professional life. Though occasional lectures can be helpful, you should mostly see yourself as the "guide by the side" rather than "the sage on the stage." Your job is to facilitate your students' independent work. Whenever possible, you should try to de-emphasize your role as "expert" and encourage the students to see themselves as developing the problem solving skills that are the hallmark of expertise. Encourage your students to work independently and actively in shaping their projects and seeking advice from subject area experts (such as advisers, professors, or professionals in their field of interest). Also, you should not focus undue attention on issues of grammar and syntax in comments on early versions of the project; instead, focus on helping students develop their ideas and fill in gaps in research. While it is important to work in class on specific issues of "prose polishing," that work is most helpful in the late stages of drafting and should not shift the focus away from students' struggles to revise a strong and thoughtful project full of content as well as style.