English 390—Science Writing, Fall 2015 Instructor: J. Rosser Matthews Sections: 1101, 1301 Office: Tawes 1210 Time: 9:30 am-10:45 am, Tawes 0207; Office Hours: 2:00-4:00 pm
12:30 pm- 1:45 pm, Tawes 0207 on Tuesday/Thursday
Tuesday & Thursday and by appointment
https://myelms.umd.edu/courses/1157908 Departmental Phone: (301) 405-3762
E-mail:
Course Overview:
English 390 satisfies the Professional Writing requirement for undergraduates. Given the thematic focus on scientific issues, this course is most appropriate for science majors interested in further study in the physical and biological sciences (but would be of interest to anyone with a serious interest in science as a discursive activity). As a professionally oriented course, assignments parallel the writing demands that students face both in college and in the workplace.
Students learn the conventions of scientific prose used in research articles and proposals; they also learn to accommodate scientific information to general audiences. In addition, students learn how to use stylistic and visual devices to make information more accessible and how to edit their own work as well as that of their peers.
Prerequisites: English 101 or equivalent and a minimum of 60 credits.
Required Texts:
Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 11th edition
(New York: Longman 2014)(ISBN: 978-0-321-89868-5) (Style)
Laurence Greene, Writing in the Life Sciences
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)(ISBN: 978-0-19-517046-7)(WILS)
Jesse Cohen, ed., The Best of the Best American Science Writing
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010)(ISBN: 978-0-06-187500-7) (BASW)
Richard A. Muller, Physics for Future Presidents
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008)(ISBN: 978-0-393-33711-2)(PFFP)
Learning Outcomes:
This course fulfills the University’s Fundamental Studies Professional Writing Requirement. As stated in the University’s Plan for General Education (http://www.provost.umd.edu/GenEdReport/GenEdPublic-Dec2010.pdf, see Appendices p. 35), students should be able to perform the following tasks upon completing this course:
1. Analyze a variety of professional rhetorical situations and produce appropriate texts in response.
2. Understand the stages required to produce competent, professional writing through planning, drafting, revising and editing.
3. Identify and implement the appropriate research methods for each writing task. Students do research for each writing assignment.
4. Practice the ethical use of sources and the conventions of citation appropriate to each genre.
5. Write for the intended readers of a text, and design or adapt text to audience who may differ in their familiarity with the subject matter.
6. Demonstrate competence in Standard Written English, including grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, coherence, and document design (including the use of the visual) and be able to use this knowledge to revise texts.
7. Produce cogent arguments that identify arguable issues, reflect the degree of available evidence, and take account of counter arguments.
The learning outcomes associated with each major writing assignment are listed in parentheses after each assignment description (e.g., “6” would indicate that the assignment focuses on improving Standard Written English).
Course Philosophy:
One of your instructor’s core philosophical convictions is that writing is constitutive of thought; in other words, we cannot “divorce” writing and thinking. Pedagogically, this conviction implies that the teaching of professional writing goes hand-in-hand with developing critical thinking skills. Specifically, “thought” enters the picture when a writer translates information that was developed in one context into a new context that is tailored to the document’s intended final reader. However, there is no thought involved in performing the “hunter gatherer” activity of finding information and “writing it up” (in a bunch of discrete grammatically correct sentences). The latter activity could be compared to a musician who knows how to play the correct notes, but does not know “how to make the music.”
Thematically, this issue of translation is this course’s organizing construct. Although translation has to be dealt with in all forms of technical writing, it is especially acute in science because of the highly professionalized nature of this activity. During the 19th century, science became a profession, which means (among other things) that very formal rhetorical structures govern how scientific practitioners address each other. Consequently, as an aspiring scientist, you will have to translate your empirical findings into language that conforms not only to the “generic” expectations of readers of Standard Written English, but also to the specific expectations that are unique to your particular scientific community. Furthermore, how you present your empirical findings will differ rhetorically depending on whether you are addressing professional colleagues or a lay audience. In this course, we will address this issue of translation in four distinct units:
1. Translating Personal Experience into Professional Prose;
2. Translating Empirical Data into Research Publications;
3. Translating Technical Knowledge for Popular Audiences; and
4. Translating Technical Knowledge for Grant-Making Agencies & Policy Makers.
Writing is learned through practice, which means (as a consequence) that there will be multiple writing assignments throughout the semester. As the Professional Writing Program website indicates, “In every PWP course, students write and revise four to six major assignments for a total of approximately 25 pages of formal graded writing per student.” The specifics for each of these writing assignments are provided as a separate document posted on ELMS. As you will see, many of these writing assignments involve the completion of a first draft, which will then be commented on by one of your classmates. There are (at least) three reasons for getting feedback prior to final submission of any written document:
1) Every piece of writing can be improved with revision;
2) Writing is an inherently social activity (between a writer and a reader); and
3) The best way, as a writer, to enhance the likelihood of being understood is to craft text in ways that conform to your readers’ expectations.
In all of the writing assignments, the ability to tailor information to suit the needs of an audience will be primary in determining the grade, with individual grades determined based on the following general rubric:
Specific Criteria Used To Determine Letter Grades on Individual Assignments
Written papers will be awarded a grade of “A” if / They introduce information that is directly relevant for the audience, and package it in a way that explicitly addresses the needs of the audience.Written papers will be awarded a grade of “B” if / They introduce information that is directly relevant for the audience, but they force readers to “connect the dots” to see why the information is relevant.
Written papers will be awarded a grade of “C” if / They introduce information that is only partially relevant for the needs of the audience. The readers not only have to “connect the dots” for information that is relevant, but also sift through what information that needs to be discarded.
The above criteria will be used as a general guide to assign grades based on the quality of content in written assignments. However, I reserve the right to lower the assigned grade by up to a letter if the submitted product is professionally substandard (e.g., it has spelling, punctuation, or grammar error, has inadequate citations etc.). How these general criteria will be applied in assessing specific assignments is discussed in more detail in the Assignment section of the course space on ELMS. General description of undergraduate letter grades can be found at http://www.umd.edu/catalog/index.cfm/show/content.section/c/27/ss/1584/s/1534.
Each assignment will be given a numerical score (including fractional values) with 100 points possible at the end of the semester. Your final numerical score will be translated into a final grade based on the following table:
94-100% / A / 4.090-93% / A- / 3.7
87-89 / B+ / 3.3
84-86 / B / 3.0
80-83 / B- / 2.7
77-79 / C+ / 2.3
74-76 / C / 2.0
70-73% / C- / 1.7
Assignments Schedule, Approximate Page Lengths, and Grade Percentages
Assignment Percentage No. of Pages Due Date
1) Reader Expectations & Science
Writing 4% 2 9/10, 9/15 2) Resume/Cover Letter/Personal
Statement 5% 4 9/22, 9/29
3) Online Quiz on Library Modules 2% 9/24
4) Topic Selection Memo (Group) 1% 1 10/6
5) Reconstructing Article from Data 15% 4 10/13, 10/20
6) Review Article 15% 5 11/3, 11/10
7) Case Study 15% 4 11/17, 11/24
8) Oral Presentation 5% - Various
9) Final Project—Individual Component 20% 8 Time of Final
10) Final Project—Group Component 8% - Time of Final
11) Final Reflective Essay 2% 1 12/10
12) Class Participation/Attendance 8% - Various
Specific Assignment for Class Meeting of:
Unit I: General Features of Professional Writing:
Translating Personal Experience into Professional Prose
9/1—Course Overview; Exorcizing “Miss Grundy”
Style, Lessons 1 & 2 (review after class)
9/3 —Nominalizations & Sentence Structure; Scientific Writing and Ethics
Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, “Truth and Consequences” (BASW);
Style, Lessons 3, 4, & 12
9/8—From Sentence-to-Sentence Cohesion to Global Coherence; Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
Atul Gawande, “When Doctors Make Mistakes” (BASW);
Style, Lessons 5, 6, & 8
9/10—In-class modeling of the peer review process
Due: Applying Reader Expectation Theory to Science Writing (first draft)
9/15—Writing a Resume, Cover Letter, and Personal Statement
Due: Applying Reader Expectation Theory to Science Writing (final version)
9/17—Writing a Resume, Cover Letter, and Personal Statement (continued) & Visual Rhetoric
Danielle Ofri, “Common Ground” (BASW)
9/22—Due: Resume, Cover Letter, and Personal Statement (first draft)
Peer Review in Class of Drafts
9/24—Group formation and brainstorming for final group project
WILS, chapters 1 (focus on “Analyzing Your Audiences”) & 2; submit group “Audience
Analysis” by the end of class.
Due: Complete online quiz on library modules before class
9/29— Brief conference between instructor and groups about Term Research Project
Due: Resume, Cover Letter, and Personal Statement (final version)
Unit II: Specific Features of Scientific Writing: Translating Empirical Data into Research Publications
10/1 —Evaluating Scientific Arguments—the Toulmin Model
Gary Taubes, “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat” (BASW)(read before class);
Muller, “Chapter 22: Evidence” (PFFP)(read before class);
Discussion Board Post (online) before class;
WILS, chapter 3 “Constructing Convincing Scientific Arguments” (review in class)
10/6— Evaluating Scientific Arguments, part II:
Critiquing a Research Report & the “Genre” of IMRAD Structure
WILS, chapter 3 “Constructing Convincing Scientific Arguments”; chapter 8 pp. 379-
437; Style, Lesson 7.
Due: Formal Topic Selection Memo
10/8—The Review Article as Rhetorical Document
WILS, chapter 3 “Synthesizing Study Outcomes”, chapter 8 pp.437-452.
10/13—Peer Commentary Class
Due: Reconstructing a Research Article from Data (first draft)
10/15—Authorship and Recognition in Science
Biagioli, “Rights and Rewards? Changing Contexts and Definitions of Scientific
Authorship” (Canvas)
10/20—Conceptual Change in Science as a Linguistic Issue
Thomas S. Kuhn, “What are Scientific Revolutions?” (Canvas)
Peter Galison, “Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief” (Canvas)
Cecarelli, Shaping Science with Rhetoric (excerpts)
Due: Reconstructing a Research Article from Data (final version)
Unit III: Science Popularization: Translating Knowledge for Popular Audiences
10/22—Rhetorical Strategies of Science Popularization, part I: Biomedicine
Stolyberg, “The Biotech Death of Jesse Gelsinger” (BASW)
Altman, “The Man on the Table was 97, But He Devised the Surgery” (BASW);
Slater, “Dr. Daedalus” (BASW)
“Probing a Mind for a Cure” (Canvas)
10/27—Rhetorical Strategies of Science Popularization, part 2: Physics
Muller, PFFP, Chapters 10 & 11
See excerpt from the film “The Day After Trinity” in class
10/29—In-class Writing Assignment: Creating a Popular Science Account.
Unit IV: Translating Technical Knowledge for Grant-Making Agencies & Policy Makers
11/3—Peer Commentary of Review Article
Due: Review Article (first draft)
11/5—Policy Debates about Nuclear Power:
Wynne on Sheep Farming (Canvas);
PBS Newshour Report on New Reactor in Georgia (Canvas);
Muller, PFFP, Chapters 12 & 13
11/10—Writing Grant Proposals (in class activity)
Due: Review Article (final version)
11/12—Energy & Sustainability
Muller, PFFP, Chapters 5-7, 23-25
11/17—Peer Commentary of Case Study
Due: Case Study: From Grant Proposal to Science Popularization (first draft)
11/19—In-Class work on Final Group Project
11/24—2nd Conference between Instructor & Groups about Research Project
Due: Case Study (final version)
11/26—Thanksgiving Break
Oral Presentations of Group Projects (c. 2 group presentations per class)
12/1 —Oral Presentations of Group Projects
12/3 —Oral Presentations of Group Projects
12/8 —Oral Presentations of Group Projects
12/10—Oral Presentations as Needed & Course Evaluations
Due: Final Reflection Paper
Final Paper/Exam: Because this is a writing course, the final group paper will serve as the final examination for the course. As such, it must be submitted (online through Canvas) no later than the end of the examination time scheduled for this course on Testudo. Specifically, this means that the final group paper for section 1101 must be submitted no later than 10 am on Tuesday December 15, 2015, and that the final group paper for section 1301 must be submitted no later than 3:30 pm on Friday December 18, 2015.
General Course Procedures and Policies:
Folders and Record-keeping
At the end of the semester, you must submit a portfolio, which contains all of your (non-online) graded assignments and their revisions. This would include materials such as low-stakes homework assignments and in-class activities that resulted in some form of written submission (for group activities, only one submission per group is necessary). It will be used to supplement your online submissions of major assignments (which will be preserved through the course space in Canvas). Failure to submit this folder at the end of the term will result in a significant lowering of the course participation grade.
Conferences
Two conferences during the semester are required. At the first conference, you will present plans for the final group project. At the second, near the end of the semester, we will discuss your working draft for the final project. You are welcome to make further arrangements to meet with me to discuss your work and your progress. In addition, you are encouraged to meet with fellow students outside class time in face-to-face or virtual environments to plan together.
Use of Electronic Devices
As a “studio” class, there will be in-class activities that require Internet access (e.g., peer review of online submissions). In these instances, the use of electronic devices is expected. For class activities that do not require online access (e.g., class discussion of assigned reading), electronic devices should be put away.