Tag: research

Writing in the Sciences: Some Resources

When a subject intimidates a student, the student may rely on sources to say ideas for them (the block quote!), or rely on jargon in order to “conform” to the expectations of the subject, or even neglect to explain abstract ideas using concrete examples. Think of our discussions early n the semester like “what is science?”; how could we have discussed the abstract idea of “science” without the writings (serving as concrete examples) provided by Prof. Wilson?

Therefore, this page builds on the concepts and resources found on the Annotated Bibliography Resources page by focusing specifically on writing in the sciences. While writing an annotated bibliography ultimately depends on your ability to read and understand a source, writing in the sciences generally cleaves to the same principles of good writing in general. I believe in the relationship between being a strong reader and being a strong writer; most importantly, these skills can be improved upon no matter the age of the person or the phase of your education or career.

How to use this page

This page is not a “guide to writing for the sciences.” it is a carefully chosen set of sources aimed towards writing in the sciences. Because good writing “shows” rather than “tells,” I’ve embedded PDFs into these pages rather than summarize the sources for you; moreover, I encourage you to determine whether or not these sources will help you and if so, whether or not to find them yourself.

After looking over these sources (and the ones at the Annotated Bibliography page – there is some overlap), a very productive activity for students is to make an appointment with me during office hours and bring examples or a source that you’re reading or something that you’re writing. Together, we can discuss some of the concepts or suggestions from the sources below, or I can guide you through the activities suggested in any of the sources from this page or the Annotated Bibliography Resources page. Because of my lack of famliarity with the methods of scientific research or conventions of the discipline, I’m hesitant to edit or “look over” any work to offer constructive feedback. Working together on how to read a source or coaching you through an exercise would be more useful for both of us – I inevitably learn from students and studetns become empowered as self-learners.

Videos

  • Kristin Sainani’s online course “Writing in the Sciences” contains over 50 videos dedicated to writing in the sciences: Website | Youtube

Joshua Schimel, Writing Science

Embedded below are two PDFs with excerpts from Joshua Schimel’s book, Writing Science. The first PDF includes exercises that you can apply to your own writing and the second PDF contains his personal recommendations for writing resources. I personally can vouch for his recommendation of Style: Towards Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams, which is applicable to any discipline and, with practice, will improve your writing no matter if a cover letter, informal email, or a formal academic paper.

[gview file=”http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wilson2016/files/2016/10/Schimel-J_Writing-in-Science_Ch-2-exercises.pdf”]

[gview file=”http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wilson2016/files/2016/10/Schimel-J_Appendix-B-Writing-Resources.pdf”]

 

Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

Prof. Helen Sword at the University of Auckland wrote Stylish Academic Writing with the intention to give scholars tips on how to improve their writing rather than focus on why so much academic writing is … well, bad. In her introduction, she explains the various parts of her process: first, she surveyed seventy colleagues about the writers in their field who they considered “stylish.” In her second phase, she analyzed books and articles by more than 100 authors recommended to her by colleagues. Her third stage included assembling data:

I assembled a data set of one thousand academic articles from across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities; one hundred articles each from international journals in the fields of medicine, evolutionary biology, computer science, higher education, psychology, anthropology, law, philosophy, history and literary studies … I used them not only to locate real-life examples of both engaging and appalling academic prose but also to drill down into specific questions about style and the status quo. For example, how many articles in each discipline contain personal pronouns (I or we)? (Sword, Stylish Academic Writing, 9)

 

The usefulness of Sword’s explanation of method and the above quote is two-fold: first, it explains her research process; second, I like the way she explains the relationship between her data and the results – namely, the tips, exercises, recommendations, and examples – for scholars to learn how to improve. In other words, Sword’s introduction performs precisely what you’re being asked to do in Science Forward: begin with a tentative research topic, gather original data, and then use the data to provide insight into her original topic.

Her chapter about her method, “On Being Disciplined” demonstrates how her data upended or confirmed her original hypothesis, academic writing is shaped by convention rather than the discipline itself (Sword 20). As an evolutionary biologist, Prof. Wilson might be interested in this part of the chapter:

 

For example, I had anticipated that the science journals in my sample would all be highly prescriptive tolerating very little variance in structure, titling, or other points of style. This expectation proved true for medicine, a field in which researchers tend to work in large teams publish their findings in a standardized template. In evolutionary biology and computer science, however, I found considerable more expressive diversity. Ten percent of the evolutionary biologists in y sample opted for a unique or hybrid structure in a field where the standard Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD) structure predominates … at least eleven percent of of the evolutionary biologists include one “engaging” element in their titles, such as a quote, a pun, or a question (Sword 18).

 

Her book includes “Spotlight” pages that highlight the accomplishments and writing of scholars in various fields in order to dispel the myth that there’s a mutually exclusionary relationship between being an engaging writer and being a strong scholar. Below is her spotlight on the physicist Nathaniel David Mermin:

[gview file=”http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wilson2016/files/2016/10/Sword-Helen_Spotlight.pdf”]

Seminar 2: Resources (Spring 2016)

This page contains resources created for the Seminar 2 taught by Prof. Karen Williams (Brooklyn College, Spring 2016):the PowerPoint (as embedded PDF file) used for a presentation about eportfolios and WordPress and then a compilation of digital/online resources that students could use for their research projects. All students were required to conduct an ethnographic study of a New York City neighborhood that would be presented as an eportfolio and archived at the Seminar 2 Encyclopedia. I’m very proud of the two groups from this class whose eportfolios about Brighton Beach and Downtown Brooklyn were chosen as “Featured Sites” for the Spring 2016 semester.

Seminar 2: Tech Day – Intro to WordPress

After soliciting student feedback about what they wanted to learn, I created a presentation that focused on the basics of eportfolios and introduction to WordPress in preparation for their own research eportfolios.

[gview file=”https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5381/2016/02/16101158/Sem2_tech-day_24Feb2016.pdf”]

Seminar 2 Projects & WordPress Help

  • Seminar 2 Encyclopedia This site showcases work done by MHC scholars in their second honors seminar, The Peopling of New York City. The project gives our students an important opportunity to conceptualize their material in unique and creative ways. Moreover, with the city as their classroom, the project allows them to present their work to an audience outside the school’s doors. Come see New York through their eyes.
  • Eportfolios@Macaulay: Eportfolio or blog? – This page contains helpful information such as the function of an eportfolio, adding a post, and adding images and other media to your posts.
  • WordPress Support – Get practical advice and tips for your questions about using the Eportfolio/WordPress system
  • WPMadeSimple.org – Just like the site title says.

General Research and Citation

Mapping, Data, and Making Your Posts Look Awesome

  • How to create a map and add it to your post
  • Maps Marker Tutorial – “Maps Marker is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create a map with marked points of interest. You’ll see a menu item called Maps Marker on the left-hand side of the Dashboard. If you hover over or click this item, you’ll see the full submenu for Maps Marker.”

Online Tools for Collaboration, Creative Storytelling and Data Organization

  • Twine – “Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.”
  • RealTimeBoard | Video Introduction – “An endless digital whiteboard for teams to collaborate on projects.” Note: email Alexis for free access to RealTimeBoard
  • Dipity -“Dipity allows users to create free timelines online.”

 

Two articles from The Atlantic about communicating research to the general public

Given the recent posts about mainstream media as the conduit between scientific research and the general public, I thought these two articles might be of interest to our class. “The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing” by Victoria Clayton adds another layer to the class discussions about science literacy among the general public: not only is there a lack of understanding of scientific vocabulary or certain topics but how academics (and not just scientists!) write about their work adds to the barriers to the publics’ understanding of research. The second article, “Where Science Meets Magic” by Julie Beck, contains an interview with science journalist Matt Kaplan about his book published this week, Science of the Magical: From the Holy Grail to Love Potions to Super Powers.

These two articles address two central issues explored in Science Forward: how does the general public get access to scientific research? What are some of the barriers to their understanding of scientific research? 

Clayton’s article describes the problem of “needlessly complex writing” in academia that has “become something of a protected tradition.” She quotes several academics and discusses various initiatives intended to rectify this problem. One particularly interesting issue that her article raises is the conflict between open-access resources and academics’ language – while the former grants public access to the materials (usually behind paywalls) it is researchers’ language acting as as a linguistic paywall that prevents people from understanding their work:

“Some research funders, such as National Institutes of Health and The Wellcome Trust, have mandated in recent years that studies they finance be published in open-access journals, but they’ve given little attention to ensuring those studies include accessible writing. “NIH has no policies for grantees that dictate the style of writing they use in their research publications,” a spokesperson told me in an emailed statement. “We do advise applicants about the importance of using plain language in sections of the application that, if funded, will become public on theRePORT website.”

So even if the general public has access to the latest research, how can they understand it? Is it the job of the NIH to edit submissions for more accessible language or should that be the responsibility of the researchers? 

In the interview with Matt Kaplan about his book, Julie Beck highlights his source for quotes, The Lord of the Rings rather than scientists. Kaplan’s choice serves as a rhetorical framing device for the book’s overall argument: science and magic aren’t so far apart. While Kaplan’s book seems to be more about science history than scientific research, his approach seems like an effective means to increase the general public’s interest in scientific research. Here is an excerpt from their interview:

Beck: A number of the different things that you talk about in the book I kind of thought about as “close but no cigar,” where people kind of got the effects of something right, but got the causes wrong. Like with the Egyptians’ eyeliner, which they thought had healing powers bestowed by the god Horus, and it turned out it was helping activate their immune system, but they didn’t know why. In that way, can magic kind of be a step towards scientific understanding?

….

Another example of what I was thinking about from the book is how in the 13th century, people knew that breathing in the breath of a sick person would make you sick, and so then there were the old men who were like, “Let me just breathe the breath of young girls and it’ll make me young again.” It’s a step, but just the wrong step.

Kaplan: That’s the problem with magic, because when you use mythology and magic to explain the inexplicable, you end up in situations where you do things like that.

Beck: Right, that surprises me zero percent.

Kaplan: And to some extent you do have these things giving birth to science. I think a lot of the fascination with the philosopher’s stone, this stone of immortality, and seeking to find it and distilling it from different compounds, in many ways gave birth to what eventually became chemistry.

Do books like Kaplan’s serve as an important “middle step,” translating scientific research into more accessible language for the general public? If so, would a book like Kaplan’s be more likely to stimulate interest in the history of science rather than scientific disciplines like geology, biology, and chemistry?