You will gain a foundation for college-level writing valuable for nearly any field. Students will learn how to read carefully, write effective arguments, understand the writing process, engage with others' ideas, cite accurately, and craft powerful prose. Course Learning Objectives • Summarize, analyze, question, and evaluate written and visual texts • Argue and support a position • Recognize audience and disciplinary expectations • Identify and use the stages of the writing process • Identify characteristics of effective prose • Apply proper citation practices • Discuss applying your writing knowledge to other writing occasions
Spotlight on the Natural Sciences: Public Writing
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來自 Duke University 的課程
English Composition I
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從本節課中
Writing in the Humanities, Social Science, and Natural Sciences
Additional videos that highlight differences in academic writing across disciplines.
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Dr. Denise ComerAssistant Professor of the Practice; Director of First-Year Writing
Thompson Writing Program
Hello. Today we're going to talk about something
that I am really excited about. I teach about this a lot in my own
classes and I think it's incredibly important for scientists to think about.
We're going to, talk about what it's like to write as a scientist for the public -
for audiences other than our, our technically-trained colleagues.
There are three categories of science communication and a lot of overlap
between them. for the most part science communication
involves translating research to other audiences, to broader audiences.
The real challenge for scientists is that we have to deal with uncertainty.
Darn. [LAUGH] That is a very tricky thing, to
learn how to communicate well, and I think a lot of us could, could think
about the way that global climate change for example, is communicated.
That's a, a shining example of how hard it is to communicate uncertainty Some
scientists are involved policy advocacy here at Duke and the school that I am
part of, the Nicholas School of Environment.
We regularly have faculty testify before Congress, again translating their
research in the service of a policy or advocating a particular policy.
And finally, many scientists are involved in education efforts.
And that can sometimes mean educating our own classes of students but often the
general public as well. So I want to talk about Op/Eds first as
one technique that sometimes scientists use to translate their work for the
public, I teach Op/Eds in my class and you will be doing Op/Eds in this class
Because it's a great practice. It's a great training for very concisely
and propellingly discussing one point, making one argument in only 750 words or
less. and, there's a real difference, it's
really important to understand this and I'm sure we will, we will cover this
elsewhere too. Op-eds are not letters to the editor,
they're not rants. Instead they are educated opinions, using
your expertise as a scientist, to, to make this argument, and that expertise
that you have is actually part of your evidence.
Interestingly, we don't use a whole lot of citations in Op/Eds, instead, but we
can discuss studies by providing some type of citation information in the
actual text. And there's some great examples of this,
that I'm sure we'll be looking at. At Duke we have lots of faculty Writing
op/eds almost everyday it seems and they are all gathered on a website here,
called Duke Today. And this is a really, if you have time I
would go look at it because you can see people from all different disciplines,
not just the scientist writing Op/Eds in major newspapers and local newspapers.
This is one key way scientists translate their work for the public.
Another way, perhaps a more fun way, is through science blogging, and I don't
know if it's just me, but it seems like almost every scientist I know has a blog
or contributes to a blog. These are less formal, not, often not
peer reviewed, like many of our other writing, although the comment section
sometimes does serve as a, as a peer review mechanism, but the goal of a blog
could be education. It could be promotion of your own work
and ideas, or could be in the service of advocacy.
So we use blogs, of course, in lots of different ways.
[SOUND] what this has resulted in is a very crowded, science blogosphere.
And so there are these meta-blogs, and the natureblognetwork is a great example
of this. It sort of collects all sorts of
information about blogs. Ranks blogs and gives you a sense if
you're interested in a particular issue the top few blogs that you may want to
look at. So, a very crowded space, but an exciting
opportunity for scientists to to sort of practice the the translation of their
research and their ideas for for their audiences, broader audiences.
There are two blogs at the Nicholas School that showcase this translation
very well. The Dean of our school, Bill Chameides
has a blog, the Green Groc, where he talks about current science and current
policy and gives his two cents. there's also a blog, that is That has
been created by some Ph.D. students who are now teaching in social
media called Southern Fried Science and I get a kick out of the title.
Content's pretty fancy too. There are other places that we do
research translation and we are seeing some really innovative collection of that
translation happening. The Yale 360 dot site, I think it’s a
great example of this, it’s a place where scientists can write about their work,
they can write about other people’s work and they can also comment and reflect on
policy or other sorts of issues related to, to their science.
So these sort of communities that are, that are being created online for
scientists and others to come together to, to discuss their work are very
exciting places, places to visit. I have some resources here.
I wanted to give you the websites of the blogs that I had mentioned.
I also wanted to give you a link to my own class blog.
I just had a class take a trip to Hawaii, and the students blogged from there about
their experiences as restoration ecologists.
And I this is a really great exercise. It was a translation of science to, to,
for the public. So if you want to Read my students work
you can check it out there. To find op-eds all you need to do is pick
up a major news paper or scroll through a major newspapers website to finds op-eds
and the Duke Today website if you want to see what our faculty is publishing is a
good source of that. Finally, I just wanted to mention that
scientists are almost always asked to translate their work and it might be in
front of Congress, but it's also possible you will be doing at a community meeting
or a cocktail party and, and the skill of doing that both through your speaking and
through your writing is one that I am still working on and probably will be
working on, my whole career. Thanks.
Enjoy your day.
