Communicating scientific information calls for a keen awareness of audience expectations. Writing in the Sciences intends to prepare students interested in science to write in a variety of professional disciplines. Students in this course will write in at least two forms of science communication, an academic article, and an independently-designed public-facing communication project, in order to build skill identifying and targeting a specific audience. Class discussions will focus on the structure of these forms and their intentions as well as elements of scientific style on the sentence level. Students will practice writing and revising in these two situations, as well as deliver a brief oral presentation at the end of the term.

The course will also help students to strengthen their research skills in scientific disciplines by finding, reading, and interpreting quantitative scholarly information. Students will gain experience working collaboratively through structured peer review.

Course Requirements:

• Regular attendance and participation
• Peer editing and conferencing on assignment drafts
• One-on-one conferences with the course instructor
• Research paper on a topic of scientific interest
• Public-facing science communication project
• Oral presentation

Graduate students will be required to complete one additional substantial writing assignment.</P

Intended Audience:

Upper-class undergraduate science majors, graduate students, and other students interested in science who want to improve their research skills as well as their skill and versatility as writers.

Class Format:

Instruction Mode: This class consists of written student work, classroom meetings, and instructor feedback meetings. Classroom meetings will be a mixture of workshops, instructor lecture + discussion, and peer feedback sessions.

Learning Mode: Class materials and assignments will be disseminated and submitted through Canvas. Other multimedia tools may be necessary as the student designs an independent project in the second half of the term.

Course Testing/Assessment: Written papers with feedback sessions will be the main mode of testing and assessment.