NOTE: This is the instructor's course portal for Writing 159A students and visitors. Please use the UCSB link above to access departmental websites and Collaborate Box.

Writing 159: Scientific Literacy

Help

 

The links below can help you with class assignments. Please share! If you find other on-line resources that are useful to you, forward them to me so that I can list them here for everyone else. The overall objective this quarter is to develop science communication skills that accrue to a portfolio of examples. These examples should serve you in at least two ways: 1) as templates for future work in science communications; and, 2) as an interview tool to demonstrate to prospective employers and professional schools that you are capable of successfully communicating complex scientific ideas to diverse audiences.

 

Help links will be developed alongside our in-class work this quarter. Please see the course schedule for dates when specific assignments are to be introduced and turned in.

 

Assignment #0: Set up an electronic portfolio

Assignment #1: Select a STEM subject matter area
Assignment #2: APT-analyze scientific content
Assignment #3: Analytic summary of a peer-reviewed IMRAD article
Assignment #4: Design metaphors, analogies, and a scaling schema
Assignment #5: Communicate a scientific concept to a special-needs learner
Assignment #6: Design and render an infographic
Assignment #7: Design and render a scientific illustration

Assignment #8: Design and render a presentation of quantitative data

Assignment #9: Transcribe or podcast an interview

 

Notes on bibliographies

 

Shareware/Freeware: CAD, computer modeling, SVG, electronic design, etc.

 

Better Posters: A resource for improving poster presentations (Blogspot.com)

 

Reference Links

UCSB Writing Program Online Writing Resources

Automatically generated bibliographies

Journalist's Resource

Madeleine Sorapure's course resource page for text and visual tools: Prof. Sorapure is a colleague in the Writing Program and a master of web design and multimedia. Her website is loaded with useful resources for students.

UC TV

 

Santa Barbara-area Museums and Science Outlets

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, Santa Barbara

MOXI Wolf Museum of Exploration and Innovation

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

Santa Barbara Zoo

UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum

UCSB Library, Dept. of Special Research Collections

UCSB Research Experience and Education Facility (REEF)

Individual Assignments

 

Assignment #0: Set up an electronic portfolio

 

For Writing 159A and 159B you will compile an electronic portfolio to showcase your work. This will be used for a substantial portion of your course grade in both 159A and 159B and, if you choose, you will also be able to use it as a personal recruitment tool for employment or professional schools. Your portfolio may be either public or private (at your discretion) and of your own design; however, it should include at minimum the following elements:

 

If you wish, you may also include previous and/or outside work within your portfolio, but this must be kept on separately indexed pages from your work in Writing 159A and 159B and will not be coutable for credit in either class. Similarly, identify all works and links that are not yours and keep them on separately indexed pages from your work in 159A and 159B. (In short, the home page of your electronic portfolio for Writing 159A and 159B should contain coursework and nothing else.)

 

NOTE: If you choose to set up your electronic portfolio as a private website, you will need to share the visitor password (not the administrator password) with the instructor. Be sure to give your instructor the link to your website.

 

Choosing Your CMS: Free and open-source, or "professional?"

 

The first choice you must make when choosing a course management system is whether you want to use a free, open-source product on a public site, or pay to set up your own private domain and hosting service and/or purchase professional software; the choice is entirely up to you. Most open-source sites are designed with beginners in mind: they are generally simple to use and templates are readily available. This minimizes the amount of work you must do up front, but your design choices may be limited. If you are uncertain which one to select, search the web for reviews and try a few out; remember: they're free.

 

The open-source route

Here are a few popular, open-source course management systems:

 

The "professional" route

As regards building websites, the term "professional" is open to debate, but it usually means you have more control over the hosting, platform choices, and design. Of course, this also means more time and money on your part. Almost always, it means that you will register and manage your own web domain (for example, JohnDoe.com), pay the bills for email and hosting, and keep everything up to date. The learning curve can be very long. To follow this route, you will need to...

 

 

 

 

Assignment #1: Select a STEM subject matter area

 

Assignment #1 is the shortest and easiest—yet arguably the most impactful—assignment you will have in Writing 159A and 159B. For this assignment, you will select a general area of science that you wish to focus on in both courses. This is not to say that you cannot focus assignments on other areas of science, but we would like you to "know your way around" at least one identified area of study until you are comfortable there.

If you have an internship, it will help to select the subject area that is covered by the work you do there; however, this can be broadened. For example, you might select a general area of study such as theoretical physics, structural engineering, or human epidemiology. Or you can pick something more narrowed like green chemistry or hybrid vehicles.

If you have very broad interests in multiple areas, no problem! You can combine interests in two or more disciplines by identifying a common denominator and crafting descriptive language. Use your wordsmithing skills to focus or broaden your selected area of study. If you have any questions or want to discuss a choice, please meet with me as soon as possible so that we can brainstorm some ideas.

 

Task: Use a memo format to indicate the area of science that you wish to focus on in Writing 159A and 159B. Your memo should be concisely written and get straight to the point. Include the following details:

 

Help with the Memo

 

Use a standard memo format, with the word "Memo" or "Memorandum" at the top, "To," "From," "Subject," and "Date" fields, and your signature at the bottom or initialed next to the "From" line. Here are some helpful links for writing business memos:

Memo Writing, by Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Excellent advice on memo writing from one of my all-time favorite websites. This is an excellent place to start when writing business correspondence. It also links back to OWL's home site where you'll find lots of other helpful info.

Business Memos, by The Writing Studio at Colorado State University
This offers nicely indexed, step-by-step guidelines for writing all kinds of memos. Be sure to use the linked contents on the right side of the page.

Indexed links from North Dakota State University
This marvelous index covers not only memos, but all kinds of documents. The links are well selected and up-to-date; feel free to browse.

 

Assignment #2: APT-analyze scientific content

 

In class, we will learn how to analyze APT (audience, purpose, and tone) in content. This analysis applies as much to video, podcasts and museum exhibits as it does to prose text. For this assignment, you will APT-analyze scientific content that you select from any one of the following forms:

 

Task: In a 1–2-page paper, identify the form and content that you are analyzing and describe the scientific content. What is the article or program about? Give the title, author(s) or producer(s), journal, program or museum, date of publication, and page count or runtime. Then, APT-analyze the work (see below). Throughout, feel free to insert short quotes or screen shots as examples.

 

Identify the audience among the following: lay, professional, or expert. Is it some combination of these? What makes you think so? (Provide evidence.) Based upon audience data from the publisher/producer, or using clues you find from advertisements, estimate the education level, approximate yearly income, and age of the average reader or viewer/listener audience. Provide any other demographic info or clues (e.g., geographic location, race, gender, etc.) you can find to describe the "average" audience.

 

Describe the purpose of the content. Is it to inform and educate? Entertain? Warn? Persuade? Some combination of these? Why do you think so? What is the context of the content and what does that suggest about the intentions of the author(s) or producer(s)? What kinds of word choices and graphics are employed to realize the intended purpose? Do you believe the purpose(s) of the content has been realized?

 

Describe the tone of the content. Serious? Scholarly and objective? Humorous? Sarcastic? Mocking? Angry? Playful? Does tone alter to match certain kinds of content within the work? What is the emotional timeline of the work? Does it start off playful, then become serious and alarming? Why do think the author(s) or producer(s) selected the tone(s) they did, and how does tone connect the reader/audience with the content? Would a different tone have worked better for the intended purpose or audience? If you are analyzing a television or radio program, what sorts of audio effects and music (if any) are employed to enhance tone?

 

Links to help you think about audience

 

"Challenges of Bringing Science to the Public," Neil deGrasse Tyson, Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year 2015

DESCRIPTION: Popular science writer and television host Tyson divides science audiences into three kinds: "Those Who Know that They Like Science," "Those Who Do Not Know that They Like Science," and "Those Who Know that They Do Not Like Science."

 

Gunning Fog Index: We will use this metric in class to guesstimate educational level and age requirements for text passages. Although it offers at best a crude index of readability, the Gunning Fog Index can help us think about two very important features of effective prose: 1) complexity and familiarity of words used; and, 2) the length of sentences and how we (as writers) task our readers with holding two or more concepts in mind simultaneously. The best science communicators are aware of both as they craft prose for target audiences.

 

SMOG Index: Yet another readability index, very similar to the Gunning Fog index above.

 

Assignment #3: Analytic summary of a peer-reviewed IMRAD article

 

IMRAD (introduction, methods, results, and discussion) science journal articles form the bedrock of all peer-reviewed science publication and have been the 'standard' of research reporting for at least a half century. A similar variant is the IRDAM format, which positions results before discussion and methods—some journals and readers prefer it because it "cuts to the chase" and saves reading time.

 

Science communication professionals must be accustomed to scanning and reading the research literature. Because the spectrum of literature varies from the wildly speculative to the scientifically rigorous, science communicators must be able to quickly evaluate an article. Are the experiments used during research well designed? Have the investigators reached logical conclusions based upon the data, or have they overstepped the data and forced their own conclusions? What kinds of statistical analysis were employed during the research? Were biases and errors avoided? This assignment will give you practice at reading and analyzing an IMRAD article.
 
Tasks
Select an article from a professionally reputable and peer-refereed journal. Some typical examples might include:
 

Read and analyze your selected IMRAD (or, of you prefer, IRDAM) article, noting its content and organization. Notice that each article also contains a title and author(s). Many articles also employ keywords to aid in library and browser searches.

Using separate paragraphs, identify and summarize each of the underlined components above in the order they occur. Use subheadings (e.g., “Introduction,” “Methods,” “Interpretation,” “Conclusion,” etc.) for each paragraph. [To identify the article and author(s), you can merely list the title, author(s) and keywords.] Each paragraph should identify what was contained in that section of the article. For statistical data, it is not necessary to list all the data separately; merely identify and summarize the trends and correlates.

 

Finish your assignment with a 2–3 page section entitled “Article Analysis.” Select any seven of the twenty-three questions below to lead your analysis. Write the question in italics, and provide your analysis in normal type. Here are the questions:

 

 

Due Date: See schedule on course website.

 

 

Assignment #4: Design metaphors, analogies, and scaling schemata

 

Two of the most valuable tools that science communicators reach for are metaphors and analogies—indeed, these are invaluable for any sort of technical communication. As a science communicator trying to reach out to lay audiences, and even experts, metaphors and analogies will help you bridge gulfs in understanding that may otherwise be unbridgable.

 

What is the difference between a metaphor and an analogy?

The American psychologist Jullian Jaynes offers one helpful way to understand metaphors in terms of a metaphier (things we already know) and a metaphrand (things new to us). The metaphor uses language to map elements of what we know (the metaphier) to what we do not know (the metaphrand) in order to broaden understanding; however, it is not as literal as an analogy (see below). Thus, for example, one may say "as electrical current is increased, the circuit applies increasing pressure to the resistor." The metaphor of using water pressure to describe electrical current makes subtle use of a metaphier we all know and understand (e.g., the water pressure we feel from a garden hose) to a metaphrand that is new to us (electrical current).

Analogies present more literal comparisons between things we know and things that are new to us. In the case of similes, we use words such as "like" and "as" to make comparisons even more obvious. Thus, to continue from the example above, we might say "the battery works like a pump to move electrons around the circuit; bigger batteries pump electrons at higher pressures."

 

What are the limitations of analogies and metaphors?

The problem with metaphors and analogies is that, almost always, something is "lost in translation." For example, with respect to using water flow to understand electrical circuits, the dynamics of water plumbing—while adequate for a rudimentary understanding of current and voltage—begins to break down when attempting to explain such electrical phenomena as electromagnetic radiation. At this point, the science communicator must either switch to new and better metaphors and analogies to explain electromagnetic radiation, or try another approach such as a visual model or mathematics. The choice of when and how to apply metaphors and analogies to explanations of science are part of the craft of science communication and hinges at least partly upon how thoroughly the communicator understands the science. When in doubt, it is highly advisable to first run any metaphor or analogy by experts to see whether, and how closely, it applies.

 

Part A of Assignment #4

Develop at least two (2) metaphors and two analogies to explain a scientific concept to a lay audience. You are encouraged to challenge yourself by selecting a scientific concept that is not readily accessible to most audiences. For this exercise, rely primarily upon language to communicate, rather than a visual illustration. (We will consider visual metaphors and analogies in Assignments #6 and 7.) Before submitting your metaphors and analogies, run them by experts to ensure that essential concepts are not "lost in translation."

 

 

What is a scaling schema?

A scaling schema is used to give audiences an appreciaton for the scale of a scientific concept or phenomenon; this may include size, age, mass, velocity, etc. A scaling schema is particularly useful when navigating scales that far exceed the normal range of everyday human experience.

 

Three scaling examples

Joshua Sneideman, "Four ways to understand the Earth's age," TED-Ed, Ted.com

This short video, designed for middle and secondary school students, explains the Earth's age with four metaphors: a wall calendar, pages of a book, body metrics, and a person's development from birthday to high school.

 

"Atomic structure analogies: Analogies for Avagadro's Number," ScienceAnalogies.com

This web page features no fewer than eleven analogies for understanding the atom, including a scaling schema for Avagadro's Number, a commonly used term in chemistry.

 

Jon Martindale, "How fast is the speed of light really?," 20 Feb. 2015, KitGuru.com

What if you were the Silver Surfer and surfed at the speed of light from the sun outward? How long would it take you to reach the edge of our solar system? This site helps readers better appreciate the speed of light.

 

 

Part B of Assignment #4

Develop two (2) scaling schemata to give audiences an enhanced appreciation for non-human scales; each schema should treat a different metric: time, size, mass, etc. Again, these should rely on language rather than visuals. (It will help to imagine that you are writing a podcast script, where audiences can only hear you.)

 

 

 

Assignment #5: Communicate a scientific concept to a special-needs learner

 

A working definition of "special-needs learner" should first acknowledge that everyone uses multi-modalities to learn about the world, and that each of us 'needs' different things to learn. This is not to trivalize diagnosed learning disorders or physical disabilities that inhibit learning. But—as we shall see—it is helpful at the outset to think of "special needs" in inclusive, rather than exclusive, terms.

Some of us are more visual than others, or more verbal/aural, or more tactile. For example, if I want to communicate the scientific concept that all masses fall at the same rate regardless of how heavy they are, I can communicate this visually by dropping a feather and a golf ball side-by-side inside a vacuum chamber. Or I could communicate the concept via words, diagrams, and equations. Or I could send you to a skydiving school where you might perform a skydiving freefall alongside a much heavier mannequin. In each case, success at communicating the concept depends upon an individual's learning strengths and weaknesses.

 

Learners with special needs—which may or may not coincide with diagnosed, mental or physical disabilities—demand special attention from science communicators. First, it will be necessary to consider whether the learner has a sensory or physical limitation, whether s/he has difficulties processing information in specific ways, limited attention span, etc. In short, you must make a study of your learner(s) and think about how you will circumvent the limitation. This might include, for example, using multi-modalities, increasing the intensity of the learning experience, repetition, incorporating games, physically engaging the learner, or using extra praise and rewards. Safety can also be a concern for some special needs learners.

 

Assignment #5

For this assignment you will identify a type of special-needs learner, including his/her specific limitations, then design a strategy for communicating a scientific concept. Your strategy should include how learners will access the materials or exhibit you design, how s/he will intereact with them, safety concerns, and a way to measure learning outcomes.

 

Here are a few summarized examples to get you thinking:

 

Limitation
/disability		 Scientific
concept		 Learning
strategy		 Method
Blindness Aerodynamic lift Museum exhibit: high-speed fan and "wing gloves" Learner wears a glove in the shape of a wing while holding it in front of a large fan to feel lift, attack angle changes, etc. against wind
Attention Deficit Disorder Frequency-wavelength relationships Benchtop experiment: audio synthesizer Learner uses modular electronics to construct a simple synthesizer and make audio tones while watching results with an oscilloscope
Deafness Doppler effect Learning aid: accelerometer-modulated buzzer Learner feels device vibrate faster in one direction, and slower in the opposite direction

 

Notice that these examples can also be used by mainstream learners, and some may be usable by other types of special-needs learners. (This is sort of the whole point of this assignment: to help you consider all learners' limitations, and to think of how improvements in one kind of learning often benefits everyone.)

 

Tasks

Divide your assignment into four parts:


Learning disability / limitation (1–2 paragraphs): Identify the disability or limitation that you are addressing. What is the official description of its symptoms (from a medical source), and how does the identified disability/limitation impose special learning needs?

 

Scientific concept (1–2 paragraphs): Describe the scientific concept that you wish to communicate to your special-needs learner. How do the learner's disabilities challenge communication of the concept using mainstream approaches?

 

Learning strategy and method (3–4 paragraphs): How will you overcome the learner's limitations to communicate the scientific concept? Will you use a hands-on, interactive strategy? Incorporate games? Devise a special learning aid? A special kind of museum exhibit? Assume that you are providing a short description of your strategy for a teacher to use. Describe your strategy for learning and how it works. Briefly explain why your strategy works for this particular type of learning limitation. Are there any safety concerns when using your strategy? How will you measure learning outcomes?

 

Reflection (1–2 paragraphs): Reflect upon how your study of a special-needs learner helped you think of new ways to reach all types of learners.

 

If you wish, you may include drawings with Assignment #5.

 

 

 

Assignment #6: Design and render an infographic

 

Infographics convey graphic, qualitative, and quantitative information. For example:

 

"The 60 Best Infographics," CreativeBloq.com (2018 JAN 10)

 

"Best Infographics," best-infographics.com (2018)

 

"The 90 Best Infographics," InfoBloq.com (2015 AUG 24)

 

"13 of the Year's Best Infographics," Wired (2013 OCT 13)

 

For this assignment, you will design and render an infographic to convey a key scientific concept. You should design it for a specific target audience and, prior to submitting it to your online portfolio, try it on a few test subjects or classmates to obtain feedback.

 

Assignment #7: Design and render a scientific illustration

 

One of the distinguishing hallmarks of technical and scientific writing is heavy
reliance upon graphical information. To become a competent writer in the
technical and scientific fields means to be adept at both prose text and graphical
forms. These forms include:

• Line art
• Tone art
• Schematics and assembly drawings
• Cutaways, sectioned views, and phantoms
• Flow charts and block diagrams
• Wiring and plumbing diagrams
• Cartoons and storyboards
• CAD and/or FEA graphics (e.g., SolidWorks and AutoCad), and computer
graphics (e.g., Adobe PhotoShop, Illustrator, and Autodesk Maya)

Although you may not master all of these, you should be able to distinguish them
and know how and where to apply them within documents. We will treat numeric
organizers (e.g., charts, graphics, plots, and tables) separately in Assignment #8.
For Assignment #7, you will design and draft an original graphic that explains one or more scientific concepts. Your rendering can be on a traditional hard medium (e.g., paper) or done digitally and saved as a graphics file. If you use hard media for your draft, use either blank, white paper or a quadrille pad.

 

Our readings and viewings for Week #4 give a few examples of illustrations in science communication. Other examples are presented in class. Here are the reading/viewing links again:

 

Sustainable Science Communication Conference, UCSB, May 13–14, 2015

 

 

Assignment #8: Design and render a presentation of quantitative data

 

Quantitative data can be presented in multiple forms: as simple in-text content, or in more organized forms as tables, charts, graphs, and plots. Additionally, quantitative data can be merged with graphics to yield various types of infographics. For this assignment, you will start with one or more data sources, then design and render a representation of that data in sme other form. Your representation should be designed for a specific target audience, but can be in any form. You are invited to challenge yourself with something beyond the simple chart or graph, perhaps by building in an additional data comparison, adding an extra dimension, or using a more artistic expression of numbers.

 

You can turn in Assignment #8 in hardcopy form or upload it to your online portfolio.

 

Sources

Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, (1983). This is perhaps the best-known book written about quantitative information and remains a true classic packed with examples. You can visit Edward Tufte's website here, which contains a few thumbnail examples from his books. The UCSB Library has copies of this and other books by Edward Tufte for you to check out.

 

USC Libraries Research Guide, "Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Quantitative Methods." This online resource is designed for researchers in the social sciences but provides useful advice for anyone working with data. See especially the "Things to keep in mind..." checklist.

 

Jean Luc Dumont, "Communicating Science to Nonscientists," YouTube. Jean Luc Dumont is a semi-regular visitor to UCSB and his lectures have been seen by perhaps hundreds of UCSB faculty and students. Although this YouTube video is not entirely focused on quantitative data, his advice here is helpful for thinking about lay audiences who are trying to digest technical information; several of his other videos are readily available at YouTube as well.

 

Assignment #9: Transcribe or podcast an interview

 

Interviews are a specialized form of writing that allow us to examine people as
well as their disciplines. Why does this matter? Because people frequently tell us
things about a discipline that we cannot learn any other way: How discoveries
are made. What the measures of success are. The most important influences.
Where the research is headed. How one discipline affects others. Interviews can
tell us this and more. The secret to obtaining a successful interview is to motivate
your subject to play an active role, rather than merely answer your questions.
Ideally, s/he should volunteer to tell you more than you ask—perhaps even
interview you sometimes.

 

Assignment #9 will require you to interview someone in a STEM field and record it for either a podcast or transcription. This can include, for example, professors, graduate students,or industry experts. At the heart of your study will be the interview itself, which will necessitate a sit-down conversation with your subject. Schedule ahead and allow at least thirty minutes. Be certain to write everything down as you interview your subject, and make a careful list of your questions ahead of time. With interviews, preparation is all important. If you are recording an interview, use a sound recording device, but be sure to obtain your subject's permission first. It will help to hold the interview in a quiet place devoid of distractions and excess noise.

 

Option #1: Transcribed interview

Interview your subject while taking notes as you go. For transcribed interviews, start with a brief opening paragraph to introduce your subject, then use a Q&A format, identifying both yourself and the subject. For example:

 

Student Smith: Where did you go to college?


Scientist Brown: I went to UCSB, then did my PhD at Stanford.

 

Be sure to double-space your transcript.

 

Option #2: Recorded podcast

For podcast interviews, the quality of the recording will matter to your audience: try to record in a quiet location, away from distractions and noise. Place the recorder between you and your subject so that both of you are clearly audible. For editing your podcast, excellent results are obtainable using Audacity software. You may download free copies of the software for your computer; the program is intuitive and easy to learn.

 

Checklist for Interviews (transcripts and podcasts)


• Include a brief summary of the subject's background and profession. What
is his/her field of study? Where does s/he work? For how long? Where did s/he
go to school and train? Which academic degrees has s/he earned? Which professional organizations does s/he belong to?

• Describe your subject's contributions to his/her field. How and where does
their work fit into the whole discipline? Do they play a leadership or a support role? Both?

• What kinds of changes has your subject seen in his/her field? Do they anticipate any specific changes in their field's near-term future? How do they intend to respond to these changes?

• What influences have been paramount in your subject's professional development? Did they have mentors? Role models from history? Who do they consider to be the most important contributors to their field today? Why? Does your subject play a mentoring role to others?

• Ask your subject any question that helps to explain who they are and what
they do. Remember to thank them!


Notes on bibliographies

 

As a start on building a bibliography, I recommend the Council of Science Editors (CSE—formerly the Council of Biology Editors--CBE) website.

 

For bibliographies of medical sources, see the link to the National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation for specific examples.

 

 

 

Shareware/Freeware: CAD, computer modeling, SVG, electronic design, etc.

The links below access free CAD (computer aided design) shareware that you may find useful for generating drawings of your scientific ideas, computer modeling, and finite element analysis (FEA). Please note that all of these require time to learn.

Google Sketch-up: Proprietary freeware computer modeling (Windows, OS X)

Inkscape: SVG-type graphics (Windows, OS X)

Z88: FEA package for Windows, OS X, and Linux

gEDA: electronic design automation (EDA) tool

 

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