Is a Scientific Writing Course Necessary for Science Majors?

[vgplayer]

For my second writing GenED at Towson University I have to develop a proposal. I am proposing a scientific writing course designed the help science majors with writing journals and researching. The idea is to take this before advance lab classes. Problem is I can't find any data to support how this will help students. I have plenty of syllabi from other schools to design the course but no data.

Any thoughts about this topic?

 

[berkeman]

For my second writing GenED at Towson University I have to develop a proposal. I am proposing a scientific writing course designed the help science majors with writing journals and researching. The idea is to take this before advance lab classes. Problem is I can't find any data to support how this will help students. I have plenty of syllabi from other schools to design the course but no data.

Any thoughts about this topic?

You can't find any data to support the idea that a course in writing journal articles and writing research reports helps students? It sure seems intuitive. Maybe talk to a few professors who write such articles and have student researchers helping them. They may have some ideas that could help you in your proposal.

 

[story645]

Any thoughts about this topic?

Where and at what levels have you been looking? Have you combed through education journals on jstor and looked at high school and elementary ed?

 

[Chunkysalsa]

At my school for gen ed you need College Writing (composition) and Intro to literature. Then you need one additional course. They offer a class called Special Topics in XXXX. It's designed to teach students how to write for a specific field. They have this ST class in business, psychology, and engineering as well as others.

Nothing for science and math majors outside of engineering. I plan on taking the engineering one next fall. The problem is that the professors are your general writing teachers none of them are exactly experienced in writing for engineering or other subjects.

I think its a very good idea. Learn how to write something that will be directly useful for you and your career.

Anyway I just wanted to put in my experiences, you should be able to find some opinions from schools that have similar courses.

 

[vgplayer]

You can't find any data to support the idea that a course in writing journal articles and writing research reports helps students? It sure seems intuitive. Maybe talk to a few professors who write such articles and have student researchers helping them. They may have some ideas that could help you in your proposal.

I know it seems intuitive but I want numeric data that will probably be hard to come by. All the professors I spoke with think it is a great idea.

At my school for gen ed you need College Writing (composition) and Intro to literature. Then you need one additional course. They offer a class called Special Topics in XXXX. It's designed to teach students how to write for a specific field. They have this ST class in business, psychology, and engineering as well as others.

Nothing for science and math majors outside of engineering. I plan on taking the engineering one next fall. The problem is that the professors are your general writing teachers none of them are exactly experienced in writing for engineering or other subjects.

I think its a very good idea. Learn how to write something that will be directly useful for you and your career.

Anyway I just wanted to put in my experiences, you should be able to find some opinions from schools that have similar courses.

Many majors have an advanced writing course that is both a GenEd and a major requirement. Some have several courses designed for their major or courses that are relevant. The framework for this course is already there from some of the other classes already offered for other majors.

 

[sydneyfranke]

The school I'm transferring to complete my ME has an English 2000 course that focuses on writing research papers. You have to have 39 hours before you can take it though. My current school (cheaper c.c. in my area) uses the second english (1002 originally a lit comp) to study various forms of writing such as rhetoric papers. I'm taking that class this summer so I can be done with my english(es?) and it is equivalent to that English 2000 course. Not sure where I am going with this, I guess just to show you what the schools in my area are doing for us Science peeps w/ no communication skills (haha).