ENGL 485: Writing About Science, Fall 2018

Course Information

Course

Number: ENGL 485
Title: Writing About Science
Term: Fall 2018

Course Description

This independent study will answer the question “How do we write about science?”

Assignments

Assignment Values

Assignment	Due Date	Value
Weekly Discussion Prompts	Weekly	10%
Science Reporting Project	10/10	20%
Data Narrative	11/07	30%
Data Visualization Project	12/05	40%

Assignment Descriptions

Weekly Discussion Prompts

Students are responsible for bringing at least one question, topic, quote, or other idea to use in initiating the conversation each week.

Science Reporting Project

Translate a recent scientific paper into a popular format (newspaper, blog, video, etc) that careful explains the work, situates it within the context of the scientific conversation, and even-handedly speculates on the possible implications of the research and discoveries.

Data Narrative

Find a data set (possibly from Data.gov). Use that data set to tell a story about a place, group of people, or other phenomenon.

Possible examples:

Use demographics data to tell the story of a neighborhood’s gentrification
Use historic rainfall data to track changing climate patterns in the American Southwest

Additionally, produce a short response paper detailing the limits of the data and how you navigated around them or worked with them to further tell your story.

Data Visualization Project

Using one of the tools we have discussed, build a data visualization to accompany your narrative from the previous assignment.

Other Ideas

From this syllabus:

Scientific Poster
Message Box
Press Release
Elevator Speech
3-Minute Thesis Competition Script
Audio/Visual Media project (Final Presentation)
One Additional Communication Project – Possible options: “letter to the editor,” op-ed for an organization’s newsletter (conservation group, botanical garden, aquarium, zoo, etc.), teaching & learning activity, blog post, public lecture