Composing Science

The course Scientific Inquiry at California State University was developed by faculty in biology, physics and English to meet ``writing proficiency'' requirements for non-science majors. Drawing from previous work in composition studies, the position that we take in this course is that we should be engaging students in writing that replicates the work that writing does in science, rather than replicating the particular structural conventions characteristic of scientific writing. That is, scientists use writing to have, remember, share, vet, challenge, and stabilize ideas, and our course requires students use writing to achieve those aims, rather than produce writing that obeys particular conventions of scientific writing. This talk will describe how we have integrated findings from composition studies with a course on scientific inquiry, and provide examples of how scientific communication has resulted from this dialogue.