Communicating Science

Science communication is multi-dimensional, encompassing both communication within science for scientists, and between science and external audiences like ‘the public’. There are even genre-specific norms for communicating within different types of science, and there are of course many publics, which often require different communication approaches due to different audience needs and expectations. While these diverse forms of science communication each have some specific demands, and strategies for achieving them, they also hold some elements in common with other forms of argumentation, creative writing and visual communication. In this course, we explore these multiple genres of science communication, and learn some of their specific expectations and conventions. Simultaneously, we practice some of the common techniques used across many genres of communication that help us achieve fluid and logical discourse. As we experiment with different forms of written, oral and visual communication within different modes of science communication, students expand their genre analysis skills, rhetorical awareness, and communication practices. This course is suitable for students who are interested in the professional practice of science, including the practical and philosophical communication obligations of scientists. It is designed for students with a serious interest in developing their professional science skills for communicating their research within science, and for communicating science to a more general audience. Specifically, students can expect to develop an understanding of the genre-specific protocols for writing a scientific paper based on lab or field data, including practice in researching and writing the literature review component and abstract. They will also practice and apply visual and oral communication skills by constructing and presenting a scientific poster. Through a group project collaborating with an external community client, students also undertake fact sheet writing and making infographics for a general public. Readings are discussed weekly from the course text book: Scott Montgomery’s, The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science (University of Chicago Press), which acts to prime our wider deliberations about how science communication evolves culturally. These class discussions, as well as peer review sessions of both written and visual communication work facilitates students’ metacognitive and metalinguistic development. Practical exercises in science communication, for which students draft components of larger assignments and revise repeatedly, promote a fundamental understanding of writing as a process. Evaluations are based on multiple communication assignments and on active in-class participation.