Looking at Science as a Discourse
Writing, reading and navigating the academic side of the Discourse of science.
Social and natural sciences are both written in the same set up, even though social science studies politics, human society and social relationships and natural science focuses on worldly science, such as physics, chemistry, biology and geology. They both use a system called IMRaD, which stands for Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. This IMRaD structure was brought up by Carnegie Mellon University as a system to help scientific writers, of all kinds, structure their writing into a formula that could be gone through and analyzed thoroughly and efficiently.
IMRaD is used universally in every aspect of science, whether it be about politics or biology, students (specifically college bound or college students). Because of this students should focus heavily on honing in skills needed to write in this structure. They should also look at the knowledge required within the scientific field to analyze and read IMRaD structured papers. The style of writing paired with the field of science in general can be referred to as “scientific Discourse” by using the definition of Discourse devised by James Paul Gee. He is the author of Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction, which theorizes the idea that discourse isn’t just talking about language, but a conglomeration of
“ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions and clothes.” (Gee 7)
Using this passage along with the article Learning to Read Biology: One Student’s Rhetorical Development by Christina Haas, we can take a look at scientific Discourse and view patterns within it to help understand why the IMRaD structured science paper is so widely renowned.
Gee’s concept of a Discourse in the sense that “someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less than fully fluent manner” (Gee 9), can be linked with Haas’ idea of insiders versus outsiders by looking at the connection the individual has to the Discourse or paper. Haas states
“other outsiders strip out such qualifiers, making claims seem more certain and less open to question.” (Haas 45)
Here she is saying that someone who is outside the world of scientific literature could very well understand the paper, and may even be able to form opinions on it, but when it comes to questioning the facts, or questioning the outcomes or technique someone who is on the outside doesn’t have enough background to understand that questioning science is okay. Haas states
“at the college level, to become literate is in many ways to learn the patterns of knowing about, and behaving towards texts within a disciplinary field.” (Haas 43)
By using what Haas says here and what Gee says about being in a Discourse you can look into the Methods section of IMRaD and see that being on the inside of the Discourse of science allows the reader the option to question the “facts” presented in the paper. When Gee states “If you have no access to the social practice, you don’t get in the Discourse, you don’t have it” (Gee 7) he is discussing the idea of if you have no way into a Discourse, there’s no way to become a part of it. You’re left on the outside, unable to fully understand the Discourse (or paper) and therefore cannot draw your own conclusions, or question the literature. Within this system, or Discourse, of reading scientific papers, there is a system that the piece of literature goes through.
Within the IMRaD structure of writing, the “M and D” section, or methods, (the area the author discusses the way they went about the experiment) and Discussion, (where the author reflects on the texts and hypotheses to see if what they expected to happen did or didn’t), Gee and Haas’ theories of if you are in the Discourse, (an insider) can be looked at by using these two sections. When looking at scientific writing you can realize that when you are reading the methods section, they (methods) are universally accepted by the scientific community. Within the Discourse an insider can pick out what needs to be fixed and what is accurate. They can draw conclusions and come up with concepts and question the author/scientists work. Being able to thoroughly go through a methods section of a paper enables individuals in a scientific discourse to effectively bring up rebuttals or arguments in research, and because science is always changing being fluent enough in the field of scientific academic writing, the ability to understand what is being said is necessary.
Insiders are able to question within the constructs of a specific Discourse. Another point brought up by Haas is
“a rhetorical understanding of the human enterprise of science as well as the texts that constitute and reflect that enterprise should be bound to the learning of scientific facts.” (Haas 45)
Here Haas talks about the need for fluency in scientific literature. She discusses “the broader contexts of human endeavor” (Haas 45) which can be seen as an overall goal of humans to understand everything and be able to question everything. Using this example paired with Gee’s idea of meta-knowledge, being referred to as
“liberation and power because it leads to the ability to manipulate, to analyze, to resist while advancing” (Gee 13)
you can come to the conclusion that in order to understand scientific literature and know how and what to question within the scope of practice, you must have background knowledge and insight into how the Discourse of science, and scientific writing works. You can see this connection between previous knowledge and current understanding in the “R” or results section of IMRaD.
Here scientists explain results and comment on how each trial, or test went. Here you can understand, if you’re in the Discourse of scientific writing, or an insider, how the study was done and look at scientists’ comments and critiques on the matter. That understanding puts you in the ballpark of scientific Discourse and the theory of being an insider.
This can be brought back to the system of IMRaD and why becoming fluent in the way it is written, and the reason it is written is so imperative because being able to dissect the information given in the results section enables the reader to gain a better understanding of the experiment and the reasons behind it.
Being an incoming college student, looking at the world of scientific academic writing is without a doubt intimidating. The structure of IMRaD gives college students a map on how to read and write in the discourse of science and releases some of the stress that seems to come hand in hand with academic writing in general.
Haas brings up a point in her article about how first year college students come with this idea in their head that they know how to read and write scientific papers and articles, and that it is self explanatory and there is nothing more than facts being stated. But what they come to find out is that they should look at these papers from a more in depth perception because
“discourse theorists and scientific educators agree that students would benefit from a more rhetorical model” (Haas 46)
and that rhetorical model being an in depth perception. By looking at scientific papers, mainly by using IMRaD structure, students can draw their own conclusions and make arguments and question theories. By giving students the opportunity to look past the antique way of looking at scientific papers, and open their eyes to a new way of learning, writing and reading. Incoming college students should look past the overwhelming idea that science literature is set in stone, and look at it more as theories and ideas to be questioned and argued.
Gee’s theory of apprenticeship, or his idea of a master and apprentice type of learning to enter a Discourse, fits in here because all incoming college students are in the apprentice stage of their future careers, and being able to look at the bigger picture and realize that science is not set in stone, and is always moving, is a big part of that apprenticeship stage that we all need to go through. In Haas’ article, she talks about a girl named Eliza who goes through a work study. By comparing Gee’s idea of apprenticeship with Haas’ explanation of Eliza and her work student, you can see how involving yourself in a Discourse opens up ideas where you couldn’t see any before. Eliza soon started questioning if enzymes really bonded and from there realized that she could question whatever she thought to be inaccurate. The understanding that scientific literature is not all fact, and can be questioned is a new idea in first year college students’ heads. Haas questions “Do students’ views of academic discourse change over the course of their college careers?” (Haas 46) and to answer her question with a snippet from Gee’s article, yes, as he states
“The various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons are changing and often are not fully consistent with each other; there is often conflict and tension between the values, attitudes interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses represent.” (Gee 7)
If discourses are constantly changing, so must the views of college students on discourses and scientific literature. There is always growth occurring and since the growth of the Discourse of science changing is constant, so is the ever changing and questioning view of college students.
College students come into the Discourse of college with an idea that science is fact, and not able to be argued, when in fact science as a whole is a field of theories and notions with proof to back up people’s ideas. When it comes to breaking apart those notions and ideas,being able to distinguish between “facts” and look past the procedures is an entirely different Discourse itself. Just being able to read, write and understand scientific academic writing has it’s own system, IMRaD. When students are learning about how the field of science works and how scientists go about collecting data and results, they should also be learning a way to mesh their data together into an easy to read set up. Using the IMRaD structure, and learning how it works and what is involved acts not only as a pathway into the Discourse of science, but a pathway into academic writing as a whole, which benefits all Discourse students may be involved in.
