Shining Light On What Scientists Really Believe
The field of Science is a vast and significant topic which gives us a better understanding of the processes of life as we know it. We have eradicated many complex theories of science and we have spent hundreds of years adding to our pool of knowledge. It would not have been possible without scientists who dedicate their lives to finding the answers to questions they had as scientists. This category of people who dedicate their lives to finding the answers of science are people we can consider to be in the Science Discourse. The big question is, “How does one enter the Science Discourse?” In James Paul Gee’s “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction,” he defines what a Discourse is and proposes many possibilities one might use to inquire a new Discourse. The IMRaD cheat sheet illustrates the common format scientists use to write and organize their lab reports. It lays out important values of the Science Discourse and helps build an understanding on how one enters such Discourse. Furthermore, there is more evidence on how to enter the Science Discourse in Christina Haas’ “Written Communication” by investigating rhetorical reading and autonomous texts and the case study in “ Learning to Read Biology”. There are many different ways one may enter the Science Discourse by using these artifacts.
What Is A Discourse?
People live their lives in many different fashions and all people have very different beliefs and understandings. People who share a common similarity or way of living are in a specific community which can be considered a Discourse. First we must identify what is a Discourse and possible ways we can enter one.
In Gee’s “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” he says that a Discourse is a “saying (writing-doing-being-valuing-believing combination” ( 6) which “integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and cloths.” (7) to everyday life.
Discourses can be obtained through “being a member of a primary socializing group (family, clan, peer group)” (8). This type of Discourse is what we call a primary Discourse. We can also enter a secondary Discourse which can be obtained in “local stores and churches, schools, community groups, state and national businesses, agencies and organizations and so forth.” (8) In our case, the Science Discourse would be considered a secondary Discourse since it is obtained out of the home environment and in schools. Students are exposed to biology and general sciences at a young age and further their education through high school and through college.
Mechanics On Getting In
There are also different ways one might enter a Discourse. One way is through apprenticeship in which an apprentice takes part in a “master-apprentice relationship in a social practice (Discourse) wherein you scaffold their growing ability to say, do, value, believe, and so forth, within that Discourse” (11).
By being taken in by a very knowledgeable person already in the Discourse, one can then get closer to being in the Discourse and through time finally obtain the Discourse. Another way one can enter into a Discourse is through the use of mushfaking and meta-knowledge. Gee describes meta knowledge as “seeing how the Discourses you have already got relate to those you are attempting to acquire, and how the ones you are trying to acquire relate to self and society.”(13) To go with this idea, there is also a mechanism called mushfaking which is doing “with something less when the real thing is not available.” (13) By using a combination of mushfaking and meta knowledge, one can obtain a Discourse by using knowledge already acquired in a present Discourse and applying it to the best of their ability to a new Discourse. Gee’s ideas on Discourses and mechanics on how to enter them can help enlighten how one may enter the Science Discourse such as college student Eliza.
From High Schooler To Scientist
Discourses seem pretty straightforward to get into. Basically look for someone who is experienced and become apprenticed by them while using knowledge you have used in the past. This is true for many Discourses but the Discourse of science is different. Students wanting to major in the field of biology and science must change their ways of thinking, believing and valuing.
During High school, students are asked to study and retain knowledge on scientific topics such as Biology and remember them for the tests. School systems encourage students to use their textbooks as fountains of knowledge that would grant them entrance into their future jobs only if they can spew out information onto the answer sheet. The students are treating the Biology textbooks as an autonomous text. An autonomous text is one that “views written academic texts as discrete, highly explicit, even “timeless” entities functioning without contextual support from author, reader or culture” (Haas 45). In order for an individual to partake in the Science Discourse, one must change their thinking from reading texts autonomously to rhetorically.
Rhetorical reading attempts to “understand these elements of discourse-constructing a rhetorical frame which includes authors, readers, motives, relationships, and contexts-is what I call the process of rhetorical reading” (48).
People in the Science Discourse must submerge themselves not just in the facts of science but in the context and meaning of science which incites curiosity and challenge said ideas. In order to be a part of the Science Discourse, one must change their views from autonomous reading to rhetorical reading.
In Haa’s case study, she examines an incoming college freshman named Eliza. During this period, Haas exposed the mechanism on how one may enter the Science Discourse.
During Eliza’s first year in college, she treated the Biology textbooks as autonomous texts. “Her goals were to learn or understand or memorize what “the book says” (Haas 61).
She read them only to gain the knowledge inside them so she could ready herself for tests. This was how she thought she could be a successful biology major. During her sophomore year, she encountered a Biology research paper. For her research paper, she looked up articles written by authors in the back of her textbook. She thought that “if one finds the relevant articles and pulls out the appropriate facts, then one “can make a research paper” (Haas 62). Therefore, she did not view “any of the texts she read as the product of an individual author’s motives or actions. Nor did she exhibit any cognizance of the texts she read as historically or culturally situated” (Haas 63). She continued to read even the research articles as autonomous texts for information. Even though she read the articles autonomously, she still received a good grade. During her Sophomore year, “Eliza seemed happy with her arhetorical, asituational approach to reading texts that she viewed primarily as autonomous” (Haas 63).
A Dramatic Change
Then when Junior year rolled by, her awakening into the Science Discourse really comes. During Junior year, Eliza “took on a work study job growing protein mutants in a lab run” (Haas 63). One key occurrence that happened during her work study was that “Shelly [, a graduate student,] became an important mentor for her during the junior year and into senior year” (Haas). In this case Eliza was apprenticed by someone knowledgeable in the Science Discourse. Shelly helps guide Eliza through lab projects and gave her a lot of individual attention. Along with a new work study, she also acquired a new way of reading texts such as “skimming, reading selectively, [and] moving back and forth through texts” (Haas 64). Instead of reading for the pure facts, she is “reading to get an idea of how to set up [her] own report” (Haas 64). For a research paper in her virology class. This time around, she thought of this report assignment as
“more specific and complex and connected the research paper to the larger situational and cultural context of virology research” (Haas 64).
She is taking this report more seriously and is thinking about the authors and context it was written in which shows a change from autonomous reading to rhetorical reading. Her senior year quickly strengthened her acquired knowledge in junior year. “Eliza’s attention to the rhetorical elements of discourse- authors, readers, motives, contexts-also exhibited increased sophistication” (Haas 66). She also acknowledged different kinds of authors. For example, “authors who write journal articles were active scientists “the people who actually did the study,” while authors of textbooks tended to be more senior with a great deal of experience” (Haas 66). She payed a lot more attention to the authors and contexts of the research journals. Furthermore, as a result of Eliza’s apprenticeship to Shelly the graduate student, Eliza “understands what [Shelly] is talking about” (Haas 66) when it comes to lab protocol. Eliza has changed her autonomous thinking into rhetorical thinking which allowed her entrance into the Science Discourse.
How To Get Into The Science Discourse
Eliza’s transformation into the Scientific Discourse was amazing and there were many parts in play to make this possible. First off, the first thing she needed to do in order to get into the Science Discourse was to acquire basic Biology knowledge. This was achieved during her Freshman year and previous knowledge which brings up another good point. During this time where she needed to acquire more knowledge, she used meta knowledge to help her learn more complicated ideas and excel in class. As Sophomore year comes, she encounters a research paper, she still has her autonomous reading so she doesn’t quite understand authors and their purposes yet but she does during her Junior year. This is when she becomes apprenticed and starts to read articles to help her set up her experiments which connects her more towards Science. She uses her meta knowledge and mushfaking to act like a scientist and slowly becomes more and more like one with the help of the apprenticeship she made during her job study. Then as Senior year comes by, she thinks of texts rhetorically and is in the Science Discourse.
Scientists Have Feelings And Beliefs Too
Scientists have many values that make them unique players in the quest for answering the unknown. The IMRaD cheat sheet is a wonderful artifact that we can use to display some values of the Discourse of science.
The IMRaD cheat sheet helps organize a scientific writing. There are four sections the Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Each of them shows importance in the lab but the IMRaD cheat sheet states that the “Methods” section is “the least-read section of an IMRaD report” (Carnegie Melon 1) A reader, using the rhetorical frame which “helps readers account for the motives underlying textual acts and their outcomes” (48) can imply that scientists find importance in the claim being made about science, the results found and the reason why it is important and valuable for us to know. People outside the Science Discourse may not know this and think each section has equal value.
Furthermore, the IMRaD paper also demonstrates how one in the science Discourse has a sense of “sign systems and knowledge” another building task from Gee. In scientific papers, the type of citation is very different from citations used in English papers. There is a specific CSE format in in text citation which is different from MLA.
These different styles of citing relate back to Gee’s “saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” (6).
By knowing and using CSE format correctly in scientific writing, it demonstrates the use of one of Gee’s building tasks “ sign system and knowledge”. This is valuable because by displaying saying-doing combinations such as CSE format, one is displaying sign systems and knowledge in the science Discourse.
Connections are also very important when it comes to the IMRaD writing style. When certain results need to be explained further, scientists refer to other people’s work.
In the “Results” section of the IMRaD sheet, it says to “Compare to other research. X is consistent with X’s finding…..In contrasts Y found….” (Carnegie Melon 1).
They might find similar findings or different findings but these different claims lead to a strengthening of different connections between scientists and their works which demonstrates a building task. Furthermore, in the “Discussion” section, it states that
“ Discussion sections contain the following moves: They connect these findings to other research/ They discuss flaws in the current study/ They use these flaws as reasons to suggest additional, future research” (Carnegie Melon 1).
This proposes that it is important to state these things in order to strengthen connection between other scientists investigating the same thing and those who are setting up their own experiments. These examples of building tasks in the IMRaD sheet helps advance the presence of the scientific Discourse in the IMRad cheat sheet.
To Sum It Up
Eliza’s experience in college and understanding of scientific articles helps us find the importance of the IMRaD cheat sheet. She acquired a connection with other scientists through their works and she further understood the workings of Science and what it means to be a scientists. The IMRaD cheat sheet express all of the values necessary to become a member of the Science Discourse. It is also however interesting to see her growth from freshman to senior. During freshman and sophomore, she needed to acquire more knowledge on the processes of biology for example “why does producing seeds and advantage?” and she did so with the use of meta knowledge. After having a good understanding of processes, she was then able to connect her thoughts to other scientist who propose their ideas on science after she was apprenticed by Shelly during her work study. She also started to act like one through the use of mushfaking. This is how she was eventually able to enter the scientific Discourse and really become a biologist.