The Discourse of Science
Introduction
The science Discourse is one that is seemingly on the rise due to the sheer amount of jobs opening and needed in that field. According to James Gee, the author of Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics: Introduction, a Discourse is a “sort of ‘identity kit’” (7) which involves
“saying-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” (6).
Everybody begins with a primary Discourse, something that is taught to them by the initial environment they grow up in. As they grow up, they gain secondary Discourses based on
“various non-home-based social institutions…” (Gee 8).
The science Discourse is a secondary Discourse. Science involves all sorts of different terms, actions, and interactions that most people would not know if they were not a part of the Discourse.
Christina Haas, the author of Learning to Read Biology: one Student’s Rhetorical Development in College, states that
“Mitman et al. (1987) have defined the components of ‘scientific literacy’ as not only the mastery of scientific facts and concepts, but an understanding of ‘the evolving contributions of individual scientists and groups of scientists, … the social communities and historical settings in which scientists work’ (p. 630) and the place of science within ‘the broader contexts of human endeavor’ (p. 612)” (45).
What Haas is trying to say is that understanding science is all about understanding the constant change that is involved. As technology evolves so does science. Consequently, so does the way that information is spread in the science community. One of the best ways that information is spread is through a scientific paper.
A.J. Meadows, the author of The scientific paper as an archaeological artefact, discusses how the scientific paper is changed and how information can be extracted from it. The scientific paper, specifically the IMRaD paper is a major part of the scientific Discourse. It shapes the way science is used and how information is found.
The IMRAD Format
The IMRaD paper is a format that is used often in the natural and social sciences.
According to the IMRaD Cheat Sheet by Carnegie Mellon University, there are four main sections to the paper, the introduction, the methods, the results and the discussion. Each of the sections has its importance in portraying the information.
In the introduction a scientist will
“make a case for [their] new research” (IMRaD cheat sheet 1).
The methods explain what was done so it can be repeated while the results share what the scientists found.
Finally, the discussion is used to explain what the results mean based on the problem.
Connections
Darcy A. Fiano, the author of Primary Discourse and Expressive Language in a Kindergarten Student, used Gee’s seven building tasks to analyze the primary Discourse of a Kindergarten student.
According to Fiano, Connections are
“the relevant connections and disconnections between things and people in a context and how these connections or disconnections are being made or implied” (67).
There are a lot of connections based on the IMRaD cheat sheet. The IMRaD format specifically unites people from most of the sciences. There are lots of connections that can be found like between the reader and the scientist, the scientist and other scientists (or rather their previous studies), and, in the lab during the experiment, the head scientist in charge of the paper and all of the people running the actual lab work.
The IMRaD format connects the reader to the scientist with its organization. The organization allows for easy and quick information retrieval from the reader.
The IMRAD cheat sheet states
“Discuss the current state of research in your field, expose a “gap” or problem in the field and then explain why your current research is a timely and necessary solution to that gap,” (1).
Based on that, we can see that the scientist and other scientists are connected through past, present and future research. The research being done by the scientist is likely based off of the other scientists work and thus must be cited and most likely referenced.
The lab workers are directed by the scientist writing the paper and the lab workers then report back to the head scientist with information on how the experiment went along with the data. These connections are where science comes from and how science evolves.
Evolution of IMRAD
In Meadows paper, he explains “the development of the printed journal” (Meadows 27) which is one of the subsections of his paper. Meadows explains how the scientific paper has evolved to what it is today.
“Initially, they are simply printed letters ─ they have little organization, no recognisable references, etc” (Meadows 27).
In the beginning of sharing science, there was no IMRaD format. Nobody really used a format and nothing was standardized. As time went on, though,
“… a certain amount of organisation appears with a few references, given in a very fragmented form” (Meadows 27).
The paper continued to evolve so that it was a uniform format that everyone within the Discourse could use it.
Mushfaking
The evolution of this paper format is much like ways of entering a Discourse. At first, someone entering a Discourse, or attempting to enter a Discourse, will try and “mushfake”.
According to Gee, mushfaking is
“making ‘do with something less when the real thing is not available” (13).
When this happens the person may be seen as a “…pretender or a beginner” (Gee 10). As they learn the Discourse, they begin to understand the Discourse and all it has to offer. Eventually they are in the Discourse whether they know it or not.
This is like scientific papers nowadays. They have a format and people stick to the format making everything uniform and easily understood.
Rhetorical Reading/Frame
In another part of Meadow’s paper, there is a subsection called “Retrieving information from text” (29). This subsection is all about the importance of information and how it can be easily gathered.
One way that information can be easily gathered is through Haas’ idea of rhetorical frame. Rhetorical frame is the way someone sees a text. It uses any prior knowledge they have of the author and of the subject to see the text in a different light and it also uses context to interpret. While using rhetorical frame, one can easily understand the information and sift through the information to find what is relevant.
Rhetorical reading, a way to use rhetorical frame, is much like Gee’s mushfaking. Mushfaking is kind of like a puzzle. This puzzle uses meta-knowledge, or prior knowledge to solve it. Rhetorical reading is very similar in that a form of meta-knowledge is used.
Rhetorical reading uses knowledge about the type of text and the author of the text to better understand the content. Mushfake is a way to see a Discourse or to enter a Discourse while rhetorical reading is used to better understand a text. Both of these terms can easily be applied to the Discourse of science.
Eliza
Rhetorical reading, as mentioned in the last section, is explained through an example in Haas’s article.
Haas uses the girl from her study, Eliza, to explain the use of a rhetorical frame. When Eliza uses her new perspective on reading texts for class, she begins using her Rhetorical frame. Haas says that Eliza learns and uses many new reading techniques like
“skimming, reading selectively, moving back and forth through texts, reading for different purposes at different times” (64).
She also says that “[Eliza] also read some texts not solely to glean information but to learn about conventions and structures” (Haas 64).
These are all signs that she is entering the Discourse and beginning to understand it. These could all be considered part of the rhetorical reading because rhetorical reading is using prior knowledge and anything else you know about the text to better understand it.
Apprenticeship
This idea of rhetorical frame and rhetorical reading that Eliza uses is what Gee calls apprenticeship.
According to Gee, apprenticeship is a
“scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered this Discourse,” (7).
In Eliza’s junior year, she gains an apprenticeship in the form of helping out in a lab. By helping out in this lab, she was able to see the Discourse from the inside.
She was able to get a first hand account of the Discourse including the terms and even some actions without having consequences like being considered a pretender because she was with the master in the Discourse who could teach her.
This idea of rhetorical and apprenticeship are all how people learn in the science Discourse. They learn by immersion, by being placed into the Discourse at the beginning and being prodded along during the process. That is until they learn it for themselves. Then they become the master, helping another along into the Discourse.
Conclusion
The Discourse of science is unlike any other. It is complicated yet straight forward at the same time. A unique thing about the science Discourse is that it is always changing.
It is weird because the Discourse changes with different studies done even though those studies are done with the older portion of the Discourse. And even as technology advances, the scientific Discourse advances even faster than was ever thought.
In the modern day science Discourse, one thing seems to be staying the same and that is the IMRaD format. The IMRaD format is one of the things that is making the scientific Discourse advance as fast as it is. With the constant that is the IMRaD format, scientist are able to find what they are looking for faster making the Discourse advance.
Works Cited
Fiano, Darcy A. “Primary Discourse and Expressive Oral Language in a Kindergarten Student.” Reading Research Quarterly. 49.1(2013): 61–84. Print.
Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics: Introduction.” Journal of Education. 171.1(1989): 5–15. Print.
Haas, Christina. “Learning to Read Biology: One Student’s Rhetorical Development in College.” Written Communication. 11.1 (1994): 43–79. Print.
“IMRAD Cheat Sheet”. Carnegie Mellon University. Global Communications, 2 Aug. 2015. Web. 2 Dec. 2015
Meadows, A.J. “The scientific paper as an archaeological artefact”. Journal of Information Science 11.1 (1985): 27–30. Print.
