The Way Science Shapes the World
“I have not failed. I’ve successfully discovered 10,000 things that wont work” -Thomas Edison
Scientific research is always going on somewhere in the world, and must be presented in a way that can be understood by the average person and the well versed scientist.
“ To an outsider, the contents of these papers appear to be mystic and wonderful: to an insider, they convey rapidly and efficiently information about the research that has been done.” (Meadows 27)
Science has shaped the world with technological, medical, and environmental innovations dating back hundreds of years ago. New scientists are added to the scientific community everyday. With the help of the common paper structure and tools they gained from scientific exposure students of science can actively participate in the overall Discourse.
The Rhetorical Frame…
“Readers account for the motives underlying textual acts and their outcomes” (Haas 48).
The rhetorical frame is a skill that is developed through engagement with scientific texts that allows college students to enter the apprenticeship stage of a Discourse. The rhetorical frame allows students to look at unfamiliar texts as connected pieces of the bigger scientific community. Using the rhetorical frame, students can access the overall context associated with a scientific finding and thus are able to see the purpose for the study.
The rhetorical frame is just one segment of the “identity kit” of the scientific Discourse. The identity kit helps to shape the Discourse outlining the way one acts and behaves in that Discourse. It acts as a gateway into the ameteur stages of the Discourse, defined as the “apprenticeship” stage by Gee. An apprenticeship is an “ enculturation… into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse” (Gee 7).
An apprenticeship allows outsiders into the Discourse, in this case college students. As college students begin to acquire their rhetorical frame and enter into the apprentice stage of the Discourse they are able to better comprehend and engage in the research and experiments going on in the scientific community. The connection between Gee concept of the apprenticeship and Haas rhetorical model can be see in Haas’s study on Eliza. Although Eliza’s apprenticeship stage doesn’t begin until her senior year in college. In her senior year, Eliza starts a work study in a lab that exposes her to those already a part of the scientific community. At this point she begins to see the connections between those involved and the concepts she was introduced to earlier in her college career. She uses her newly recognizable rhetorical frame to put all the pieces of the Discourse together. In this way her rhetorical frame assisted her through her apprenticeship and enhanced her understanding of the overall Discourse.
Social Benefits..
The purpose of scientific research is to collect relevant information that will benefit society in a specific way. Being in the scientific Discourse, a person uses their understanding of the IMRaD structure to pinpoint the relevant information in a study.A readers must first be able to look at a lab and know where to look for the information or “social goods” as defined by Gee. The social goods or politics of an experiment in the end show motive and purpose of the research, they give the reader “a metaunderstanding of the motives of science and scientists and of the history of scientific concepts” (Haas 45). The politics help the readers to catch the the most important pieces of the research. When the readers can locate the relevant information without having the look through all aspects of the article, they are part of the Discourse. The first place that this can be seen in a scientific article is in the introduction. This is where the question being explored is stated, along with what they hope to find.
“ A text is an utterance, part of an intertextual context consisting of closely and distantly related texts, or what Jamieson (1973) called antecedent rhetorical forms. A text may draw upon, extend, or refute a myriad of other texts…” (Haas 48)
Haas utilizes this section of her introduction to clue the readers in on just what she is talking about when referring to texts as not being autonomous. In this case Haas states her overall goal, she wanted to show how students develop the ability to see texts in this way. By making this statement early in the paper she is able to present the “social goods” of the experiment then later prove them. Showing the reader the purpose in the beginning of the paper not only shows the outsiders reading what they should be looking for, but also presents a place to look for gaps in the information to all the insiders reading. This becomes beneficial when looking for the bigger picture connection and overall motive in her field within the scientific community.
Connections, Connections, Connections..
Connections are made between current and past information in all scientific works; the connections are what drives an experiment and gives it purpose. The discussion section of the IMRaD structure allows the writer to draw connections to outside research, talk through what went wrong and what could have gone better, and suggest new ways to make their research better for the next time or how to expand ( IMRaD Cheat Sheet).
Using the research from past scientists provides a starting point for upcoming scientists and their new research. By making the connections within the research scientist spend less time and money on the basic findings from 100 years ago and more on the modern applications. The discussion section focuses on the bigger picture rather than the immediate results. Using Haas’s study as an example, the bigger picture connection is between the rhetorical frame and autonomous texts , being in the scientific Discourse “insiders” must be able to see all parts of the Discourse not as autonomous but rather connected. Throughout her discussion Haas explains Eliza’s process of obtaining the rhetorical frame, and how that aids her in understanding that texts are not autonomous.
“Disciplinary texts, like all texts, are intensely situated, rife with purpose and motive, anchored in myriad ways to the individuals and the cultures that produce them” (Haas 44).
The connections she made from her understanding of the texts in her freshman year all the way into her senior year allowed her to ultimately see that the majority of scientific experiments have a connection to some kind of outside research. That most scientific findings are just one more piece to the overall problem looking to be solved. eliza demonstrates this well in her senior year with the assistance of her work study. She began to pick up new learning strategies, and “ to recognize a historical, situational context surrounding and supporting the texts she read” ( Haas 65). Using her new understanding Eliza began to more readily grasp the concepts at hand and make the big picture connections to the overall scientific Discourse. By making the bigger connections Eliza and students like her, will conclusively pioneer the new research projects and allow society to evolve.
Are Scientists EVER Really Sure?
Hand-waving is a theory presented by Eliza, that show how scientist indirectly communicate results, good or bad. She describes hand- waving as being a place where within a work scientists are
“ not sure of their theory. They sort of have data which suggests it. But they can’t come out and say that… You don’t know what’s happening.” ( Haas 66).
Hand-waving can look different depending on who reads the article, an insider or an outsider. To an insider there are gaps in the results, nothing can be known as totally true, and there is always another experiment to be done. Whereas outsiders there are no holes in the experiment, the results are solid and should be known as true.The outsiders viewpoint of the experiment is warped due to the lack of information, they are missing the layers of context needed to fully understand the problem at hand. Their warped view is an example of Gee’s theory on Mushfake. Using the limited information that they have paired with the lack of contextual knowledge, readers aren’t able to see the flaws and misdoings of the researcher. They only have a “partial acquisition coupled with meta-knowledge and strategies to ‘make do’” ( Gee 13 ), in other words they fake their way through the information to attempt to understand the Discourse. So that when the reader uses the fragmented information that they have to make it look like they are in the scientific Discourse, they present the new information the those around them. Scientists are often benefited from this “mushfaking”, not in the sense that there are now more people entering the Discourse, but in the dispersion of their research.
As explained by Eliza, hand- waving allows scientists to present new information without coming out and saying that they know it is right. They are able to add another piece to the puzzle without being called wrong, but rather aiding in the findings of another scientist. In this way scientists gain credibility when their new finding is proven, but also keeps the scientific community for blaming them in the chance of them being wrong. Hand-waving and mushfake are two key components in the the releasing of new information.
Evolution and the Future
Overall the scientific Discourse is one that is constantly evolving. With the help of the IMRaD structure, scientists are able to give students of science and other outsiders a window into the scientific Discourse. The releasing of new information and the enhancement of the scientific technology pushes the Discourse to evolve and improve. The evolution would not be as advanced or continuous without the help of the common scientific journal.
