A deviation from the standard

For those who are befuddled by stats:

Dr Helena Ward: Why scientists write!

Helena writes as an academic with a strong publication list. See her home page.

I found this quote a couple of years ago and I think it neatly summarises the importance of communication skills for scientists: “Science exists because scientists are writers and speakers” (Montgomery, 2003, The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago).

Science is not only about doing science, the practical aspects of research and experimentation, but also the communication of the process, the results and perhaps most importantly the failures. Scientists create and share knowledge and so need to develop the skills to reach the various audiences who will read their work. This can be a challenge as the use of specialised, technical language can act as a barrier to clear, concise communication.

One of the most important considerations is the audience: who is going to read your work?
There are a number of forms of scientific writing and the style and format you use will vary, depending on who is going to read the final product.

Practical Reports, which summarise scientific experiments, often have the general format of Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion. This provides a framework which follows the various stages of the scientific method and also reflects the format required by many scientific journals. Such reports are usually written in the “passive” voice, e.g. the bacteria were centrifuged, rather than the “active” voice, e.g. I centrifuged the bacteria.

Technical reports, which may require specific recommendations on future actions, may be intended for a scientific audience, such as a company. In some cases reports will be read by a variety of interested parties, including Government, research scientists and the public. This means you will need to carefully consider the type of language you use.

• Do you need to provide a list of scientific definitions and abbreviations?
• Can you use examples to clearly explain certain concepts?
• How will you use diagrams, tables, etc to illustrate your work?
  

Whatever type of scientific writing you do, first consider your audience and then the best way to get your message across. By developing your scientific writing skills, you will be able to communicate your scientific knowledge and take part in the wider scientific community.

I’ll finish with another quote about science, which I think summarises the challenge of scientific research. “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” (Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1962).

Helen Ward

Senior Lecturer: Academic Development

Writing to impress!

No-one has more interest than students in writing to impress their readers.

Writing for assessment is your main way of demonstrating what you have learned. No matter how well you can perform technically, whether it’s designing or building equipment, or conducting experimental work, the quality of your writing can make or break you in assessment.
The person who reads your work is important to you so you need to think about that reader's needs. Make sure your readers finds reading your work interesting and enjoyable. This means attending to the quality not merely the content of your writing.

A few pointers:
To ensure that your work is credible you need to read and cite the best sources you can find in your professional field

• Ensure your search skills enable you to find those sources
  

Keep comprehensive records of your reading so that you can readily track the best ideas back to their source/s

• Use a Reading Log to develop a more analytical approach to reading
  

Make sure you understand the demands of the genre e.g. if you’re writing a report how do you organize the present your information in report form?

Learn to paraphrase well – see how others do it in the readings that impress you

• Use the recommended referencing system exactly
  

Allow yourself enough time to revise your work comprehensively.

If you know you do not write well in English you will need to allow extra revision time. Final papers that include spelling and grammatical errors make it very difficult for your reader/marker to understand what, if anything, you have learned. Avoid sabotaging yourself.

Tip: plan your writing schedule to allow for revision time. For example you may need at least one full day between the drafting and revising stages when writing a major paper. Taking a break between these stages allows you to see your draft more objectively.

I hope you find that any extra care you put into writing about your learning is worth every minute.

Helen

Helen Johnston

Lecturer: Learning Adviser

Learning Connection: Mawson Lakes

Visiting from Singapore

At present at Mawson Lakes campus we are hosting a group of senior Mechanical Engineering students who are here from Singapore for two weeks intensive study.

Welcome everyone! You've chosen a cold time of year to visit Adelaide. You will find life in and around Mawson Lakes very quiet after Singapore.

As you're expected to learn a lot about researching and writing you will find plenty of material on and linked to this blog to interest you. Check the link further down in the adjacent column to resources used in our classes last week.

There are several postings in this blog that are directly relevent to you as you write up your current work. See in particular the previous entry on writing a literature review and an earlier posting on paraphrasing. Both elaborate on points made in our class on

• the importance of writing to you as scientists
• the relevance of in-text citations and referencing to improving the credibility of your work.

All the best,

Helen

Literature reviews and button collections

Literature reviews are tricky to write and some are very boring to read. The most boring ones are those that list each item, one after the other, like entries in a book catalogue.

Before I throw out my old clothes, or turn them into cleaning rags, I cut off the buttons and put them in a jar. You never know when you’re going to need a spare button. After many years of doing this, I have quite a collection.

Writing a literature review is like describing my button collection. I could do that by picking up each of the hundred or so buttons in turn and describing them all individually. Bor-ing! Even if you lasted the distance, you probably wouldn’t remember too much of what I’d said.

Now, if I’d sorted them into some sort of pattern, that would be more interesting and more memorable. The biggest group are the tiny round plastic ones which have probably come from old shirts. This suggests that shirts are my most common article of discarded clothing. Similar in some ways to this group are the large round buttons which probably came from coats. The larger size may indicate the need to hold thicker fabric or that they were subject to larger forces. Another group again are the ornate buttons, some of which are made from a combination of materials and many of which have looped shanks on the back. And so on.

Image from Global b2b (2008) http://www.global-b2b-network.com/

In writing your literature review, think of ways you might organize the readings, rather than just reporting each one in turn. Has an issue been investigated from a range of theoretical positions? Using different methodologies? Considering different aspects? In a range of different contexts? What are the similarities and differences of these different approaches? What are their relative strengths and weaknesses? How do the approaches support or challenge each other?

As you organise your literature review, think of my button collection.

Kerry O'Regan


Learning Adviser



Kerry O'Regan is our special guest blogger for this month. Kerry has had a long history of working with engineering students - firstly at the Institute of Technology and then the University of South Australia and Adelaide University. Kerry mentioned in her recent presentation to Engineering Research Methods students that she completed a Masters Thesis looking at women in engineering. She also has a keen interest in online teaching and learning.

In praise of the paraphrase

Paraphrasing is a skill which is kind of tricky when you first start Uni. Often, students are under the misapprehension that paraphrasing means 'changing a few words' - swapping nouns and adjectives or shuffling things around.

Paraphrasing is, in fact, somewhat more complex than merely re-wording. It is about extracting the meaning of what has been said by reading the text, putting it aside and then asking (and noting) 'What does this really mean?'

It is important to highlight a couple of things:

• No two students' paraphrases will be the same


• Each student writer extracts the 'meaning' to suit the purpose - to support their own arguments or positions about a point-of-view


• It's ok to 'quote' a couple of colourful words in a paraphrase (see the examples below)


• Always attribute the paraphrase to a source

Example A: The text

Example B: The paraphrase

Example C: The paraphrase with interpretation

That's all for now. Best of luck!

Helen and Andrea

PS Post your questions about the art of paraphrasing by clicking 'comments'

For all students who speak English as second language

When
Monday 14th – Thursday 17th April 2008

Session Times
10.00am - 12:00pm and 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Where
UniSA City West campus

Cost: Free

Content
English grammar, Academic speaking skills, Academic writing, Referencing, Academic reading, Online techniques for language learning and Mind mapping


Classes are held over 3 mornings and 4 afternoons for students who want to improve their English language and academic skills. You can attend any, or all of the sessions.

Please register online for the sessions you wish to attend:

http://unisanet-apppro.levels.unisa.edu.au/registerit/Students-WorkShops.asp?

(These workshops are listed under City West and designated by “AELDP” in the title)

A winning proposal

Few if any Masters students will leave their studies without having to write a research proposal for their research or minor thesis.

To write an excellent research proposal, it's best to start by thinking about the role of the proposal. The document is intended to persuade the reader that your research is worthwhile doing. In working life, this may translate into persuading a funding body or your boss to support your work. In life at university, it might mean the difference between receiving a high distinction or a credit or a grant or scholarship.

A good research proposal will have some or all of the following elements:

• A persuasive piece of writing which leaves the reader in no doubt as to the intent of and need for your research (Key sections: The significance of the problem and The literature review)
  


• A demonstration that the research proposed is do-able. While it would be impractical to solve world water shortages, you might be able to research a technology which will enable the saving of water under particular conditions in a particular location. (Key sections: The methodology and The problem or sub problems)
  


• Critical exploration of the current and key literature surrounding your topic. Critical is the most important word here. Simply providing accounts of what so-and-so said or found will not convince the reader of the need for research or the approach you are deciding to take. You must say why a finding or study was useful and examine its weaknesses, limitations and how it will be of use to your writing. (Key section: The literature review)

Finally, 'all roads must lead to your research'. This means that a research proposal must at its core, convince the reader of the need for your research.

Writing the Research Proposal is a useful read. Although written for students of Engineering Research Practice and Engineering Research Methods, it has some handy links and approaches for all research writing. A word of caution: check with your course coordinator about the headings they would like you to use. The approach suggested in this particular online resource has been taken from Leedy and Ormond (2005).

Best of luck with writing your persuasive and winning proposal.

Liz Horrocks, Andrea Duff and Helen Johnston

Learning Advisers City East and Mawson Lakes

A few summary points

The skill of summarising is such a handy one to have. The student or employee who is able to summarise a complex document for another reader is highly valued.

As we speak, students in Communication for Information Systems and Technology are busily trying to distill an entire article into 350 - 450 words. There are some simple guidelines to help with this seemingly tough task.

• First draw a concept map or picture of the main ideas. Your picture might look something like this:

• Secondly, when you begin to write, introduce the main ideas in the order in which they appear in the article.


• Thirdly, make good use of words which list such as firstly, secondly, thirdly and so on.


• Fourth, look for opposites and similarities...
  
  
  One view taken...however....on one hand...on the other...similarly...likewise...in contrast
  
• Finally, you should deal with one idea per paragraph.

Good summarising relies on sometimes ruthless editing skills. A useful device is to just refer to the actual article and author once (in the opening sentence where you might cite bibliographic details):

In the chapter 'Climate Change - an inevitable reality' (Thompson, 2002), the author underlines three main reasons why we should take heed of rising temperatures.

Firstly, as temperatures rise, sea levels will rise. This means....

Secondly,

Hone this important skill and reap the rewards!

Andrea on behalf of the Learning Advisers

The fundamentals of report writing

As many of our engineering and computer science students prepare their first reports, it is worth visiting some of the basic requirements of report writing. As we speak, we know that students in Sustainable Engineering Practice and Introduction to Information Technology Studies are busy contemplating their first reports or drafts.

The first thing to say is that there are 'reports' and there are 'reports'.

If you are reporting on an experiment, then you will produce what is known as a 'practical report'. If you are reporting on an issue under an investigation, then it is likely to be a 'technical report' . Reports are also produced for things like software specification.

Secondly, reports are tightly structured. They use:

• Section headings which are well understood (such as 'abstract' or 'executive summary'; 'introduction'; 'conclusion'; recommendations)


• Numbered headings and subheadings


• Cohesive 'linking' language - firstly, secondly, thirdly...therefore, in conclusion

Thirdly, they use an objective 'tone'. There is no place for the first person 'I' in report writing. Nor is there any place for:

• Vague and imprecise terms (various, numerous...)


• Flowery language with out support (excellent! wonderful! super!)


• Unsubstantiated claims without references.

Perhaps the most important piece of advice we can offer is to think of yourself as making the job easier for the reader. Reports are often read by busy people. Careful construction of sections combined with precise cohesive sentences will make for a more enjoyable and persuasive document.

There is no doubt that being able to construct a good report is highly valued by employers. If you can get it right, not only will your report attract great marks, but it will contribute to your success in the job market.

Best of luck with your first assignments.

Helen and Andrea

Your resident Mawson Lakes Learning Advisers and Bloggers.