The rhetorical structure of science? A multidisciplinary analysis of article headings

An effective structure helps an article to convey its core message. The optimal structure depends on the information to be conveyed and the expectations of the audience. In the current increasingly interdisciplinary era, structural norms can be confusing to the authors, reviewers and audiences of scientific articles. Despite this, no prior study has attempted to assess variations in the structure of academic papers across all disciplines. This article reports on the headings commonly used by over 1 million research articles from the PubMed Central Open Access collection, spanning 22 broad categories covering all academia and 172 out of 176 narrow categories. The results suggest that no headings are close to ubiquitous in any broad field and that there are substantial differences in the extent to which most headings are used. In the humanities, headings may be avoided altogether. Researchers should therefore be aware of unfamiliar structures that are nevertheless legitimate when reading, writing and reviewing articles

Scholarly communication in transition: The use of question marks in the titles of scientific articles in medicine, life sciences and physics 1966–2005

The titles of scientific articles have a special significance. We examined nearly 20 million scientific articles and recorded the development of articles with a question mark at the end of their titles over the last 40 years. Our study was confined to the disciplines of physics, life sciences and medicine, where we found a significant increase from 50% to more than 200% in the number of articles with question-mark titles. We looked at the principle functions and structure of the titles of scientific papers, and we assume that marketing aspects are one of the decisive factors behind the growing usage of question-mark titles in scientific articles

Writing in Conservation Biology: Searching for an Interdisciplinary Rhetoric

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/88135/1/samraj.pd

Collaborative working within UK NHS secondary care and across sectors for COPD and the impact of peer review : qualitative findings from the UK National COPD Resources and Outcomes Project

Introduction: We investigated the effects on collaborative work within the UK National Health Service (NHS) of an intervention for service quality improvement: informal, structured, reciprocated, multidisciplinary peer review with feedback and action plans. The setting was care for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Theory and methods: We analysed semi-structured interviews with 43 hospital respiratory consultants, nurses and general managers at 24 intervention and 11 control sites, as part of a UK randomised controlled study, the National COPD Resources and Outcomes Project (NCROP), using Scott’s conceptual framework for action (inter-organisational, intra-organisational, inter-professional and inter-individual). Three areas of care targeted by NCROP involved collaboration across primary and secondary care. Results: Hospital respiratory department collaborations with commissioners and hospital managers varied. Analysis suggested that this is related to team responses to barriers. Clinicians in unsuccessful collaborations told ‘atrocity stories’ of organisational, structural and professional barriers to service improvement. The others removed barriers by working with government and commissioner agendas to ensure continued involvement in patients’ care. Multidisciplinary peer review facilitated collaboration between participants, enabling them to meet, reconcile differences and exchange ideas across boundaries. Conclusions: The data come from the first randomised controlled trial of organisational peer review, adding to research into UK health service collaborative work, which has had a more restricted focus on inter-professional relations. NCROP peer review may only modestly improve collaboration but these data suggest it might be more effective than top-down exhortations to change when collaboration both across and within organisations is required

Visual rhetoric in information design: designing for credibility and engagement

Genre plays a central role in defining the visual conventions designers draw upon for presenting information and influencing the ways in which users, in turn, experience and interpret information. Drawing on evidence from user research, this chapter examines the rhetorical associations of some of the typographic and layout conventions associated with good practice in information design

An Exploratory Study of Engineering Students’ Misconceptions about Technical Communication

This paper reports results of a mixed methods study that examined engineering students’ acquisition of technical communication skills over time. In particular, this exploratory study aimed to identify persistent errors, lingering misconceptions, and challenges engineering students faced when they attempted to apply their knowledge and skills in new contexts. The 12 participants were drawn from engineering courses in which students were required to compose technical memoranda in response to requests for information from supervisors or clients. This integrated approach addresses content and communication in the same course. The study included a longitudinal analysis of four technical memoranda written across two courses and qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with students who wrote these memoranda. The study documented students’ improvement in technical communication over time, from one course to another. The study also found correlations between content knowledge and communication skills. Analysis of qualitative data showed that students bring with them prior knowledge about writing from high school and college courses that may support or interfere with the acquisition of technical writing skills. Insufficient or inaccurate prior knowledge including lack of experience with reporting data or using visual communication tools as well as the literal interpretation of models accounted for persistent errors. Taking “short cuts” was a common theme that led students to ignore effective writing practices, such as planning or revising. The most common misconception students held was the notion that engineering students are “good at math” but “poor at writing.” These results suggest that the acquisition of technical writing skills might be hindered by students’ own self-concepts. Instructors can promote students’ self-efficacy as writers by guiding them to understand that strong writing skills can be acquired with practic

Towards an Integrated Assessment Framework: Using Activity Theory to Understand, Evaluate, and Enhance Programmatic Assessment in Integrated Content and Language Learning

This article uses activity theory to analyse two different portfolio approaches as tools for programmatic assessment of Integrated Content and Language (ICL) programs. The two approaches include a) a model in which students construct portfolios by selecting artifacts from a range of different contexts and provide reflective commentary, and b) a model in which the portfolio consists of major textual artifacts produced across a design project, with no reflective component. Activity theory provides a tool to explore what these models can offer in terms of an assessment of the integration of content and language in disciplinary contexts, where texts serve to mediate the ongoing work of a discipline. By highlighting the work that texts do in context as well as the access to student meta-knowledge afforded by each portfolio, activity theory provides a means to understand the strengths and limitations of both models. Perhaps most importantly, it points to the need for portfolios to include well-designed reflections that can support both student learning and effective programmatic assessment

Syllabus: College of Natural Sciences, Junior Year Writing

CNS JYW is a multidisciplinary professional writing course. Every discipline comes complete with instructions on how to think, talk, and write in order to act like a member of that discipline and to recognize and comprehend others within that field. This writing course brings these distinctions to life by focusing on both formal and informal argumentative and technical writing for different genres and audiences. Writing intensive, the course presents the methods of inquiry, evidentiary procedures, genres, and text conventions that characterize the way scholars and professionals craft written texts. The course reinforces college-level vocabulary, critical analysis, and textual evidence and referencing strategies, and extends their application to specific concerns and practices within the disciplines encompassed by the College of Natural Sciences. To support students’ research and referencing, the course reinforces and extends technology and information-based literacies introduced in previously required writing courses

Developments in ESP: from register analysis to a genre-based and CLIL-based approach

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has developed in the last five decades in response to learners’ communicative needs in specific scientific fields and professional settings. Since its emergence in the 1960s the number of publications on ESP has spread both on a theoretical and practical basis, although the bulk of the research has focused on ESP pedagogy, syllabus, course design and classroom-based practice. The present paper aims to trace the evolution of ESP from the beginning of the movement in the mid-1960s to the present day. We will see that the major ESP developments are in consonance with developments in the fields of theoretical and applied linguistics.  In this light, four phases can be distinguished: (1) mid-1960 – early 1970s; (2) mid-1970s – mid-1980s; (3) mid-1980s – 1990s; (4) 2000–present. Another outstanding development in ESP is related to the predominance of the different ESP strands. While English for Science and Technology was dominant in early ESP, today English for Academic Purposes and Business English are the largest areas of activity

Some effects of system information in instructions for use

An experiment was carried out to investigate whether it is useful to add system information to procedural information in instructional text. It was assumed that readers of instructions construct both a procedural and a system mental model, and that the latter enables the readers to infer possible missing information in procedural instructions. Moreover, it was assumed that system information would increase the cognitive load during reading and practicing, and that it would affect the appreciation of the instructions as well as the self-efficacy of the reader. The participants in the experiment read instructions and practiced with a fictitious machine before performing a number of tasks and answering a questionnaire. The results indicate that system information increased the cognitive load during reading and decreased self-efficacy, while the instructional text with system information was judged as more difficult. The effect on performance is limited: system information leads to faster performance for correctly completed tasks