193 F20 Hancock

ENGL 193: Communication in the Physical Sciences Fall Term, 2020 Section 051 English Language and Literature University of Waterloo

Instructor Information:

Instructor: Dr. Michael Hancock

Office: my dining room table

Office Hours: 04:00 pm – 5:00 pm T Th on Zoom, and by appointment

Email: m3hancoc@uwaterloo.ca (please put the course name ENGL 193 in your email subject lines)

Course Description

In this course you will learn about effective written, oral, and visual communication in the life sciences. You will have the opportunity to shape these communication skills through iterative design processes that emphasize attention to your audience, the purpose of your communications, and student agency. You will work individually and collaboratively to craft messages for internal and external audiences, including scientists, government stakeholders, affected communities, or broader publics. You will learn a variety of genres such as research reports, grant proposals, conference abstracts, conference posters, public talks, blog posts, and podcasts. Overall, this course will help you enhance your capacity to conduct research and report research findings, communicate ethically, and thereby effect important change.

Course Goals and Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

• design, draft, and persuasively deliver scientific communications to expert and non-expert audiences;
• justify decisions about the language, content, and genre used when communicating scientific information;
• practice collaboration and peer review in support of iterative communication design processes, including revision;
• practice research processes to find, assess, document, incorporate, and cite research resources and communicate research findings;
• describe and appraise the purposes and ethical concerns of science communication. This term in particular is going to be challenging.  With COVID-19 necessitating the need for online courses, our connections to each other become more tenuous, and more easily frayed. It's going to take discipline to stay on track in the weeks ahead. I'm committed to doing what I can to help. If you feel like you're falling behind, or that you're overwhelmed with the material, please contact me. We'll figure out what works best for you.

Required Reading

Penrose, Ann M., and Steven B. Katz.  Writing in the Sciences: Exploring Conventions of Scientific Discourse. 3^rd edition.  2020: Open Access Version. (Available online) 

Other readings will also be made available on LEARN.

Course Assignments and Requirements

General Course Format

As an online course, we don't have the same sort of strict schedule an in-person class demands, and we should use that flexibility. At the same time, some degree of structure can help create a regular routine of participation. To that end, I'm going to aim for posting new lectures each Tuesday and Thursday and you have until  a week following that lecture to post your thoughts on the readings and exercises in the discussion board. More information regarding the assignments will be posted as their respective due dates approach. The course is designed to be primarily asynchronous—that is, we won't have a mandatory “live” component. That said, if students would prefer synchronous discussion and activities, I'd be open to moving in that direction.

Guidelines for Contributions

This course centres on your contributions, and you will be asked to contribute in three primary ways: responses to the course readings, peer review posting and responding, and responses to the course exercises.

Each week, you're responsible  for composing one post that gives your thoughts on the reading for the week, and one post in response to one of the exercises in the lectures,  as well as at least two responses to other students' posts. In weeks  with peer review, you will be required to post your draft within a group of students, and comment on other students' drafts.

Your posts in response to exercises should answer the questions the exercise poses. Your post responding to a reading should accomplish three goals:

• First, you should demonstrate that you have done the reading.
• Second, you should comment on something you found interesting about the reading (comparing with other works you're familiar with, or applying the reading to another text are good options)
• Third, at the end of the post, you must post at least one (and you can do more) questions for others to answer. These questions should  invite people to respond in an interesting manner, and creativity is encouraged. (ie—more than “what do you think about the reading?”) The reading responses should be a minimum of 250 words.

Note; Participation as above is the basic requirement of the class and if your posts are not reaching this standard, I wil lcheck in with you and let you know how to bring up your contributions. Stronger participation involves asking thoughtful questions, thinking deeply and writing deeply in ways that are modeled by the readings, referring to prior material in the week, bringing in contemporary examples/current events that add to understanding, and any number actions that indicate you are are actively engaging with the material and trying to understand and learn from it. Late posts will be accepted for the exercises and responses, but not the peer review; repeated late posts will downgrade your participation grade accordingly.

Grading Participation

90-100 Excellent: With few, if any, exceptions, the student is making frequent, substantive, useful and original contributions to class discussion boards (minimum four posts a week; two posts in response to exercises, and two responses to the posts of other students); the student is consistently engaged and participating, and contributes to all peer review activities. Student may miss no weeks.

80-89 Good: the student is a regular contributor to discussion boards;(minimum of two posts in response to exercises, and one post in response to the posts of other students); the student is consistently engaged, and contributes to all peer review  activities. Student may miss no weeks. 70-79         Satisfactory: The student demonstrates occasional contributions and inconsistent engagement (minimum  of two posts per week). Student may miss no more than 1 week.

60-69 Acceptable: Minimal contributions and/or significant lack of engagement (minimum of one post per week). Student may miss no more than 2 weeks.

< 60 Minimal: repeated disruptive, inappropriate or unethical behaviour; behaviour disrespectful to others; consistent  lack of commitment and/or effort (on average, posting less than once per week). Student must  participate at least 6 weeks to qualify for above 50%.

Assignment Descriptions

For your assignments, the basic principle behind them is called scaffolding. What that means is that many of them are related to each other; finding the information to complete one will give you a structure, or scaffold , you can draw on for the next assignment.   The benefit of this approach is that it reinforces a basic principle of scientific writing: the various genres of scientific writing are closely related, and the skills you develop  for one genre carry over to others. The  potential  drawback is  that if you fall behind in one assignment, you need work extra hard to avoid falling behind in others. That drawback is why you should contact me as soon as possible if you think you need assistance with a

particular assignment.

Summary (10%)

Before you can write your own scientific articles, you need to be able to read existing articles.  In particular, you need to be able to practice active reading, which requires familiarity with the genre you're reading, and familiarity with the practice of skimming and summarizing. In this first assignment, you will demonstrate your active reading skills by summarizing a scientific article of your own choosing.

Annotated Bibliography (20%)

The annotated bibliography is the intermediary step between a summary and a larger article. It's a tool that researchers of all fields, from the sciences to the humanities, use to determine  how existing research relates to their own. The annotated bibliography consists of four bibliographic entries, each with their own description (the annotation). The entries themselves should be formatted in AIP (American Institute of Phyics) style, and placed in alphabetical order in accordance to first author; at least three entries should be scholarly sources written for a scholarly audience. The annotations  should include at least four pieces of information:  the context for the text, such as the intended audience and journal or book it appears in;  a brief summary of the paper's findings;  the relevance of the text for your overall project; and  its relation to other texts you are investigating.

State of Science Article (25%)

Your next assignment will be to write a report on the state of a particular phenomenon in science and how it is currently being represented in both the scholarly field and the public sphere. This assignment will let you trace the origins of science and understand how that is translated and changed to present that information to the publics. It takes what you've learned previously, and expands outwards.

Using your annotated bibliography,  select two popular non-scholarly accompaniments which also discuss that particular scientific phenomenon. Use the CARS model of introductions to frame your research. You may structure your piece either as a more traditional academic essay or an IMRAD-report style piece. Analyze your  texts in a cohesive argument as follows:

1. Science content (how true/accurate is the science in each publication)
2. How the science is framed (what are we supposed to see the raw content as? Pay attention to language, metaphor, and imagery for each text)
3. Critical analysis: what does the content mean and how does it reach that meaning? What should the framing in question 2 be seen as? Relate to wider issues and debates.

Group presentation/poster (25%)

Being able to read and write scientific papers is an important part of a scientist's career. Increasingly, however, in terms of creating large-scale change, it's also important to be able to speak to audiences outside of academia.  Faculty outside of the  sciences, politicians, the general public and other groups also have a stake in your research, and a stake in deciding your funding.  To that end, you need to be able to write for multiple audiences.  In short, the group presentation and poster focuses on Public Understanding of Science.  Working in groups of three or four (chosen by me), you are  to choose a science-related topic , and each present for three minutes on some aspect of that topic that may be of interest to the general public. (Example:  the topic could be the colonization of Mars, and aspects may include long-term survival, flight planning, and resource extraction.) Ideally, this topic will relate to at least one of your scientific articles, so you may draw on that material. Some negotiation may be required to find a topic that suits everyone; I'd be happy to assist with that endeavour.

Schedule (Updated schedule with readings will be added at later date)

Course Policies

Course policies are essentially based on respectful communication and setting clear expectations. If something about the course, be it an assignment or policy, is not clear to you please write me and we will sort the issue. Please  take the time to read  the syllabus and the assignments carefully and ask me questions if you’re not sure about something. A syllabus functions as a kind of contract between instructor and student, but more importantly it is a resource and connects you to resources both in the course and at the university. I want to make this course as useful to you as possible, and that means—as is always the case in technical communication—clearly communicating our expectations of each other and making sure everyone is on the same page.

Accessibility Statement

Students may also wish to register with the AccessAbility Services office, located on the first floor of the Needles Hall extension (NH 1401). AccessAbility Services collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require  academic accommodations, please register with AccessAbility Services at the beginning of each academic term.

Mental Health Support

All of us need a support system. The faculty and staff in Arts encourage students to seek out mental health supports if they are needed. And I can personally attest to their value; in my own time as student at UW, I found counselling services and other resources to be extremely helpful.

On Campus

• Counselling Services:  counselling.services@uwaterloo.ca / 519-888-4567 ext 32655
• MATES:  one-to-one peer support program offered by Federation of Students (FEDS) and Counselling Services
• Health Services Emergency service: located across the creek form Student Life Centre

Off campus, 24/7

• Good2Talk:  Free confidential help line for post-secondary students. Phone: 1-866-925-5454
• Grand River Hospital: Emergency care for mental health crisis. Phone: 519-749-433 ext. 6880
• Here 24/7: Mental Health and Crisis Service Team. Phone: 1-844-437-3247
• OK2BME: set of support services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning teens in Waterloo.  Phone: 519-884-0000 extension 213

Full details can be found online at the Faculty of ARTS website

Download UWaterloo and regional mental health resources (PDF)

Download the WatSafe app to your phone to quickly access mental health support information

Emergencies and Absences

In the event of a major campus emergency, course requirements, deadlines and grading percentages are subject to changes that may be necessitated by a revised semester calendar or other circumstances beyond the instructor’s control. Relevant changes to this course will be posted onto the course website or can be obtained by contacting the instructor via email. You are expected to read your @uwaterloo.ca email on a frequent basis. Personal emergencies should be communicated to me as soon as possible, but attend first to you and your family’s well-being. Whatever happens to be your particular situation is not my business and all I need to know is there was a medical emergency. You do not need to provide any details. For extended absences I would like a note from a doctor, but again no details about why you were away ever need to be provided in these notes and you do not need to disclose the reason to me.

Grade Concerns and Incompletes

Should your grades concern you then you must speak with me within the first 3/4 of the term; the last quarter of the term will not provide sufficient time to markedly improve your final grade. If you have concerns about completing your term please write to me as soon as possible.

Missed or Late Work

Late assignments will be penalized at 2% per school day. If you know you will need an extension, speak with me at least 48 hours prior to the due date. Extensions for group assignments are much more difficult to manage than for individual projects, so please  think ahead. (In general, I try to be very generous with extensions, especially under current conditions, so please take them if needed.)

Academic Honesty

All work in this course should be original. Any material that you paraphrase or quote must be cited according to an accepted style format (in this course, that will generally be . Overciting will not be penalized and, in fact, I’m always happy to see you’re doing research. If you’re not sure if you should cite something, go ahead and cite it. We can chat about it later, but when in doubt give credit. Remember you want to give credit for words and ideas.

Academic Integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. See the Office of Academic Integrity webpage for more information.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 – Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

Grievances and Appeals Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance. Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 - Student Appeals.

The Writing and Communication Centre

The Writing and Communication Centre works with students as they develop their ideas, draft, and revise. Writing and Communication Specialists offer one-on-one support in planning assignments, synthesizing and citing research, organizing papers and reports, designing presentations and eportfolios, and revising for clarity and coherence.

You can make multiple appointments throughout the term, or drop in at the Library for quick questions or feedback. To book a 50-minute appointment and to see drop-in hours, visit

www.uwaterloo.ca/writingand-communication-centre. Group appointments for team-based projects, presentations, and papers are also available.

 Please note that communication specialists guide you to see your work as readers would. They can teach you revising skills and strategies, but will not change or correct your work for you. Please bring hard copies of your assignment instructions and any notes or drafts to your appointment.

Territorial Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that we are living and working on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (also known as Neutral), Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes 10 kilometres on each side of the Grand River.

For more information about the purpose of territorial acknowledgements, please see the CAUT Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory (PDF)

Syllabus Acknowledgement

This syllabus  draws on elements from a number of different syllabi composed by scholars in the Waterloo English Department, including  Dr Megan Selinger, Dr George Lamont, Dr Brad Mehlenbacher, Dr Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Hannah Watts, Dr. Ashley  Rose Mehlenbacher, and Dr Andrea Jonahs.