193 W22 Mehlenbacher

Activities and Assignments

Weighting

Report: State of Science

30%

Grant Proposal: Crowdfunding your Research

25%

Public Communication: Oral Presentation

25%

Poster Presentation

20%

Total

100%

Week / Date

Topic / Activities

Readings / Due

1 / January 5

– 16

Genres of Science Communication: In the first week, we will discuss science as a social enterprise and the idea of genre in rhetorical studies. You will be introduced to this concept through a series of examples of genres in science communication, from popular genres such as TED talks about science to professional genres such as the research article. Putting this into practice, we will look at and/or discuss your resumés as an example of a genre, and then explore how genres actually function together (e.g., the

Readings: P&K, Ch. 1 (p.

2); ARM, Ch. 1

(p. 18).

Review syllabus, course objectives, assignments.

cover letter and resumé responds to the job call, and

connects to an interview).

2 / January

17 – 23

Argumentation—Collecting your Evidence: Arrangement is one of the core concepts in rhetoric, and builds on our discussion of genre. Arrangement of an argument helps you understand how to stage your ideas. We will discuss how to anticipate the information your audience will need, what information they will already have, and how you can build the argument you need to make with respect to your anticipated audience. We further explore how to situate an argument in a particular genre. Specifically, we investigate how to 1) situate one’s argument in a current research conversation, and 2) how to frame evidence, such as data. How data are collected, analyzed, and shared are critical to scientific communication (as shown in the article your chose for your State of Science Report).

Readings: P&K, Ch. 2 (p. 21); The

importance of stupidity in scientific research.

Due: Short 120- word bio.

3 / January

24 – 30

Library and Research: A learning module created by your Science Liaison Librarian addresses the topic of critical appraisal, the process of systematically evaluating information to judge it’s trustworthiness, value, and relevance in a particular context. The learning module will also describe research expectations and bias within the academic context and uses a sample article on the topic of wearable fitness trackers as a focal point to help you practice using the RADAR framework for evaluation. This will also be a great opportunity to connect you with science librarians and to familiarize you with Davis Centre Library

for your research needs.

Readings: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper; Check for publication integrity before misconduct.

4 / January

31 – February

6

The Skills Identification and Articulation Workshop helps you identify the skills you are developing throughout your undergraduate career. After completing this workshop, you will become better able to recognize your skills and develop strategies for expressing these to target audiences (e.g., to potential employers in job interviews). The workshop was developed and will be facilitated by a Career Advisor from the Centre for Career Action. It has been tailored to this course, so as to help you gain a deeper understanding of how class activities and concepts can be applied in various employment and professional contexts. If you are actively pursuing the EDGE certificate, or wish to pursue the program in the future, you will receive a milestone for

participation in the workshop.

Readings: P&K, Ch. 4 (p.

74); ARM, Ch.

3 (p. 82);

Infographic: How to read a scientific paper; Swales CARS model.

Due: Abstract.

5 / February

7 – 13

Research Reports—State of Science: With the conceptual frameworks established to understand that there are different

kinds of writing in the sciences (i.e., genres), particular

Readings: P&K, Ch. 5 (p.

107).

strategies to make an effective and logical argument (i.e., arrangement), and particular forms of evidence expected to support a situated argument (i.e., evidence), we will now focus on putting this together in a particular genre of science communication: the research report. To do this, we will explore linguist John Swales’ work on the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRaD) model, and his Create a Research Space (CARS) model. These two models give us a way to map the typical form of a research report or a research article in the sciences, and it applies to both physical and life sciences. IMRaD describes the form of an overall report or article, and CARS is a set of moves found in introductory sections (establish a territory for the research, a gap in the research, and then explain how you’re going to address the gap).

Wishing you all a Happy International Women and Girls in Science Day, Feb. 11: https://www.womeninscienceday.org/

Due: Fighting misinformation.

6 / February

14 – 20

Grant Proposals—Crowdfunding your Research: Increasingly research doesn’t happen without securing external funds. This week explores the task of writing a grant application. Introducing the concept of a grant, how different kinds of grants function in the Canadian academy, and what grants students can actually apply for (e.g., NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards), this week is a crash course in grant writing. Crowdfunding proposals will serve as an exciting and accessible example. Experiment.com is a rich resource for students to find examples tailored to science, and all the basic elements one might find in a traditional proposal are included in crowdfunding proposals, such as budgets, biographies, and, of course, the proposal itself. Using crowdfunding also allows, and demands, we talk about the kind of audience one might have for a proposal (it is an academic multidisciplinary panel, as in traditional grants, or a complex ground of academic and publics giving us their own money, as in crowdfunding. How do we write differently for those audiences?

Readings: P&K, Ch. 7 (p.

143); ARM, Ch.

2 (p. 46);

Secrets to writing a winning grant.

Due: State of Science Report.

7 / February

21 – 27

Mid-Term Reading Week.

8 / February

28 – March 6

Scientific Visuals and Visualization: Visuals and visualization are another mode of communication that is crucial to scientific research. We will explore the different

ways that visuals can operate across genres of science

Readings: SciComLab; SciCom-Lab;

Science by

communication. As well, we will explore issues of data

visualization and anticipate questions of ethical concerns in addition to readability and clarity.

stealth;

Photoshopping science.

9 / March 7

– 13

Public Communication of Science: While many opinions exist on how we communicate science to publics, we’re going to throw a lot of them out since they often rely on the so-called deficit model. This model assumes a deficit of knowledge on the behalf of your audience (the public). If you could just fill them up with the correct knowledge— presto!— they think just like you. No longer do anti-vaccine proponents debate you, no longer is there a push to “teach the controversy,” and who would even dream of suggesting the Earth is flat? The problem with the deficit model of science communication, particularly in controversial cases, is that the point of contention isn’t agreed upon. Throwing data at the controversy just doesn’t work. What works will depend, and we’ll talk about tools to help you better engage in communication of both controversial and non- controversial science with broad publics. And, if you’re wondering just what the heck "publics" means, this is lesson #1: you have a lot of different public groups with different views, needs, etc., so understanding their complexity lets you understand your actual audience. We’ll take up Jeanne Fahnestock’s important work on “accommodating” science for different publics, and look at some other strategies for thinking about science in public discourse and debate.

Readings: P&K, Ch. 8 (p.

162); ARM, Ch.

4 (p. 107); Need for effective science communication; Science communication, digital media, and the human voice; What it takes to give a great presentation.

Due: Crowdfunding proposal.

10 / March 14 – 20

Public Engagement—Oral Presentations: Everyone will present on their research articles to a public audience. You can find details in the assignment descriptions, but the real trick here is to focus on engaging your audience. You love science: let them know it and invite them to join you.

Readings: P&K, Ch. 6 (p.

123); Science’s Next Frontier? It’s Civic Engagement; Scistarter; Zooniverse.

Due: Presentation Outlines and

Overheads.

11 / March 21 – 27

Ethics in Communication: How we communicate to participants in research, how we communicate research findings, and how we choose (or choose not to) involve ourselves as experts in public debate all involve ethical decisions. Researchers at every level take most seriously the

way we inform participants about their involvement in our

Readings: P&K, Ch. 3 (p.

44); Death of Expertise; Science

communication

work: we often talk about informed consent—the obvious communication challenge here being certain we are, indeed, informing our participants accurately. How we communicate research findings is also an ethical matter in that we must do so accurately, transparently, and within the norms of our discipline. WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, And Democratic) in human-focused sciences, replication problems across disciplines, and the rise of registered reports (a kind of proposal you write for a research journal before you have even run your study, let alone written the article) are all marks of ongoing ethical engagements by scientists at the level of our research design and, importantly for your communication practices, reporting. And, perhaps most obviously, when do scientists weigh in and on what topics? Senior scientists often taken on civic debate; e.g., Carl Sagan to Neil deGrasse Tyson to our own Chris Hadfield and Governor General, Her Excellency the Right Honourable—and, don’t forget, astronaut, engineer, and scientific communicator who has made numerous radio spots—Julie Payette. Sometimes the engagement is about a specific science-based civic matter, such as the Flint Water crisis where Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards, an expert in water supply safety and “whistleblowers,” stepped in to aid citizens in their battle for clean water.

in the digital age; Call for Justice Based Ethics.

12 / March 28 – April 3

Research Conference—Poster Presentations: You’ll be presenting the research you have learned about over the course of the term in the form of a conference poster. The point here isn’t, of course, to present your own research, but to present the research of the paper you’ve studied all term. You’ll have prepared your poster and now is your chance to explain (in a prepared “script”) your complex research

findings in a short elevator pitch.

Due: Poster Presentaton.

13 /  April 4

– 5

Course Wrap-up and Student Evaluations: Summary of the

term’s content, assignments, and your contributions. Plans for the summer!

Student

Evaluations reminder.