193 F21 Uher

ENGL 193 Communication in the Sciences (Physical) Fall 2021 Online

University of Waterloo English Language and Literature

Instructor Information

Instructor: Valerie Uher

Office Hours: Tuesday 11-12; or, by appointment

Email: vuher@uwaterloo.ca

Please contact me with any course-related questions, or use the Ask the Instructor forum. I will respond within 24 hours, Monday-Friday. For technical support or problems with Waterloo LEARN, write learnhelp@uwaterloo.ca

Territorial Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishnaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, land promised and given to Six Nations, which includes six miles on each side of the Grand River.

Course Description

In this online, asynchronous course you will learn about effective written, oral, and visual communication in the physical 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, and public talks. 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, you should be able to:

• Design, draft, and persuasively deliver scientific communications to expert and nonexpert audiences;
• Justify decisions about 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 purposed and ethical concerns of science communication.

Readings Available on LEARN

There are two course textbooks available for this course, and they can both be downloaded for free. They are:

1. Writing in the Sciences: Exploring Conventions of Scientific Discourse, Third Edition(2010) by Ann M. Penrose and Steven B. Katz, which we will refer to as P&K
2. Science Communication Online: Engaging Experts and Publics on the Internet(2019) by Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher, which we will refer to as ARM

Course Requirements and Assessment

In this course, a passing grade is 50%. You will need to complete the following assignments and activities. Assignments will be submitted and feedback will be provided through LEARN.

There will be no final exam for this course Assessment Overview

Much of this course is premised on the fact that in order to study and work in the field of science, you need to become a science communicator. What does that mean? It means that this course will train you to write and speak about your scientific work to a variety of audiences. How will we do that? We will learn to write and speak about science first by observation of other science communicators, whose writing and speaking we will analyse, with the ultimate purpose of emulating it. These 3 steps will form the basis of our course: observe, analyse, emulate. An important part of the course will be the consideration of audience: are you speaking to other experts or the public? We will also consider the ethics of science communication and the role of the scientist in society.

This course is online and asynchronous, which means we will not have too much practice speaking to each other, but we will have abundant chances to practice writing. To become good at something, you have to practice it regularly; therefore, writing about scientific ideas and how science is communicated will be something that we do on a weekly basis. You will also produce a few recorded spoken exercises, including a presentation, which will provide you with practice performing spoken science communication.

Assessment Details

In this course, you will choose an article from an approved list, which you will work on throughout the term. If you wish to work on an article of your choosing, you may propose one to me and with my approval, work on it (it must be published in the last 2 years). The article you choose will form the basis for all of your assignments except the discussion board posts. The discussion posts and assignments will be based on required readings. Short lectures may be posted to explain important topics and assignments.

N.B. All lectures (if any) will be posted by 5:00 PM on the Monday of each week. All video lectures will be shared via WebEx, so please get an account so that you can access the lectures.

Discussion Board Posts – 25%

Each week, there will be required readings and sometimes short lectures, which you are expected to read and/or watch. Go to the module for each week for detailed instructions on each week’s readings, discussion posts and assignments. There will also be peer-editing tasks required, as well. All of these weekly tasks will be described in detail in the weekly modules of the course on LEARN. These posts are graded for completion: you must answer the question and write the required word-count to receive full marks. Discussion board posts are due by 11:59 EST on the Friday of each week. Late posts will receive a grade of 0.

Assignment 1: Article Abstract and Reflection – 15%

Length: 350-400 words

Due: October 1, 11:59 PM EST

This assignment is comprised of two parts: an article abstract and a reflection on your article. The purpose of this assignment is to understand your article, how it is organized, and why it might be significant.

Because your article will form the basis of all the assignments you complete in this class, it is important to understand it inside and out. Your abstract should demonstrate your understanding of the IMRaD and CARS models. Your reflection provides you with an opportunity to begin thinking about the significance of your article and how you might communicate that to other audiences in assignments 2-4.

Assignment 2: Grant Proposal: Crowdfunding your Research – 20%

Length: 800-1000 words

Due: October 22, 11:59 PM EST

In order to conduct research as a scientist, it has become more and more important to secure external funding. In order to get that funding, you need to convince organizations and the public of the importance of your research. For this assignment, you will produce a crowdfunding proposal similar to the one you will analyze in Week 5 from Experiment.com. Importantly, you must create your proposal on the same topic as the article you chose for your article analysis.

Your crowdfunding proposal must have the same section headings that typical crowdfunding proposals have (see Experiment.com + P&K, Ch. 7 and ARM, Ch. 2). The budget numbers are estimations, of course, and you will have to change the tense of the proposal because you are proposing future work. In other words, you will imagine that the research from your article is your own, and that it is completely new, innovative and deserving of funding. It is also important that your writing is not overly technical:

you are writing to both scientists and the general public, and they need to know why your research is vital to invest in. In the overview section of your proposal, you must utilize the 3 CARS moves to explain the significance of your project (establish a territory, establish a niche, occupy the niche). See the full assignment description on LEARN for more details.

Assignment 3: Oral Communication: Present your Grant Proposal – 20%

November 12, 11:59 PM EST

In order to work as a scientist and throughout your academic career at UW, you will need to make presentations. For this assignment, you will produce a 5-7 minute presentation, where you will present the crowdfunding proposal you submitted for Assignment 2. Importantly, you must create your presentation on the same topic as the crowdfunding proposal.

How you produce your video presentation is up to you. If available, you can produce a PowerPoint slide presentation which has a voice recording capability. Alternately, you can record voice and video through WebEx, which is supported through UW LEARN. See the full assignment description on LEARN for more details

Assignment 4: Poster Presentation – 20%

December 3, 11:59 PM EST

Science students are often asked to produce posters that explain their research. These posters are shared at annual conferences, where students and scientists present and explain the findings of their research.

Posters contain all kinds of information, but almost always have written and visual components (often representing data) and are explained through oral communication. Therefore, posters are fully multimodal forms of science communication and require all the skills you have learned this term about audience, clarity and genre.

For this assignment, you will produce a science poster and a short script, where you explain your poster. Your poster will again be based on your original article, but will tackle just one aspect of your article, not the whole thing. Choose a step, aim, issue or apparatus that you find particularly interesting and engaging which you can explain using your poster. Model your poster on the ones we analyze in class, as well as the tips and suggestions we will read about in P & K and other website and articles

Course Outline

Course and Department Policies Late Work

Please note that you will be required to abide by assignment deadlines and that your assignments are always due by 11:59pm EST on the date specified.

I will accept late work if an extension is requested 48 hours before the submission deadline. You do not have to provide proof, or explain the reason, but you do have to tell me 48 hours in advance and we will agree on a new deadline. All late assignments without extensions will receive a deduction of 2% a day. Please contact me if you need an extension!

Mental Health Support

Your mental health is extremely important, and we all will need mental health support at some point in our lives. University can be especially challenging, and it’s important to seek out support. Please reach out to Campus Wellness to access resources, counselling and support.

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 helpline for post-secondary students. Phone: 1-866-925-5454
• Grand River Hospital: Emergency care for mental health crisis. Phone: 519-749-4300 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 on 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

University Policies

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

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.