The WA Program’s Engagement with STEM Students
This week, our group examined past inquiry projects related to WA practices within STEM disciplines. All of the group members are, ourselves, studying within the Natural Sciences at Swarthmore. Because we are positioned as both peer tutors in the writing center and students of scientific disciplines, we hold a unique perspective of the intersection of writing practice as it pertains to the sciences. Speaking from personal experience and conversations with our peers, there seems to be a general lack of awareness of the Writing Center among students in the Natural Sciences. It is unclear whether that is because their discipline often does not lend itself to writing assignments (i.e. some Computer Science or Mathematics courses with no official writing assignments) or because the students worry their WA will not hold the necessary disciplinary knowledge to be of service to their writing (for example, a non-science WA reviewing a high-level Biology lab report).
We kept this information in mind when deciding which inquiry projects to review, and found that all six projects we reviewed touched on one or more of these issues within the intersection of science and writing. In this post, we will summarize the findings of the reviewed inquiry projects, discuss their implications, and present possible next steps for the WA program and its engagement with STEM students.
Several Inquiry Projects addressed the now-defunct Intro Biology WAing practices. One, by Rachel Crane and Allison McKinnon in 2010, applied a “cognitive load” framework to biology WA-ing. This framework split the writer’s workload into “intrinsic” (disciplinary concepts), “germane” (skills needed to produce something, like writing or graphing), and “extraneous” (work done to understand what is being asked of the writer). They found that Biology conferences often served to address or mitigate the extraneous cognitive load caused by unclear lab manuals, and while this may or may not still be the case in Biology conferences, this framework can provide insight into why STEM majors sometimes claim WAs are not as helpful as feedback with a disciplinary specialist. A generalist WA can offer feedback that addresses the germane cognitive load across most social sciences and humanities disciplines – argument structure, clarity, flow, voice, etc. – and generally is not asked to address intrinsic load beyond the understanding they gain from the piece of writing itself. However, germane elements sometimes take different forms in STEM writing, as explored by the “Argumentation across Disciplines” IP. For example, Math asks for a linear progression of logic and Biology emphasizes an “hourglass” format.
Additional work or preparation may be helpful for WAs with a particular STEM designation. Perhaps in part because many people consider writing to be the domain of the humanities, STEM courses may not spend much time talking about the aesthetic considerations of the forms of their discipline. WAs might form groups around their STEM designations to discuss their discipline-specific concerns. They could do a sort of literature review, for instance, where they would pay particular attention to the form of the piece of literature from their field. If there were a professor or two in the discipline with an interest in discipline-specific writing, they could be useful partners in this process, perhaps choosing examples of good writing, or answering any questions held by WAs.
Another possibility is for the WA program to work with the peer tutor programs which already exist in STEM departments. Professors choose students for these programs who they trust to help other students, and so professors might be more attracted to a plan for the WA program to share some of our ideas with these existing resources, rather than developing another distinct way for students to get help.
If the Writing Center wants to engage writers in STEM disciplines, we need to make it clear when WAs do or do not have disciplinary knowledge and what they can offer the writer on a case by case basis. This could take the form of additional WCOnline designations, course WAs being briefed on disciplinary conventions, or some other form – but it is critical that writers in the sciences feel that their needs are being addressed during WA conferences, and that WAs feel equipped to offer relevant feedback in the discipline.