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Anne Morris Hooke 2003 Workshop on Improving Student Writing
Introduction For FacultyThe Center for Writing Excellence's Workshop on Student Writing has certainly made me think a lot more about the following short assignment and how I have spent a lot of time answering questions from the students. I hope the more elaborate design will take care of many of the questions and also give the students much better guidance for and understanding of the exercise. I am looking forward to testing it next semester. ANNE MORRIS HOOKE Communicating Science: Papers, Proposals, and Presentations
COURSE OBJECTIVES My aim in this course is to introduce students to the principles of effective communication in microbiology and to help them practice the various forms of communication required by the scientific endeavor. At the end of the semester the student should have a good grasp of the purpose and practice of different forms of scientific communication. Connections Between Writing Grant Proposals and Publishing Peer-Reviewed Papers
ASSIGNMENT Write two or three paragraphs about the connections between writing successful grant proposals and publishing peer-reviewed papers. Identify two or more common elements and how these might help connect the two activities. As always, you must pay attention to grammar, syntax and spelling! (A shoddily prepared proposal or manuscript will get short shrift from the reviewers.) The assignment will be due in class on Thursday, and is worth five points (2.5% of the total grade). If you should have any questions about this assignment, please do not hesitate to ask!
LEARNING OBJECTIVE The purpose of the assignment is to help the student understand the progression from (or “connection” between) the proposed experiments (described in the grant proposal, and based on a solid hypothesis formulated from previous observations or experimental results) to the final “product,” a publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
EXPECTATIONS (NOT FOR THE STUDENTS' EYES) From the point of view of a writing “instructor,” I hope the student will come to appreciate the utility of the exercise of putting one’s thoughts in order in a grant proposal, and that through the exercise of describing the proposed experiments more questions will present themselves, that the background information in the proposal will form the basis of the Introduction of the manuscript, that the description of the experimental details will likely end up as the Materials and Methods section, and that at least some of the Literature Cited can be recycled. |