L. Lee Melhado' School of Chemical Sciences University of Illinois Urbana. IL 61801
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Chemical Composition Improving the writing and literature searching skills of students in the chemical sciences
The inability of undergraduates to write effectively has been lamented widely. In the fall of 1976,the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences a t the Urhana campus of the University of Illinois began to encourage unconventional, interdisciplinary solutions to the problem, among them, the establishment of required, upper-level composition courses taught within the context of each academic major. During the spring semester of 1978, the School of Chemical Sciences initiated a onesemester course, Chemistry 199, Technical Writing and the Chemical Literature, designed to improve the writing and literature searching skills of undergraduates majoring in chemistry, biochemistry, and chemical engineering. Although courses in technical writing and in using the chemical literature are individually quite common, the incorporation of these subjects into a single entity is unique. Technical Writing and the Chemical Literature is open to any undergraduate in the School of Chemical Sciences who has satisfied the freshman rhetoric requirement and who has completed two chemistry courses beyond the freshman level. Classes meet for two 1-hr sessions each week, except during the last four weeks of the semester, when students conduct computer searches of the literature and schedule individual conferences with the instructor to discuss progress on their term papers. Approximately one-half of the time in class is devoted to lectures and the other half to class discussion. Students completing the course earn three hours of credit. In the syllabus, equal weight is given to technical writing and to literature searching since instruction in the two areas is deemed equally important. Topics useful to students entering industry are included, since half of the undergraduates from the School of Chemical Sciences enter industry directly and since the majority of those who pursue graduate training enter industry later. Textbooks for the course include a grammar h a n d b o ~ k , ~ a summary of the principles of composition;% discussion of technical writing as it applies to the chemical sciences: and a guide to the chemical l i t e r a t u ~ eReading .~ assignments from these sources are supplemented by selections from other guides to the chemical literature, scientific articles from scholarly and popular journals, textbooks on technical writing, and commentaries on the use of language in the chemical sciences. Each of the 17 writing assignments forming the core of the course is related to a lecture or a reading assignment, and 15 of them require the use of the library. These assignments fall into five groups, discussed below. Six writing assignments are 1-2 page compositions requiring students to exercise specific literature searching skills to ohtain information that they subsequently present in writing. For example, after learning how to locate compounds in "Beilsteins Handhuch der Organischen Chemie" and how to obtain translations of scientific material, each student is asked to find all places in which an assigned compound is mentioned in Beilstein and to write one or two paragraphs based on these passages, describing the chemical and physical properties of the compound. Unlike the preceding example, most of these assignments ask the students to present the material in formats widely used in professional settings. In one assignment, for example, each student is asked to choose an article from a recent issue of Science, the Journal of the American
Chemical Society, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, or AIChE Journal and to write an orieinal abstract. Three of the writing assignments are related to an a 1 2 page term naner. In the middle of the tern. the students write a 1-2 page &posal in which they specify a topic. Several weeks later. thev orenare an outline and a tentative hihlioeraohv: .. . . . and, a t t h r n i o f the semester, they suhmit the final draft. Three writing assienmenrs are cc~mr)letedin class. hlwt of the tupirs assigned for in-class uritin:: do not require outside oreparatlm: those feu that rloare declared in advnnw. Inste3d bf testing factual knowledge, the in-class exercises provide an opportunity to practice writing in a spontaneous manner and a chance to demonstrate a working knowledge of selected references available during the in-class writing period. Twice durine the semester students are asked to revise previous assignments. These revisions require the students to examine their own writing critically and to pay close attention to the instructor's written comments. On the final examination students edit a 250-word comoosition written I),"smneone out.;ide the course. 'I'hwe assipnmenrs, "Chrmud .4bsrrans," "Pncenr~,".and "A C o m n ~ ~ t Srarch er ,,i the 1.irer:lture." ~. are short-an+wer assignments that require students to supply specific items (comnound names. molecular formulas. author's names. bibliographic citations, etc.) obtained byconsulting the in: dexes to Chemical Abstracts or the print-out from a computer search of the Bibliographic Retrieval Services data base. Althonzh these three exercises do not provide practice in writine, they-efficiently introduce students to-these importa& searching tools. The 17 students who completed the course were a heterogeneous group, broadly representative of undergraduates in the School of Chemical Sciences. The one common denominator within the class was a high level of motivation. Class discussions were lively; attendance averaged better than 95%; and despite the heavy load of homework, 13 of the students completed all 17 writing assignments, while the remaining four students finished all but one. The Instructor and Course Evaluation System forms administered a t the end of the semeder proierted n similarly pmirive rrsponse. Many st~l(ll:nts recornrnendwl the course t u thvir friends, rausing the Main Office of the School oiChrmlcal Srienrri t o rece:\,e an unprecedented num'ber of inquiries regarding the availability of the course in future semesters. As a result. Chemistw 199 was offered again as an elective, during the spring of 1979. An issue more imoortant than whether the students liked rhe cnurie and rump1ett:d the ilssig~lmenr.;i* whether thev learned ansrhinc trum theexoerienre. A l l d t h e s t l ~ d e n felt t~ that they had markedly enhanced their ability to use the ~~
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The author thanks Dean Roger K. Applehee and Professor Nelson J. Leonard for their enthusiastic support of this course. Hodges, J. C. and Whitten, M. E. "HarbraceCollege Handhook," 7th Ed., Harcourt, Brace and World, New York, 1972. Strunk,Jr., W. and White, E. B. "The Elements of Style,"Znd Ed., Maemillan, New York, 1972. A"IIandhaok for Authors," American Chemical Society, Wsshington, D.C., 1967. A new edition (1978)has appeared recently. Woodburn, H. M. "Using the Chemical Literature," Marcel Dekker, New York, 1974. Volume 57, Number 2,February 1980 / 127
chemical literature. This claim was corroborated by the chemistry librarians, who remarked that students from Chemistry 199were frequently observed assisting other library patrons. Many students in the class also stated that their newly acquired facility with the literature gave them a cornpetitive advantage in other technical courses. Whether students improved their writing skills is more difficult to judge
128 1 Journal of Chemical Education
ohjectively, hut a t least half the class made noticeable and consistent progress in this area. By explicitly relating writing skills to careers in the chemical sciences, Chemistry 199 enabled students to recognize the job-related consequences of their verhal deficiencies and the means through which they could he overcome.
