An Approach to Improving Communication Skills in a Laboratory Setting The Use of Writing Consultants Ronald A. Bailey Department of Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180 Cheryl Gekler Department of Language, Literature, and Communication. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12181 The communication skills of chemistry students, among others, are generally maintained to be deficient. ~ o s e n t h d refers t o 16 papers in this Journal1 between 1975 and 1987 that are coneeried with writing and the need for its improvement. At Rensselaer, concrete steps have been taken to address this problem a t the Institute level, and this paper describes how we have incorporated Institute requirements into our chemistrv . .oromam. The gist of the Institute's requirement is that aU students take two "writine intensive" courses, one of which is in the major. ~ c c o r d i n gto Institute guidelines, "a course in the maior becomes writine intensive by virtue of its success a t heiping students to uGderstand and master discipline- and profession-specific uses of writing as modes of thinking and communicating." In general, faculty, in writing intensive courses, are expected to provide students with more than two opportunities to write, to make this writing integral to the actual work of the course and relevant to students' writing in the giving of grades, and t o provide clear and consistent feedback and timely commentary to help students imnrove. As a means of supporting this approach, graduate students in the Deoartment of Laneuaee. " " . Literature. and Communication have been made available as "writing consultants" to students and faculty in these courses. Tmically these writing consultants begin by constructing a desiiiptive analvsis of the features of student performance on the first writing assignment and meeting with faculty to determine which of these features are appropriate or inappropriate for the specific field. The writing consultants then make these criteria available to students and use them to give students comments on drafts of major writing assignments. Students then revise their work and turn it in for evaluation by the denartment. -~ The chemistry laboratory program seemed t o us to be the loeical lace to stress communication throueh this writineintensive requirement. The chemistry ma&rs1 laboratory consists of a seouence of four lareelv integrated laboratow in which most courses in the sophomore and junior experiments extend over multiple periods. Some labs have been graded on the basis of aresults summary (sample calculations, answers to questions, brief discussion of specific points,etc.), while ochers have required written formal reports. We have felt that a small number of reports requiring significant effort could be given more attention b4 both students and faculty than could formal reports on every experiment. These reports are modeled on journal styles and are expected to focus on the chemistry of the experiment, not on the students' perception of its educational value. Faculty grading these reports have been concerned most ~~~~~
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strongly with correct chemistry hut have attempted to stress good writing and proper format as well. However, faculty have often felt uncomfortable in evaluating writing style (except for the most obvious faults), and sometimes experience the very real problem that, knowing what the student wanted to say, onecan easily believe t h a t he or she said it. Out of this two-year lab sequence, then, we selected the maior reports written bv students in the iunior vear (which covers predominantly analytical, inorganic, &d physical work) to provide a writing-intensive experience for our majors. In this manner, we hope to provide students with an opportunity to practice profession-specific uses of writing as required by the Institute guidelines. Guidance in report format is provided by material in the laboratory manual and by the faculty in the laboratory discussions. Four points are emphasized as necessary requirements for a scientific report: 1. It must be scientifically correct. 2. It must have a logical development and presentation. 3. It must have a good ~tyleof writing (grammar, spelling. and sentence structure). 4. It must have an appropriate format. Each report is t o be modeled on a specified journal format (J. Am. Chem. Soc., J. Phys. Chem., Inorg. Chem., and J. Org. Chem. are examples) to familiarize students with professional writing. Mechanical features such as setup of tables. f i m e s . and references are eiven attention: students have a k r p h s i n g amount of trouile putting these into the orover forms. We reauireadraft reoort to be reviewed bv the . writing consultant for style, format, and argument. In addition to considerine the usual aspects of mammar. sentence structure, etc., the writing consultant uses guidelines such as the followine eeneral set to sueeest -. to the student how reports can be-improved. Abstract State purpose or rationale for the experiment. State results. Depending on experiment, compare results to expected values. Experimental Provide an overview rather than aatep-hy-steplist. Show "eenerallv how somethine " is done. Avoid recipe-soundinginstructions ("Determine the weight"). State type of equipment used for the measurements. Cse first pereon pronoun ("1" or "we") if appropriate. Use the past tense C'we determined the weight"). Results and Discussion Use judgment in deciding what data to include. Label tables and figures and refer to them in the text. Mention any problems encountered with experiment or proceA
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' Rosenthal, L. C. J. Chem. Educ. 11987, 64, gQG998. 150
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Avord providing calculations in detail. Dlacusa negative reaults if necessary to understand the final results.
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Include comparison with literature results, theory, etc., as appropriate. References Refer to lab manual, the journal literature,or papers on reserve for more background information. Make style consistent with journal form. Overall Assume an audience with the same level of knowledge as you have hut who are unfamiliar with this particular experimental procedure. Write in the style of a paper to be submitted for publication.
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The writing consultant has no part in grading but provides comments on drafts, guidance in advance in laboratory discussion periods, and extra help during drafting for students who have special problems. Frequently the faculty grader will also review parts of the draft to ensure that no chemical misunderstandings are present. The reviewed draft is then revised and given to the faculty member for grading. Normally this sequence calls for the first draft one week after the experiment is completed, a week for the writing consultant to review it, and a further week for final revisions with the possibility of extensions for students with severe problems that require a second interim draft. When coupled kith the requirement of staggered experiments, scheduling is a major limitation to the number of reports that can be reouired. We do trv to insure. however. that all students -~~ complete their first"rnajor report within the first few weeks of the semester so that the later reports can benefit from the initial comments. Two or three such reports are written each semester. From the faculty grader's point of view, tbis approach allows the implementation of a draft report(a novel concept to many students) without requiring the faculty member to read the report twice. The final report will, in most cases, he free of gross compositional errors, and, although the grader must still pay attention to writing quality, more attention can be paid to the science that is presented. With the aid of the writing consultant we can point out significant differences between better and poorer writing as illustrated by the following abstracts written by two of our students.
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The strain energy of eyclopropane carboxylic acid, due to the eyclopropane ring, is to he determined theoretically in the bond enthalpy approach and experimentally through thennochemical measurements.The differencebetween the theoretical value and the experimental estimates, indicate the inadequacy of the bond enthalpy approach to predict enthalpies of formation and suhsequently, the strain energy, in cases of strained structures. The synthesis of cyclopropane carboxylic acid is to he accomplished intermethrough hydrolysis of the ethyleyelopropanecarhoxyI~te diate. Both of these compoundsare characterized by 'HNMR, IR, and gas chromatography (acid only). Decoupling of the ester's ethyl protons illustrates the importance and usefulness of this technique in interpreting complex spectra. Computer modeling of eyclopropaneearboxylic aeid is used to approximatestrain energy using molecular energies hased on molecular orbitals. The effects of the variation of coupling constants and chemical shifts are studied via a computer program that simulates 'HNMR spectra. Better
Strain energy of the carhon ring in eyclopropanecarhoxylic acid was determined by two methods. The first approach involved two calculations of the enthalpy of formation of the acid. The first formation enthalpy calculation ignored the acid's strain energy, the second enthalpy calculation accounted for the strain. The difference between the two enthalpies, the strain energy, was eslculated to he 49 KJImol. The second method of strain energy determination involved heats of combustion for cyclopropanecarboxylic acid and 1,4cyclohexanediearboxylic acid. (These values
were determined through oxidation of each aeid in a constant volume adiabatic calorimeter).Cyclohexanediearboxylic acid has twice the amount of identical bonds as cyclopropanecarboxylic acid, except for the C-C bond angles of the carbon ring. Therefore the strain energy of the three carbon ring acid is equal to the difference between one the ~ heat of combustion of the six -~-.-~ - half ~~ carbon ring acid and the heat of combustion of the cyclopropanecarboxylic acid. The strain energy determined by this method was evaluated as 81.84KJImol. The author of the poorer abstract writes as though the experiment had not vet been performed. Verb tenses are in th; future ("is to b; determined") and the results are not reported. The author of the better abstract, by contrast, places the actions in the past ("was determined") and reports the results of those actions (49 kJ/mol and 81.84 kJ/ mol). The better abstract. furthermore.. eives a more elobal view of the entire procedure in the opening sentence (''was determined bv two methods") and then uses the elobal view to organize &e rest of the abstract ("The firsi approach involved. . . . The second method. .involved. . . . '7. The poor ahstract is more listlike with no overarching structure. Even the poorer abstract has its merits, however. Unlike the better ahstract, i t mentions the theoretical significance of a discrepancy between the two measurements. The better abstractassu&es the reader will know why this difference is interesting. As this comparison indicates, we have learned that writing quality isoften not a matter of minor stylistic variations that are beyond our understanding but actually involve often significant omissions or inclusions that betray a student's inadeauate sense of self as scientist lone who has done an experiment and has something to report) or a n inadequate sense of soecific readers (readers who need a global overview want to be reminded of t h e significanceof the experiment but do not need a lesson on the first law of thermodynamics). In other words, these are problems that students are having understanding what it means to be a chemist. By incorporating a writing-cntensive component into our labs, we feel able to address these issues. Several problems do arise with this approach and, as we have obtained experience in addressing them, effectiveness seems to have improved. The first problem has been persuading many of our students that writing will he an important actiritv in their future careers and that it needs to be done well. 'fbis we have attempted to do by emphasizing the role of publications and reports in various aspects of realworld chemistry. I t bas helped to be able to quote some specific comments from former graduates concerning the importance of communication in their careers. A second problem initially was the attitude that a draft just meant extra work and why should writing count in a laboratory course anyhow. We have minimized tbis objection by makine eomnknication an exolicit seement of the course. as significant as any experiment, and carrying considerable weieht (about 20% in the first course and 30% in the second. alt
