Technical Writing in the Undergraduate Curriculum Allan R. Burkett' Division of Natural Science, Dillard University, New Orleans, LA 70122 Susan B. Dunkle Carnegie Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
One of the major problems with traditional undergraduate instruction in chemistrv is that students can successfully complete the curriculum and not know how to write a technical paper or report. A major complaint from industry is that the novice chemist is unable to write clearly and precisely. This is unfortunate because professional chemists at all levels, both in and out of industry, are required to write all the time. The need to write research reports, technical articles, proposals, dissertations, procedures, and memos requires that the aspiring chemist be an effective writer. Reasons for Writing Deficiencies There are two reasons why undergraduate chemistry majors have difficulty with technical writing. Initially, the problem lies with the failure of chemistrv instructors to recognize the - - - ~ limitations of the traditional freshman composition course. Writine" assienments in freshman English often revolve around the composition of the essay, a writing style rarely ~ u r s u e dbv the graduate in orofessional life ( I ) . The second reason for writing deficiencies lies in the willingness of chemistry faculty to accept poorly written assignments. There is no reinforcement of the few skills developed in the traditional composition course, hecause faculty tend to overlook substandard prose as long as the technical information is accurate (2). ~~
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Common Deficiencies The authors' experiences in teaching technical writing to undergraduate chemistry and engineering majors have revealed five major areas where students encounter difficulties. Surprisingly, many of these problems can he ameloriated without an undue burden on faculty time.
Literature Search With the wealth of scientific literature available to students, i t is amazing how ooorlv.literature searches are conducted. The reason for this is, however, easy to understand: no one has ever shown students how to search for technical information in the library. Students are overwhelmed by the many materials available, and with no ulan of attack, thev become hopelessly confused. There a;e several approaches to this orohlem. Handouts can he prepared outlining the use of pri( 3 ) and mary and secondary sourc& ~ e d i presentations a monographs can he placed in the library and called to the students' attention (4).Additionally, the students can he directed to any of several articles that have appeared in THIS JOURNAL ( 5 ) . Plagiarism Perhaps one of the most frequent, hut unintentional, errors of student writers is plagiarism. A major difficulty seems to he that students are unaware that copying whole paragraphs verbatim, even when footnoted, is a serious crime. A solution to this problem comes in teaching students how to take notes and how to paraphrase (6). Students must be taught to resist 1
Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed.
the easy temptation of copying from reference books verbatim. If students are taught to take notes by compressing ideas and then to turn those notes into prose, they fall less easily into the trap of plagiarism. An approach which provides practice in ~arauhrasinehas been used with success hv one of the authors (ARB). &dents are required to paraphrase each exoeriment in their laboratorv notebooks: these Dara~hrasesare ihen evaluated by the instiuctor at the end oE the'lahoratory exercise. Organization We have found that students have little sense of how to organize reports. Most novice writers resort to chronological accounts of their investigations because they are unaware that other organizational options are available. The first task in teaching organization is to teach students to define purpose, that is, to state why they are writing a particular report. Answers to this question reveal an important distinction that students must he taught to make. At first students will say ". . . because I have to." when asked to take the question more seriously, students will respond that they are writing to analyze a compound, to test a solvent, or to determine the viscosity of an oil sample. At this point, we explain that they have now defined their technical task-why they were doing the research-but not why they were writing the report. Additional probing gets them to suggest that their purpose in writing is to describe the results of their analyses, to recommend the use of a s~ecificsolvent, or to Drove that a varticular brand of oil has a specified viscosity. Only when our students see the distinction between technical task (what thev were asked to do in the lab) and rhetorical task (why they are writing the report) can we address the problem of organization. Once our students have learned to define rhetorical ouroose, we can teach them to organize in terms of their purpose'. We ask them first to consider whether thev are trving.to . persuade, i.e., to convince their readers to accept a soluiion to a problem or a choice among alternatives, or to inform, i.e., explain the details of an investigation or the steps of a process. We then show them that different purposes require that their information be organized in different ways. A handout of various organization patterns is useful (7). Students must learn nut to fit their material to a prescribed format but rather to develop a format suitable for their material and purpose. Synthesis The students' next steo is to think ahout all the information gathered, correlate points of similarity, and synthesize the information into a coherent form. A good sense of rhetorical purpose aids students by helping them to decide what to keep, what to discard, what to emohasize, and what to d e - e m ~ h a size. However, it does not fully help them to digest andsynthesize all their information. They can still fall prey to what Andrews calls the "xerox fallacy" (8).This means that the ease with which inYormation can be photocopied allows students to take home information in a briefcase rather than in their heads. As a result, many final reports are cluttered with irrelevant facts. Volume 60
Number 6 June 1983
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writing are a major part of the writing process and deserving of time and effort. Students do not realize that even if everything else is done well, failure to rewrite can seriously compromise the quality of the final report.
the school paper and campus calendar. peer and facultv referrals); (2jakively pursue involvement with students-and facultv of technical courses: (3) performs needs analvsis (evaluates reports and discusses pbssihilities of integrating writing instruction into courses); and (4) proposes remedies (designs a personal program of study, a planned set of assignments, a specific component for a course, or a presentation of writing principles to a group).
The Role of Technical Facultv Faculty members can address the writing problems their students encounter in several wavs. The most important is simply to refuse to accept inferior work. An instruct& can read a report in a few minutes; if thereport is unacceptable, it can w r k ..rneiI ~ tt, the ,tt~de~ir h r :I re.visi that the instructor set deadlines far enough in advance sb that students have the opportunity to rework their submissions. Another method, peer-review,requires no faculty time and has been effective in improving performance (9). Cross-disciplinary approaches are used at a number of universities. At Carneaie-Mellon University, our approach is to make com-
Conclusion We recognize that most technical faculty cannot teach their students to write. They have little time for such an endeavor, they are not rewarded professionally for doing so, and they are not trained to do so. They can, however, he concerned about the writing skills of their students, concerned enough to refuse to accept poorly written reports and to provide students with several options to improve their writing skills. These options might include using peer tutors or having students read one another's reports, referring students to a writing center for tutoring, or setting aside one or two lectures for writing instruction and inviting a technical writer or writing instructor to teach in the classroom. Literature Cited
staffed with a technical writing consultant, to workcooperatively with engineering faculty. Through curriculum intervention, we (1)reinforce the skills of engineering students who have had a writing course, (2) guarantee that students who have not had a writing course receive some formal instruction in writing, and (3) show technical faculty support for, and emphasize the importance of, effective communication skills. In practical terms, the Writing Center operates like an industrial consulting firm. In this model, (1)the Center announces its services (to faculty through memos, faculty meetings, and personal contacts; to students through ads in
470
Journal of Chemical Education
...., ."... (3) Delks. "A Guide t o Chemical Abstrarts,"d. Huley Ass., 1977. (4) Woodbum. "Using Chemical Literature,"MarcelDekker. Inc, New Ymk. 1974. Mellcm. "Chemical Pohlicutions,"4th Ed.. McGrow-Hill Book Company, New York, 1965.
(5) Puwel1,and Schlessinger. J. CHEM. EDUC.. 48.688 (lY71):Drum. and P0pe.d. CHEM. EDUC., 56, 388 (1979): Kirk, J. CHEMEDUC., 56. 592 (1979): Melhadn, J. CHEM., FDUC.,57, 127 (1980). (6) van Luenen. "Handbook for Schnlnrf." Alfred A. Knopf, New Ymk, 1979, P. 48. 17) Bnmner, Mathcr, and Stevenson have an excellent chvytcr describing the mriour or^ gmirationr1 patterns in their t e x t "The Technician ss writer," Babbs~Merrill company, i n c , Indiunapolii, 19x0. 164 (1975). 18) Andrews,TeachingWritingin theClhi~~oum,EnginvaiingEducol~on, (9) Maimon. E.P.. er al., "Writing in the Art sand Sciences," Windthrop Publiaherr, Camhridgr, MA. 1981.
