Written 10/16/2016
Scientific articles are boring. Factual, dense, straight to the point, they are the opposite of the flowery, fantastical wonderings of fiction novels that delight readers. But what I have found is that to scientists, these articles are even more amazing than the best fiction novel. For fiction is magic within the confines of the pages, but articles? That’s magic in the real world around us right now. Reproducible, something anyone can eventually do. This is the story of a growing scientist, but also the story of a developing reader and writer. I write this paper to reconcile my identity as a writer and scientist, and for those facing the same uncertainties that haunt me today, be it my peers or my mentors. Using the humanities, specifically the concept of discourse communities as defined by Swales, I gain a deeper understanding of my entrance into science.
So how do I, a first year university student, someone who is fascinated by both the flexibility of the English language and the concrete power of scientific readings reconcile this crisis? Where do I go from here? To answer those questions, I will explore the discoveries of my past, as well as the stories of those who came before me.
“Don’t you want to go play during recess?” asked Mrs. Anderson, my 4th grade teacher. 10-year-old me plopped down on the mulch next to the swings and shook my head. I’d always been more interested in texts such as How to Train Your Dragon. It was a Harry Potter book during lunch, Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul during class, and whatever else in the free time I had at home.
Books, back then and now, have the ability to take me to different worlds, ones not governed by the laws that surrounded me. Beyond the fantastical stories of wizards and talking animals and supernatural phenomenon which stimulate the creativity and sense of wonder in our youth, they have the ability to educate, to change the minds of the stubborn, to give hope and faith to the weak. The ability to make a difference anywhere in the world, without actually being there. I look at the Holy Bible, the Quran, tomes that inspired years up years of believers and actions. I see Plato’s The Republic, The Communist Manifesto, affecting political and social ideals so long after their authors have gone. I feel the effects of The Feminine Mystique and the Origins of Species, which allow me, as a female, to study cutting edge Biology in school today. As a child and now, to gain mastery over language is one of my most coveted goals.
In middle school, I found something else that truly makes a difference in the world—the life sciences. Reminiscent of the fiction I had read, Biology was another world, cells and atoms that made up everything, only visible through the narrow lens of a microscope. I remember Dr. Larson taking out the petri dishes that 15-year-old me had cultured bacteria on. He handed me a UV pen, smiling congenially. “Good luck!” I excitedly returned to my table, turning off the lights on the way. Fumbling, I shined the ultraviolet rays onto my plate. It lit up, numerous clusters of neon green dots, reminding me of the stars in the sky. How something so massive in scale could be so similar to something so small continues to astonish me to this day. So fleeting, like ephemeral creatures that exist on another dimensional plane. This was a sort of sorcery that explained so much, that people could manipulate and change the real world. It could, quite literally, give a person wings, cure them of deadly illness, or make animals glow.
However, when I started reading scientific articles, the allure of Biology faded a little. It wasn’t anything like the books I used to read for pleasure. The language seemed cold and distant, factual and objective. To me, it was the opposite of everything I thought English stood for. Where were the rhetoric and persuasive techniques? Was this supposed to draw a reader in? Did I want spend the rest of my life in this community?
I felt, and still feel, a sense of urgency to find out what I wanted to dedicate my life toward. “What is your major? What do you want to do? What activities are you looking at? Where do you see yourself in ten years?” Taking my first steps on the University of Virginia campus, I was taken aback by the flurry of questions assaulting me from the Orientation Leader, my group members, and the advisor assigned to me. Facebook and my email ping incessantly with opportunities to go to some career/research fair or another, and interviews and volunteering appointments litter my calendar. Preparation is key, but how can you prepare for something you do not know?
As a new university student, I am still in this process that will probably not even near resolution in the years to come. Interning at laboratories and taking more in-depth classes, such as Neuroscience and Cell Biology, I struggle to make sense of the writings and experiences of scientists. Particularly, I agonize over how to understand their worldview.
One concept I have found useful in organizing my thoughts is a discourse community. John Swales describes what a discourse community is in his chapter “The Concept of Discourse Community” from the book Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Fittingly, or ironically, this idea to utilize discourse communities, a decidedly English idea, to analyze Biology struck me in my first year writing course. According to Swales, a discourse community must fulfill six criteria: common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among members, participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, the utilization of one or more genres, possession of specific lexis, and a threshold level of members with suitable expertise (221-222). By exploring these humanistic principles in the context of my own knowledge and of others, I can formulate a better understanding of the Biology community to help resolve the disparity that I and many of my peers see between language and science and what our place, as students and potential scientists, are in that schema.
First, what is the purpose of biologists? In the words of Robinson et al., “Biology is confronted with the need to answer fundamental questions about how life and natural systems evolve, are governed, and respond to changing environments…Biology must also apply new and existing knowledge to solve the pressing problems of our times…” I agree that whether basic or translational, biologists are aiming to produce research for the betterment of society. However, I would like to elaborate the “need” Robinson describes above. Scientists research to push the limits of the laws of nature and to sate their own curiosities. Writing is much the same. Why do writers write? They write to push against a standard, a certain belief. They write for themselves, as much as they do for others. Writing is freedom, the ability to put anything into words and explain to others. Similarly in Biology, there is a mindset that anything is possible. As Dhar et al. puts it, “While physicists have identified a number of laws related to mass, energy…the ‘laws’ known to biologists…are not absolute.” “The role of the scientist,” as Willadsen, the first man to clone a sheep, said “is to break the laws of nature (Kolata 134).” This attitude is reflected in each and every action in the Biology community, including the language they use itself.
This brings me to the next point in my exploration, the forms of intercommunication and participatory mechanisms to receive feedback among biologists. One form of intercommunication is emails, wherein scientists can clarify certain protocols and techniques, ask to collaborate on projects, or question a study’s methodology. From the scientists I have interacted with and in conducting my own research, this quick, informal mode of communication is vital. For those who believe writing in science is always stiff and remote, emails are a perfect place to show how scientists can be both respectful and show their passion for the task they have at hand. I remember my senior year in high school, working with lung cancer tissue. Spending over two hundred dollars on ten slices of tissue, I was suddenly hit with a realization – what type of lung cancer was this? The company didn’t know.
I dipped the slice in first, eosin, dripping its pale red shade. Next came hematoxylin, dark blue, overtaking the red and staining my fingers days after. After this H&E stain, my lab director and I sent the image to a pulmonologist researcher. A few snippets of the email chain included, “Can you please review the pics and tell if this is small cell lung cancer or another type. It is a biology project at TJ,” “This is not small cell carcinoma…The slide was dried out since it has not been cover-slipped – I did cover-slip it and hope you don’t mind,” and finally, “We are deeply grateful for your time and expertise (and coverslip). You are very kind to help future scientists despite what must be a very busy schedule (Cobb et al.).” From the reply of the pulmonologist researcher to the thanks from my lab director, each person’s own distinct personality and thoughts can be extracted. Notice the use of the slang “pics” and the humor regarding the coverslip, styles not associated with “scientific writing.” This is a form of writing hidden behind the scenes, but just as relevant and valuable as articles in the scientific community, showing the collaborative nature and personality of science involving the exchanges of knowledge and ideas through informal text. One could compare them to the letters of Ernest Hemingway or the Diary of Anne Frank, works of art in their own right.
Much related, another form of intercommunication is conferences, which are valuable in bringing researchers together, to hear the latest discoveries, to be able to criticize in person. Those in the humanities and other fields also hold conferences for much of the same reasons and can testify to their benefit. To quantify the value, in a study by Keystone Symposium, James Aiken, CEO, reports conferences save twenty to thirty million dollars in research funds by allocating information more efficiently. At an 18 months follow up questionnaire after attending multiple conferences, 68% of scientists agreed that an idea at one of these gatherings has changed the course of their research, and 63% affirmed that they had since collaborated with someone they had met there. This emphasizes the cooperative nature of science – no work truly is independent, and through intercommunication, time and money can be saved and greater progress gained. Through human interaction, speeches, and writings, a web that is constantly relaying information is spread all over the world. Gone are the stereotypes of a lone scientist working in the dimly lit lab. Without language, scientific progress would grind to a halt. It is the purpose of language to connect, share opinions, and improve the field. It is crucial for scientists to acknowledge the importance of writing, to integrate them together for findings to have their full impact. I have not been to a conference yet, but I eagerly look forward to the opportunity.
However, of all the forms of intercommunication and participation, articles are the most important, allowing scientists from all around the world to see what significant discoveries had been made in their respective disciplines. From journals like Nature to more obscure ones like the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, there is a place for any scientist to spread and disseminate their information to others interested in building off their work and learning more about it. To send an article to publication itself is a way to receive feedback about one’s work, with the editors and reviewers challenging certain parts and suggesting additions or follow up experiments.
Articles are awarded higher prestige and merit than other forms of dissemination, such as books, web blogs, and conference presentations, partly due to historical values, but also because of the nature of blind peer review (Thyer). As Steven Novella states, “…the process [in publishing a paper into a journal] is only as good as the editors and reviewers…” The fact that a paper is published in a journal indicates that the research has been tested and examined thoroughly, with the more highly ranked journals with the highest barriers of publication, with the most knowledgeable and qualified editors and reviewers.
However, some believe articles are granted too much weight in the scientific community. Editors and reviewers are human too, and they may make mistakes that allow incorrect or falsified information to be published. They also have biases, whether personal beliefs or conforming to a field-wide set mindset. However, I believe these so-called faults can be strengths. The purpose of English and language is to express ideas, biased or not, to display that trait that can only be distinctly human. Humanity, in essence, is not perfect. We don’t expect the views of the writers of our novels or political views to necessarily be rigid and completely factual based, but instead a reflection of the author and current trends of society as they morph and keep us going further. Why should science be any different? Nonetheless, with all this in mind, publishing articles using blind peer review generally works and has no doubt propelled the scientific community forward.
From this, I can see that every word, every figure in an article is meaningful, a message the authors and editors are trying to send. Can I see the different personalities within a single paper? Can I see the context and effort and thought processes that went into it? Poring over articles upon articles in high school, in laboratories, and continuing now into college, slowly I have found they are starting to grow on me.
“Can a cell function without the Sedlin protein?” my Cell Biology professor asks on a homework problem. Line by line, I go over the notes from the lecture. Nothing is conclusive. Frustrated, I Google online. To my surprise, the function of Sedlin was published in a paper just a few years ago. I felt success bubble up – this article will give me all the answers I needed. And strangely enough, I was excited to know how they discovered the protein and its function, and what they thought was the potential for their study. I pause. When did I start looking forward to reading articles? When did they transform from impenetrable fortresses of text to hidden treasure chests of knowledge?
Indeed, the technical lexis, an aspect of the “fortresses” I mentioned before, is another high barrier of entry into the Biology community. Even within the broad field of Biology, there are many subcategories that could be argued to be discourse communities within themselves, as distinguished by different specific focuses and varied lexis. For many students, I included, the lack of mastery of the vocabulary, abbreviations, and different style of writing renders us immobilized, unable to comprehend the deeper nuances of an article and the author(s) behind it, describing them instead as objective and shallow, guarded by seemingly nonsensical words. However, as analyzed before through the goals of biologists and forms of interaction between them, each article requires context to understand their greater value in the grand scheme. Indeed, behind the words, once you understand them at least, of every article is a personality and motivation. Though writing articles may seem tedious and boring, each one reflects excitement and advancement while relaying the author’s opinions and the scientific details behind experiments.
Thus, to enter the Biology discourse community, it requires a high level of expertise and concentration, often conferred as a PhD degree. One must show that they have mastered the language of science, the art of conveying and exchanging ideas utilizing the various genres available. The most important benchmark, as generally agreed upon, is that those with more article in more reputable journals are considered more accepted, more professional, and more respected. Not only for the scientific discoveries they have made, but also how they explained it to others and how they convey the potential their finding has for the future of the entire field, if not the world. To achieve such, that would no doubt require using English language in its utmost capacity.
I set out to explore whether Biology and language can be reconciled – rather, the fact that scientific writings seem devoid of subjective thoughts and styles and how it clashed with the trait of English writing to express imaginative ideas and detail the nuances. Though the words used are not the most emotional or expressive, and the phrasing typically not as elegant or flamboyant, one too can pick out the author’s context and biases from the subtle cues in any article. Really, the writers of articles are human, and keeping that in the back of my mind, I can see the person behind every complicated title and report, weaving together a tale to convince and show others that something truly miraculous has occurred. Using the style of an English reader/writer, examining the discourses, the languages, within the Biology community, I have come another step closer to understanding the science of Biology. Truly, a scientific article can be like a fantasy fiction novel come to life.
I find that Biology possesses much of the same characteristics as the books I so admired. They too freed me of the laws that bound me, and through them, I can make actual, physical change in the bodies and minds of others. Scientific discoveries also affect the entire world – a breakthrough, a new invention, or even just another piece of information propelled the entire community forward. Together, with the power of words to influence and show others and biology to advance the world, it is an unstoppable combination.
Students should not let the overwhelming feeling of scientific texts deter them from their interests in science. Articles should not be feared or dreaded, but rather taken as an opportunity to learn something never seen before. Writing them, too, does not necessarily dictate the need for complete objectivity and process-following. Imagine them as stories to convince others of the significance of your work for the good of humanity. Take your experiences to weave a persuading narrative of your experiment.
With every passing science class and experiment, I find myself drawn further into the biological discourse community. Language is used to make change. So is Biology. I can mix these passions together to excel in the Biology field. Though I focused on articles in this essay, I would also like to say there are other types of scientific writings, such as newspaper columns, magazine articles, narrative books, and even secondary review articles that are written in a style more accessible to the public. It is not a binary of either dry Biology or creative writing, but rather, a mix of a little of the fantastical with the facts that allow biologists to collaborate and push the limits of themselves, each other, and nature.
Author’s Note:
I wrote this work for my first writing project in my English writing class. However, I wanted to write a paper detailing my own experiences as a writer and relating that to my passion to the scientific community. I know many of my peers face the same questions that I addressed in the paper that continue to plague me today, and I hoped that my writing would not only consolidate my thoughts, but also help clarify the thoughts of those in a similar position as me, whether they are my current peers or those who have been in science for a while. I found that I could reconcile my identities as a writer and scientist, and I wanted to show that it is possible to be able to love both writing and science and that they are actually integral to each other in the broader scheme.
I tried to keep my tone casual yet academic, lending a more personal feeling that would allow my readers to relate while addressing the important issues at hand. I can see my work being in a student publication, whether in a newspaper or an online blog, and also possibly associated with a journal that wants to encourage more students to enter research and to promote a more diverse mindset. I took inspiration from the passages I read in my English writing class, some more narrative (such as Villaneuva’s excerpt from Bootstraps and Emily Strasser’s essay on “Writing What Matters: A Student’s Struggle to Bridge the Academic Professional Divide”) and others more formal (such as Swales’s “The Concept of a Discourse Community” that heavily inspired this essay).
This paper originally consisted of fragments from a few different prompts that I put together, and building off that basis, finally became the work it is now, a combination of narrative and logical arguments, similar to the dichotomy I talked about in my piece. I feel that I could elaborate on portions, and I am not sure if some paragraphs fit into the point I was trying to make. I ask my readers this – what else would be valuable to know from my experiences or the experiences of others? Would more citations and backup evidence aid in proving my point? Otherwise, were there parts that seemed superfluous? Have you has any experiences that were similar that you feel I could incorporate as a concept? Overall, this is a work in progress, and I would appreciate any feedback.
Works Cited
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Cobb, Andrea, Andrea Tse, Haresh Mani, and Shahzad Ahmad. “Photos of Lung Cancer Tissue.” Message to the author. 11 Mar. 2016. E-mail.
Dhar, Pawan K., and Alessandro Giuliani. “Laws of Biology: Why so Few?” Systems and Synthetic Biology 4.1 (2009): 7-13. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
Kolata, Gina Bari. “Breaking the Laws of Nature.” Clone: The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead. New York: W. Morrow, 1998. 134-57. Print.
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Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Comp. Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 215-29. Print.
Thyer, Bruce A. “The Importance of Journal Articles.” Preparing Research Articles (2008): 1-12. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
