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Marin S. Robinson,
marin.robinson@nau.edu, Department of Chemistry, Northern Arizona
University, Box 5698, Building 20, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5698 and
Fredricka L. Stoller, Department of English, Northern Arizona
University.
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| Writing is the primary means of communicating
chemistry, but writing skills are often neglected in the chemistry
curriculum. To reverse this trend, we have developed instructional
materials (targeting the journal article, poster, and research proposal)
to help chemistry faculty teach their students to write. The materials
have been piloted at 16 institutions and used or reviewed by over 300
students and 40 faculty. The materials will culminate in a textbook,
Write Like a Chemist, under contract with Oxford University Press
for publication in 2008. As a result of this project, we have learned a
great deal about challenges students face as they first try to
communicate their science. For this presentation, we will distill those
challenges into a “ten to watch” list, spanning issues of audience,
organization, and writing conventions. Related instructional activities
will be shared, focusing on those most easily integrated into existing
upper-division or graduate chemistry courses. |