Course Descriptions

This course provides a rigorous analysis of scientific writing on the sentence and paragraph level. Students will master basic principles of effective science writing, both through analyzing previously published scientific writing and through applying these principles in their own writing. Students will be developing a short research proposal throughout the course on a topic of their choice. The goal is to practice these principles in their own writing, culminating in a small portfolio of their revised work produced in this class. Frequent instructor feedback will give students numerous opportunities to further hone their writing skills.

This course provides students with a comprehensive overview of the process of writing for scholarly journals, focusing on the IMRD (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion) format commonly used for empirical work. Students will read and analyze articles from a variety of journals, focusing on both form and content of research articles, case studies, meta-analyses, and book reviews. Students will apply the course content to their own writing throughout the course, culminating in a portfolio of their revised work based on extensive instructor feedback. Students can use their existing research to produce the various writing assignments during the course and use this as an opportunity to work on submitting an article for publication. 

This course is designed to support students in developing basic proficiencies in communicating with cross-disciplinary and diverse public audiences and tell compelling stories about science and research. Students will read and critique various styles and genres of science communication and public engagement for diverse public audiences, including plain language summaries of scientific publications, opinion editorials, magazine and newspaper articles, blog entries, excerpts from popular science books, video content, podcasts, social media, and other digital communication. An emphasis will be placed on learning specific strategies of science communication that leads to accessible and engaging science communication, as well as on how to build a case for why scientific research matters to researchers in other fields and to non-career scientists. In addition, students will learn to identify and practice effective communication strategies to engage and communicate with diverse public audiences. The course provides students ample opportunities to practice various strategies, revise their communication products and strategies based on feedback, and to provide feedback to their peers. At the end of the course, students will have created communication products for diverse public audiences that are ready to submit for publication.

This introductory course is designed to help students develop basic competencies in the grant application process for a broad range of funding agencies. Students select a project that needs funding from a pool of already prepared projects. They then research public and private funding agencies and will evaluate the objectives of these agencies. Students describe the potential grantee to highlight past achievements and to demonstrate expertise, and describe how the proposed project will be executed and what the expected outcomes will be. Students will read and critique examples of effective and flawed grant applications, and will identify key characteristics of a clear and compelling proposal. Students prepare writing products for several crucial components of a grant application. They are also introduced to the technical aspects of grant writing, such as communicating through graphics, and generating and justifying a budget. Students write a complete grant application in this course, and develop the basic skills to assist in grant preparation with their peers or workplace organizations.