I so appreciated this post! I teach writing, and I want my students to have a variety of tools in their writing toolbox - but I have a hard time persuading students to experiment with active voice or first person if they are in the sciences, despite the many resources I'll use to show why these can be effective choices.
I've used the Helen Sword book for years; thank you for the other recommendations. I'll be ordering your books.
I hope you will be willing to share a follow-up with how this exercise has worked with first and second year students! I've not done LLM-reflection work with them as my observation is their reading fluency isn't high enough to notice the differences; I'm still trying to ensure all of them are able to summarize and paraphrase accurately.
I agree, I work to help students learn scientific writing. The biggest issue is trying to teach students scientific writing, and there aren't many resources.
The lack of resources for *teaching* scientific writing (as opposed to actually writing) is what let Bethann and me to write 'Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences' That book, in part, pulls together a LOT of resources that are out there - but that are hard for us as scientists to find and to put to work. We hope folks will find that useful!
Great piece - my favorite line ("borderline unreadable but very publishable")!
I so appreciated this post! I teach writing, and I want my students to have a variety of tools in their writing toolbox - but I have a hard time persuading students to experiment with active voice or first person if they are in the sciences, despite the many resources I'll use to show why these can be effective choices.
I've used the Helen Sword book for years; thank you for the other recommendations. I'll be ordering your books.
I hope you will be willing to share a follow-up with how this exercise has worked with first and second year students! I've not done LLM-reflection work with them as my observation is their reading fluency isn't high enough to notice the differences; I'm still trying to ensure all of them are able to summarize and paraphrase accurately.
I agree, I work to help students learn scientific writing. The biggest issue is trying to teach students scientific writing, and there aren't many resources.
The lack of resources for *teaching* scientific writing (as opposed to actually writing) is what let Bethann and me to write 'Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences' That book, in part, pulls together a LOT of resources that are out there - but that are hard for us as scientists to find and to put to work. We hope folks will find that useful!