ABSTRACT

Students' writing skills develop with their reading skills.Here I provide a five-step approach to reading a paper,and four criteria (the "four C": content, clarity, coherence,and craft) to structure writing and revising of amanuscript. I used these in a sophomore course on platetectonics. In the first part of the course students read andsummarized original papers, while in the second partthey synthesized a contentious or recently resolvedissue. Both parts stressed the importance of revisingdrafts. During the course, feedback on drafts andrevisions shifted from comments by the instructor tocomments by peers. An assessment of the course fromstudent evaluations, colleague feedback, and WritingCenter comments, indicates that students' writing didimprove. Students acknowledge that careful readinghelps them become better writers.

INTRODUCTION

College educators place more and more emphasis onstudents developing writing skills (e.g., Davis, 1993), andso do students (e.g., Light, 2001). In the Earth Sciences,this need has given rise to new methods of writingassessment (e.g., "argumentation analysis model"; Takaoet al., 2002) and new courses (e.g., "Geocommunication";Lewis and Wolf, 2003). However, good writing can onlydevelop in conjunction with careful reading.

Gopen and Swan (1990) dissect writing samplesfrom the readers' point of view. They show how readersexpect information to be conveyed through certaingrammatical structures. They also argue that"dysfunctional structure" may be traced to the writer'sthoughts being clouded, leading to misintepretations onthe readers' part. In Gopen and Swan's words: "it mayseem obvious that a scientific document is incompletewithout the interpretation of the writer; it may not be soobvious that the document cannot 'exist' without theintepretation of each reader" (Gopen and Swan, 1990, pg.558). If we accept this proposition, then we have toconclude that helping students write more proficientlycannot be accomplished without also teaching them readmore effectively.

In this paper my central argument is that criticalreading is the foundation to meaningful writing. In fact,reading and writing advance together. I will show how Iimplemented these two aspects of scientific discourse ina sophomore level course on plate tectonics. I think thatthe tools used are applicable to other courses.

STEPS TO WRITING A SCIENTIFIC PAPER

The goal of scientific writing is to convey informationwhich often is extracted from papers. Reading istherefore a necessary first step, and showing studentshow to read critically will in turn show them how towrite successfully. Equally important is revising of adraft; luckily, similar criteria can help in writing and inrevising a paper.

Reading - Unlike reading a novel for pleasure, reading ascientific paper is aimed at understanding concepts andanswering questions. My handout (Table 1) providesstudents with a framework for this task, from quicklyskimming a paper to carefully summarizing it. Studentsrealize with the help of this handout that most readershave specific questions in mind. They acknowledge thatmost readers will scan a paper before deciding to eitherread it in detail, or focus on certain sections, or not read itfurther. They realize that certain elements (title, abstract,conclusions, topic sentences, figure captions) are crucialto make this decision. They thus gain insights that willhelp them with their own writing. Having extractedinformation and structured it in point form or asdiagram/concept map (e.g., Englebrecht et al., 2005, andreferences therein) they are ready to proceed to the nextstep.

Writing: the "four C" - Jewelers grade diamonds andother gemstones using "four C": carat, clarity, colour, andcut. Students and instructors can evaluate scientificwriting using similar "four C": content, clarity,coherence, and craft (see Table 2). Content characterizesthe information of a text. Clarity is obtained by carefullychoosing words (expecially strong verbs, see Mahrer,2001b) and aligning the meaning of a sentence with itsgrammatical sequence (Mahrer, 2001a). Coherence isestablished by logical flow of information, howsentences are linked into paragraphs, and transitions(Mahrer, 2001c; 2001d; 2005). Craft, often calledmechanics (see, e.g., Colorado College, 2005), includespunctuation, spelling, and grammar. The "four C" allowstudents to structure the writing process. For example, aflow chart, concept map or list of information obtainedthrough careful reading can be sorted into a logical - thatis coherent - progression, and strong words can beextracted from this compilation for maximum clarity.

Revising - This step "might be considered the mostimportant stage of the whole writing process" (Leahy,2002, pg. 52). Unfortunately, students commonlyunderestimate time and effort needed to advance theirpreliminary draft to a readable manuscript. The "four C"can help them, because they can break up the revision ofa draft into four logical passes, each focussing on one C.On purpose I avoid distinction between revising andediting; the first typically means changing content, whilethe second is synonymous with working on craft.Coherence and clarity are left out in this distinction, orrather are implicit in the term revising. The "four C"allow for a more guided approach, prompt students to bemore specific, and emphasise writing with a reader inmind.

To clarify the usefulness of the "four C" in revising, Iprovide an example. Here is the first draft of a summary(Jacoby, 2001; see Table 3) a student brought to class:

Alfred Wegener forms a working hypothesis ofcontinents and ocean basins in "The origin of thecontinents" (1912). He dismisses the old theory of

Bank - Reading and Writing in a Course on Plate Tectonics 25

Reading and Writing Taught in a Sophomore Course on PlateTectonicsCarl-Georg Bank Department of Geology, University of Toronto, Earth Sciences Center, 22

Russell Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B1, Canada, bank@geology.utoronto.ca

vertical movement of land connections in favor ofa new theory of horizontal movement ofcontinents in oceanic crust (continental drift). Tosupport his argument, Wegener presentsgeophysical and geological evidence, historicalgeology, and calculations of present movementfrom astronomical observations. Wegenersuggests that seafloor rocks are denser than thecontinents, explaining their lower elevations.Gravity measurements confirm this, as there is no anomaly as would be expected if the seafloorwere the same density and thickness ascontinental crust. [...] Wegener argues that the"sima", or ocean-floor rock, is more plastic thanthe "sial", or continental rock, thus making itpossible for continental rafts to "drift" though theseafloor. [...] Finally, Wegener performedcalculations based on historical latitude-longituereadings and concluded that continents drift at arate of about 4 km/yr. Wegener concludes bynoting that this is only a working hypothesis andrequires further testing and rigorous calculations.

In small group discussions, followed by a plenarysession, the class noted the following:

content - 4 km should be 4 m; what do you mean by"historical latitude-longitude readings";

clarity - sentences are repetitive (most subjects are"Wegener"); which are key words?

coherence - second sentence would make for a bettertopic sentence; how can you show threads moreobviously?

craft - few obvious flaws (second to last sentenceswitches to past tense)

The student then submitted the following revisedversion:

Wegener dismisses the old theory of verticalmovement of land connections in favor of a newhypothesis of horizontal movement of continentsthrough oceanic crust (continental drift). Thecontinental drift hypothesis is supported bygeophysical, geological, and paleobiologicalevidence, as well as by calculations of presentcontinental drift rates from astronomicalobservations. Gravity measurements suggest thatseafloor rock is denser than continental rock,explaining its lower elevation. If the ocean-floorrock is also more plastic than the continental rock,it is possible for thicker, lighter continental "rafts"to "drift" through the thinner, denser seafloor. [...]Finally, repeated astronomical positioning showthat Europe and Greenland are currentlyseparating at a rate of about 4 m/yr. However,Wegener cautions that continental drift is only aworking hypothesis which requires furthertesting and more rigorous calculations to becomea theory.

I think this revision flows better because it conforms tothe "four C".

THE COURSE

"Plate Tectonics" was taught at the sophomore level. Thisis a critical point in the training of future Earth scientists,now students begin reading primary literature anddeveloping their scientific writing skills. I tought thecourse twice at Colorado College, which is renowned forits block-plan teaching in which only one subject istaught in a 3-and-1/2 week unit. An advantage of thiswas that I was able to freely schedule time and takestudents off-campus; an advantage of a semester-long

26 Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 54, n. 1, January, 2006, p. 25-30

Table 1. Paper-review strategies.

course would be that students can put drafts aside for awhile.

My stated course objectives were:

At the end of this course, students will be able to:(1) explain the evidence that supports the plate tectonic

theory,(2) describe current thoughts and unexplained

problems,(3) critically read and evaulate a scientiric paper, and(4) present scientific thoughts orally and in writing.

The first part of the course (10 sessions) was devotedto reading and summarizing papers. These were chosenfor their wide range in topics and writing styles, thecomplete list is shown in Table 3. The earliest paper(Wegener, 1912; in a thoughtful translation from Germaninto English by Jacobi, 2001) is suprising for the wealth ofarguments given in support of continental drift, many ofwhich are often not attributed to Wegener. Several of thefollowing papers were published in the 1960's, whenarguments in favour of the plate-tectonic theory wereproposed in rapid succession. More recent papers werenoticeable for their clear organization: they start with anabstract and are divided into sections marked byheadings. Students noticed how such structuring of apaper helped them find key arguments.

At our first meeting, students were handed a copy ofthe papers and a handout on strategies for paper review(Table 1). Each of the following sessions was devoted toone or two papers, and modeled the paper-reviewstrategies. A student might read aloud the topicsentences (step 1: skim). Students would discuss howthis paper relates to the course topic and whatinformation they found essential (step 2: reflect). Mystated role was that of a facilitator, that is I would guidetheir inquiry through questioning, referring them to key

paragraphs, and having them rephrase each others'thoughts. However, I sometimes had to explainimportant concepts. For example, Muttoni et al. (2001,see Table 3) tightly word the "paleomagnetism" sectionwith an expert readership in mind; students cannotunderstand this section without prior knowledge ofpaleomagnetic methodology like field tests,demagnetization techniques, and paleopoles. In somecases I asked students to analyse a key paragraph inmore detail, underline subjects, verbs, or topics anddetermine whether these conveyed key information(step 3: re-read, and step 4: critique). Accompanyingstudents' discussion of the paper, we would create adiagram on the blackboard (step 5: summarize). Sessionsalso included discussions of writing issues (Table 2),complemented by papers like Gopen and Swan (1990)and the column "Writer's Block" by Kenneth Mahrerpublished from 1998 to the present in "The LeadingEdge".

Students wrote a one-paragraph summary of thepaper as a homework assignment, to be handed in at thenext session. After that session, I would go over eachsummary, point out flaws in the argumentation as wellas problems in the organization, and give somesuggestions for improvement. We would also discussstudent summaries in class. Students then resubmittedtheir summaries. In some cases I would ask for a secondrevision, or suggest the student take it to the WritingCenter for language editing. Thus each paper wassubmitted two or three times. This process was timeconsuming for students and myself. The small class sizeallowed me to give feedback on drafts and revisions.Students become more aware of flaws in the structureonce they are more comfortable with the content. If theyare able to place the original and the final versions of asummary side by side they have an immediate sense ofaccomplishment.

While revising their writing, students may realizethat they have "misread" an important concept. Thisdemonstrates how reading and writing developtogether. The written summary can be regarded as a testof how well the student has read a paper. At the sametime, the act of writing will sharpen the student'sawareness of structures used by good writers to guidethe reader. By discussing a draft with an individualstudent or with the class, an instructor can drawattention to dysfunctional structures and demonstratehow they may lead to misinterpretations. Becausestudents also take the roles of active readers, they sensethe necessity of writing with the reader in mind.

At this time students entered the second part of thecourse, in which they had to prepare and present areview on an issue that is either contentious or has onlyrecently been solved. Clearly, this required them to notonly present information, but to synthesise maybeopposing viewpoints from different papers. I developeda selection of topics (e.g., mantle convection, formation ofcrust, intraplate deformation, true polar wander,interactions between tectonics and climate, plate-drivingforces, absolute plate velocities) in consultation withcolleagues. Guidelines on how to structure a paper, thepurpose of different parts (title, introduction,conclusion), and how to reference were handed tostudents together with a few papers to start theirresearch. Students were required to find more papers inthe library and from databases. With an outline of howthey would like to present their findings they had to meetme to ensure there were neither misconceptions nor

Bank - Reading and Writing in a Course on Plate Tectonics 27

Table 2. The “four C” of (scientific) writing.

omissions in their outline. During an off-campusworkshop a few days later they presented their topic tothe class followed by a discussion. This ensured thatstudents had a good grasp of the material, could conveythe content to their peers, and gave them a chance tomend any uncertainties. For the abstract I directed themto the paper by Landes (1951). Manuscripts were thensubmitted to me, and students engaged in a peer-reviewprocess similar to the one described by Lewis and Wolf(2003). I guided the review by handing each student twopapers to review and providing specific questions (Table4) that I modeled after an actual review sheet from the"Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences". These questionspoint to typical problems and provided criteria formarking each paper. By critically reading each other'spapers, peers were learning about an unknown topic. Icollected the reviews, and before returning them, I askedstudents to complete these statements:

(1) What I like about my paper.(2) I think the following still needs work.(3) What I learned about the writing process and myselfas writer.

This reflection served two purposes. First, it forcedthe students to evaluate their own paper. Often students'self-evaluation is remarkably honest and valuable, and

self-evaluation is an important skill (Fenwick andParsons, 2001). Second, it helped me to grade the papers,because I could briefly comment on the reflectionwithout having to write those comments myself (Leahy,2002). In order for students to submit revisedmanuscripts for grading, I provided them with anelectronic paper template they had to follow. Thecollection of papers was then "published" in a "specialvolume". Course grades were based on evaluations of thefinal papers, grades for the revised summaries, andfeedback to peers.

ROLE OF THE WRITING CENTER

The Writing Center plays an important role in helpingstudents acquire the skills they need to write a coherentpaper. Yet, I think the assistance of the Writing Centercan easily be overestimated. Many instructors, for lack oftime, will direct students early to the center for help. AtColorado College (and I assume this to be true at manyinstitutions), most staff and volunteers at the WritingCenter have majored or are majoring in languages orarts. They are not experts in the course topic and thuscannot be expected to provide content editing, let alonehelp students with the reading process that preceeds anywriting. However, they can spot obvious language errorsand give valuable feedback during a late revision step,

28 Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 54, n. 1, January, 2006, p. 25-30

Table 3. Reading list for first part of Plate Tectonics course.

once the student has understood the topic and isstruggling with fine-tuning grammar and structure. Inaddition, for the Writing Center to be of most benefit tothe student seeking help, instuctors need to allow thestudents sufficient time to revise their paper beforeheading to the center. Therefore, instructors have to bevery clear about what role the Writing Center shouldplay in their courses.

EVALUATION

In this section I present anecdotal evidence fromstudents, colleagues, and Writing Center staff that thecourse was effective.

Students could assess their own progress bycomparing draft and final version of summaries andpapers which they kept in a writing portfolio. In theirwritten course evaluations, they commented positivelyon most aspects of the course. Negative comments werelimited to "harsh grading". Here are some of theirremarks: "I think the emphasis on writing and use ofpapers with often opposing views forces more criticalthinking than a text-based course." "I really liked thewriting workshop/discussion format and found it veryhelpful. The handouts on technical writing were great,and I felt that I got a good overview of plate tectonicsfrom the journal readings. I wish I could have taken thiscourse earlier, and I think most geo majors would benefitfrom serious instruction on scientific writing." "I wouldrather learn than work on writing, but more work onwriting was good for me." The evaluation asked studentsto name one key aspect about writing that they learned

and will not forget: "Be concise, connect sentencestogether." "Putting new, complex ideas at the end of asentence." "Have others edit my work!" "Peer reviewingis extremely valuable." I think all these comments showthat my course objective of improved ability to criticallyread and evaluate a scientific paper was met.Furthermore, students valued reading as an importantskill, and pushed themselves to become better writers.They recognized important concepts of clarity andcoherence. Not surprisingly, they respected help fromtheir peers. One student noted: "I expect that all I learnedthis block will help me succeed, not only next year, but asI pursue [...] future endeavors." Indeed, reading andwriting are key skills students should take with themfrom a college education.

Not only students appreciated my efforts. Earthscience colleagues noted that my course was effective.For example, Jeff Noblett (professor at the Department ofGeology at Colorado College) wrote: "students havebeen very appreciative and the ones I have seen after theclass showed dramatic improvement in their skills."Early last fall I also presented student writing samples toKrista Caufman, then the director of the Writing Centerat Colorado College. She agreed with my assessment ofthese being good to excellent. We discussed myphilosophy of the course, and she suggested to thedirector of the Writing Program at Colorado College thatthis course should be offered in spring as an "Emphasison Writing Course". My course thus became one of onlytwo natural sciences courses at Colorado College to beoffered with this designation.

Bank - Reading and Writing in a Course on Plate Tectonics 29

Table 4. Sheets with peer-review questions.

OUTLOOK

If instructors want to help students develop good writinghabits, we need to show them examples of good and poorwriting and help them read and understand whatconstitutes good writing. I have presented guidelines fora seminar-style course that combines teaching about asubject with reading and writing about it. Overall, I waspleased with the outcome of this course. Although mycourse was small (7 students) I think that even in largerclasses (20 to 30 students) it is necessary to give eachstudent individual feedback on early drafts. This will notbe possible in very large classes. Here I would notsuggest having students write review papers oncontentious issues; selecting topics, finding papers, andmeeting with individual students would be impossiblefor one instructor in the given timeframe. However, peerreview is a powerful avenue of engaging a large class inwriting exercises. For example, an instructor could askstudents to summarize a paper in one paragraph and inthe next class use one sample to show how the writingcan be improved. Students then could review eachother's work. This task can be facilitated by providingthem with clear criteria like the "four C". Such criteriamay be expanded on and handed to students - andteaching assistants - in the form of a "Primary TraitAnalysis" (for an explanation and examples I refer toLeahy, 2002, and Walvoord and Anderson, 1998). Thiswill help them develop their own writing, and with ittheir own reading skills.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank students of GY250 for permission to use theirwriting samples and feedback. I also thank them formaking me aware of their reading and writing needs. Iacknowledge support by the geology department atColorado College. I appreciate discussions with mycolleagues Peter Sak, Peter Molnar, and NadineMcQuarie on plate tectonics. Peter Sak originally devisedthe paper review strategies. Desi Mou read a first draft ofthe paper. I am indebted to two reviewers (Peter Harries,one anonymous), associate editor Steve Good, and editorCarl Drummond for their valuable comments.

REFERENCES

Colorado College, 2005, Writing evaluations,http://www.coloradocollege.edu/learningcommons/writingcenter//evaluations.asp (25 July 2005).

Davis, B. G., 1993, Tools for teaching, San Francisco,USA, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 429 p.

Englebrecht, A. C., Mintzes, J.J., Brown, L.M., and Kelso,P.R., 2005, Probing understanding in PhysicalGeology using concept maps and clinical interviews,Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, p. 263-270.

Fenwick, T. and Parsons, J., 2000, The art of evaluation,Toronto, Canada, Thompson EducationalPublishing, 244 p.

Gopen, G. D., and Swan, J.A., 1990, The science ofscientific writing, American Scientist, v. 78, p.550-558.

Landes, K. K., 1951, A scrutiny of the abstract, Bulletin ofAmerican Association of Petroleum Geologists, v.35, p. 1660.

Leahy, R., 2002, Conducting writing assignments,College Teaching, v. 50, p. 50-54.

Lewis, R. D., and L. W. Wolf, 2003, Gecommunication, acornerstone graduate course in professionaldevelopment, Journal of Geoscience Education, v.51, p. 244-249.

Light, R. J., 2001, Making the most of college: studentsspeak their minds, Cambridge, USA, HarvardUniversity Press, 42 p.

Mahrer, K. D., 2001a, Clearer sentences - part 1, TheLeading Edge, May 2001, p. 547-548.

Mahrer, K. D., 2001b, Clearer sentences - part 2, TheLeading Edge, June 2001, p. 662-663.

Mahrer, K. D., 2001c, Cohesive paragraphs, part 1, TheLeading Edge, August 2001, p. 839+867.

Mahrer, K. D., 2001d, Cohesive paragraphs, part 2, TheLeading Edge, October 2001, p. 1128.

Mahrer, K. D., 2005, The threads of writing, The LeadingEdge, January 2005, p. 42.

Takao, A. J., Prothero, W.A., and Kelly, G.J., 2002,Applying argumentation analysis to assess thequality of university oceanography students'scientific writing, Journal of Geoscience Education,v. 50, p. 40-48.

Walvoord, B., and Anderson, V., 1998, Effective grading:a tool for learning and assessment, San Francisco,USA, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 249 p.

30 Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 54, n. 1, January, 2006, p. 25-30

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