"Becoming an insider": Learning the rhetorical moves of the scientific proposal (original) (raw)

Abstract

In her text Rhetorical Strategies and Genre Conventions, Laura Wilder draws attention to the marginalizing effect of acquiring disciplinary genre knowledge tacitly. She notes that it “can be so stressful and frustrating that some otherwise-motivated students turn away from – or are turned away from – further disciplinary participation” (p. 111). When discussing the educational experience of underrepresented minorities in science, this marginalizing effect is enhanced significantly due to the white- and male-dominated rhetoric of science. Minority and female students face not simply the challenge of understanding the dominant ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing in science, but also the challenge of confronting those ways that work to suppress and subvert them as individuals. Drawing on the work of Wilder, this paper explores how explicit instruction in the rhetorical practices of scientists during the proposal writing process allows underrepresented minorities within an undergraduate research program to identify appropriate and unique research problems and internalize criteria for evaluating these problems effectively. This paper argues that these practices culminate in a refined view of the nature of scientific knowledge and improves performance with scientific genres – practices that transfer across disciplines and may be of interest to those workings with traditionally underrepresented student populations.

Heather Falconer hasn't uploaded this conference presentation.

Let Heather know you want this conference presentation to be uploaded.

Ask for this conference presentation to be uploaded.