So for the Digital Rhetoric class, I just (as in 10 minutes ago) put up a really long post about how I feel about how the real world paradigm and the narrative paradigm cannot be entirely separate and exclusive, and how in this world one must accept the reality that these paradigms are co-dependent (see: Writing in the Digital Age) for further details on that. Rather than go into an extended discussion of the very same topic, I am going to elaborate on how my thoughts on this can be related to science writing. I think that when we refer to a piece of science writing as "dry" or "boring" or "mind-numbing" it is because the writing has lost the element of imagination and narrative that is essential to keeping a reader engaged. However, when we find a piece of science writing that highly entertains us, we tend to question the credibility of the piece and the author. So where might be find our happy medium?
Going off of my post from last week, it is pertinent that we as writers engage a good conversation with our readers in order to hold their attention and interest. If a piece of science writing only presents the hard facts, the reader will be inclined to only study the abstract in order to know what is happening within the piece (I'm guilty of doing this myself). If a piece of science writing focuses only on the human elements, and ignores the hard facts, the reader will be inclined to scoff at what has been written and regard the piece of writing as nothing of value. The best way for me to reconcile the differences in the two paradigms presented in Fisher's piece is to propose that a good piece of science writing needs to tell a story, while also presenting the facts, logic, and rationale in equal measure. Graves goes on to reiterate this point, driving it home by quoting Stephen Hawking on page 112 of her piece, "If rhetoric is integral to human thought, then writing becomes a central element of thinking and generating knowledge in all areas of human inquiry" (112). To me, this essentially says that without rhetoric, without narrative, there can be no scientific discovery, no human inquiry.
Megan,
ReplyDeleteIt's weird going back and forth on these topics when we have two classes together. In terms of your application of what hooks readers in science writing, I would challenge your definitions of the terms, "imagination," "narrative," "dry," etc. It's not that I don't see the point you are trying to make here, but because I think that this idea is very relative to WHO the reader is. My idea of imagination could be very different from yours. In that way, what happy medium are we trying to find? For whom are we trying to find it? As authors, whose happy medium do we attempt to attain to?
In your second section, I loved your idea of writing as conversation. Holla, girl. I think it is indeed a conversation. However, I think that your point about readers reading only the abstract is tricky. Again, the idea of relativism is what hooks me up here. Because every reader is different, I think that how we try to appeal to them is a difficult thing to pin down. I agree with your reconciliation of the two paradigms in term of "a good piece of science writing needs to tell a story, while also presenting the facts, logic, and rationale in equal measure." But then, I wonder what our definition of "story" is?
So many questions for me to go ponder now... Hmm..
Thanks, Megan!
Kelsey
Hey Megan,
ReplyDeleteI was really pleased to read your blog and find that you were thinking what I was thinking. Graves really hit it home for me when she narrated the story of the physics scholar and the grad student sorting out a glitch in their data. They used rhetoric to help each other understand the invincible. Much of science is invincible and we need to compare and contrast to life experiences and senses to comprehend what is actually taking place.
That being said, I would like to acknowledge your point on how a person feels inclined to reject an idea when they merely explain their work in rhetoric form. This is true! The most comprehensible piece I have/will pick up is one that explains the data in rhetoric, but presents the results and data in tables, graphs ect. It would help me to also include a detailed description of the process (methods) using everyday language. However, there are always restrictions, such as word counts and page limits...