Organization

Science Writing – Organization

If you read most scientific or technical papers, they tell you the information three times: they tell you “what they are going to tell you” in the introduction or a summary of the article called an abstract; they “tell you” – this is the body of the document; and they “tell you what they told you” in the form of a concluding section or paragraph.

Scientists, like most busy people, don’t have time to read everything that they come across when they are doing their work.  By reading the introduction, looking at the figures, and reading the conclusion, they can determine whether the article has the information they are

Word Choice

Science Writing – Word Choice

Science writing is different than narrative and other writing, but some of the same good writing strategies still apply.  One of them is appropriate word choice.  Here are some helpful guidelines to follow when writing for science class:

1. Use appropriate scientific vocabulary whenever possible.  If you are writing a longer piece that will be read by people who are not members of your science class, it is a good idea to define uncommon scientific words the first time that you use them in your piece.

Voice in Science Writing

Science Writing – Voice

Writing for science is a form of technical writing, which is very different than narrative writing that you do for most of your other classes.  Voice should be clear and concise.  This means that you should use good descriptions with both qualitative and quantitative data and use appropriate scientific vocabulary, but you should avoid flowery or creative language.

Personal pronouns are not normally included in good science writing, unless you are giving your personal opinion or personal life experience.

Homework – General Information

Science Homework – General Information

Purpose of Homework: For middle school students (grades 6 through 9), research shows that achievement improves slightly with even a minimal amount of homework (less than one hour). In other words, even a small amount of reinforcement of classroom learning seems beneficial (Cooper et al., 2006, Cooper, 2007).

There are five basic purposes for science homework:

General Information Packet for Binder

The general information packet should be in the first section of your binder.  It is given out on the first day of class and the expectation is that it will remain in your binder for the entire year.  Below is a link to this 10 page handout, should you need to print out a new one:

General – all in one file2011