In Writing in the Sciences: Exploring Conventions of Scientific Discourse, Ann M. Penrose and Steven B. Katz note that the scientist who wishes to communicate with a public audience must weigh carefully not only the audience's prior knowledge of a topic, but also the nature and degree of its interest in that topic. Scientists communicating with their peers can depend on their readers to be both knowledgeable and intrinsically interested in their topic. When writing for public audiences, however, cannot be assumed to share either knowledge or interest.
I submit that when we first conceptualize a public science project, we are likely to focus on the "knowledge" gap, but much less likely to consider the "interest" gap. The knowledge gap seems especially worth our attention because we ourselves have probably had to overcome it. We ourselves have struggled to understand our sources, so, even when we manage to achieve some expertise, we can empathize with our readers who lack specialized knowledge.
The "interest" gap is often another story. As science writers (or as folks interested enough in science writing to take a course on the topic), we are already inclined to find scientific topics interesting-perhaps not all possible science topics, but at least those that we choose to write about! Our readers, by contast, probably share neither the scientist's interest in the topic nor our own interest as science writers. If they are drawn to read the text at all, it will be for their own set of reasons.
The question of motives for reading is tightly tied to the question of readers' criteria for judging the success of a text. What makes a science text "work" for a particular reader? Like most texts and most readers, a text "works" when it meets not only the needs but also the expectations of the reader. Penrose and Katz point out that most readers judge public science messages in terms of one of the following two expectations: the wonder appeal and the application appeal.
According to Penrose and Katz, the wonder appeal "emphasizes the sense of surprise and joy and awe people (both generalists and specialists!) often feel when confronted with an exciting scientific discovery," whereas the application appeal "emphasizes the practical benefits of a scientific concept or discovery for a particular audience, society at large, or humankind" (147-48). In some cases, both appeals may be salient; in other cases, one or the other appeal will be dominant.
Penrose and Katz also describe several strategies used by writers to adapt scientific material for general audiences. I summarize their discuss of these strategies here:
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Adapting through NARRATION |
Narratives, or stories, can be used to "make science accessible and acceptable to general audiences" (148). Narratives provide readers with a familiar arrangement of material (typically chronological) and help them to identify the most important aspects of the message. Since all readers are familiar with many of the conventions of narrative (including stories, but also historical and biographical narratives), readers are able to apply their implicit standards fairly easily when they encounter narrative texts or texts that use narrative as one strategy among others. |
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Adapting through EXAMPLES |
Examples help to define abstract or specialized concepts by providing particular and often familiar instances of a general class. Although a simple reduction from abstract class to concrete instance is useful, examples work best when the particular instance is already familiar to the reader (150). |
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Adapting through DEFINITION |
The basic principle of definition is to "translate" alien terms into more audience-familiar terms. However, "Definition" is not just one adaptation technique; it encompasses several techniques. The available definition techniques "are not just different ways of explaining terms but," as Penrose and Katz note, "also different ways of thinking about concepts" (151). The most common definition technique is the Aristotelian definition, sometimes called genus and differentia definition. This technique depends upon the principle of classification. To use this definition technique, you "place a term or concept in a general class of things to which it is similar and then delineate how the term or concept is different from other members of this class." For example, an Aristotelian definition of nova (taken from the Random House Dictionary) is "a star [genus] that suddenly becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades [differentia]" (151). |
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Adapting through ANALYSIS |
"Analysis," as Penrose and Katz explain, "breaks a whole into its constituent elements." A single concept can be broken down into several elements based on time, space, causality or other principles. For instance, a biological process might be broken into its individual stages (according to the principle of time or sequence); a computer might be explained in terms of each of its parts; or a complex courtroom argument can be broken down into its constituent logical appeals, case law, and supporting evidence. |
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Adapting through COMPARISON |
By comparing unknown things to known things, writers can highlight important aspects of the thing while deemphasizing its less important aspects (152-53). Comparisons are pervasive in both scientific and popular discourse; we routinely use metaphors, similes, and other comparison techniques to communicate even simple messages (e.g., when we say that we are "translating" scientific material into popular language, we are using the linguistic concept of "translation" metaphorically; when we talk about our "biological clock," we are making sense of unknown biological processes by comparing them with the familiar functions of a clock). |
Penrose, Ann B., and Steven B. Katz. Writing in the Sciences: Exploring Conventions of Scientific Discourse. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2001.
Fahnestock, Jeanne. "Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts." Written Communication 15.3 (1998), 330-50. [PDF]
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