"Perspectives on the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum: A Dialogue Between the Sciences and Humanities"

The Biology Student Perspective

Of 588 total recorded consultations in the Writing Center between the Fall 2008 and beginning of Spring 2009 semesters, 139 papers were of scientific content, from the fields of biology, nursing, chemistry, engineering, pharmacy, and earth science.  This statistic indicates that some segments of students with science assignments are coming to the Writing Center; yet, the greatest portion of this number is made up of nursing and pharmacy papers.  Of 30 biology students surveyed in my study, 29 stated they have never taken a scientific paper to the Writing Center.  Of the 29 student survey responses, 14 indicated they think the Writing Center may be able to assist them with their papers.  This seems like an odd disconnect; students are not bringing their science papers to the Writing Center even though they feel that the Writing Center may be able to help them.  However, their responses as to why students believe the Writing Center may be able to help them seem to reveal the deeper reason behind biology students not bringing their writing to the Center.  Five of the 14 students who said the Writing Center would be helpful stated that a visit would be helpful to check for grammatical mistakes, while three more said a visit would be beneficial if a science major or someone familiar with the discourse community were to look at their paper.  In this way, it seems that biology majors view the Writing Center as a place to go for spellchecking and line edits, because the only way a consultation could be worth more than this is if someone who specialized in the sciences views the student’s paper.

Some students strongly desire people in their own field to look over their written assignments.  Pros and cons exist to such a way of thinking.  First of all, someone unfamiliar with the subject of the paper may be better able to point out moments of disconnect or places where the writer’s ideas do not flow smoothly.  On the other hand, someone familiar with the topic the student is writing about may be able to point out factual inconsistencies or think of additional ways to clarify complicated statistics or scientific knowledge.  Regardless of these and other pros and cons of both strategies, several students in the sciences replied to the surveys that they wish for “all majors to work there” (SM 27), in order to feel that they are gaining the maximum benefit from a visit to the Writing Center. 

Furthermore, a misconception exists among the students surveyed that “mainly English or humanity majors[…] work there with little experience in the scientific field” (SP 17).  In fact, such responses that only non-science majors work in the Writing Center is a common misconception amongst science students, as many students indicated that they believe no, or very few, science majors work in the Writing Center.  On the other hand, a much smaller number of students indicated that they do know or have known a science major who worked in the Writing Center.  According to Writing Center records, eight of the 30 undergraduate students working in the Writing Center have volunteered to serve on the science team—a team of students that aims to help science majors with their papers.  These students are either majoring or minoring in the sciences, or have extensive scientific background knowledge, which enables them to carry on a conversation with students bringing assignments for their science classes to the Writing Center. 

The overall nature of the responses to the survey questions from biology students seems uncertain.  Many students indicated they are unsure whether a visit to the Writing Center would be beneficial, and several are also confused as to what they think ought to happen during a consultation, displaying a general misconception among students in the sciences about Writing Center work.