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Writing in the
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PREVIEW: Writing is a powerful way of learning.
$$$ This chapter explains the value of writing in biology
courses and tells the decisions you need to make before
starting out.
Why write?
You and the writing process
Prewriting
Drafting
Revising
The writer's decisions
Subject
Purpose
Audience
Voice

hbl,atx WHY WRITE?

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That's a pretty good question. You enrolled in a biology course, not
a writing workshop, but now you find that you're expected to pro­
3 91 duce a lot of writing. Why? Here are some very good reasons.
Writing will help you learn science. You've probably discovered
the principle behind this fact already: we learn best, not as passive
recipients of lectures and textbooks, but as active participants,
making meaning for ourselves. Writing is one of the best ways to
get involved in your own education. That's what this book is all
about - writing to learn. Your personal involvement through writ­
ing will lead you to fulIer understanding of the life sciences.
Writing clarifies your understanding of the subject. Let's say
you read a chapter in your textbook or listen to a fifty-minute lec­
ture on cell structure and understand most of it. Writing what you
comprehend helps you review, organize, and remember the mate­

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 YOU AND THE WRITING PROCESS
WRITING IN THE LIFE SCIENCES

find that it leads to fuller understanding of the subject. And you'll

rial. But some of the information still puzzles you. By putting you
• e e~ questions on paper, by writing about your confusion, you begin t
like your new-found control of your studies. You've taken charge!
see just where the difficulty lies. Often, you can write your way to:'
hand! understanding. Even if that doesn't work, you'll know which sec­ yOU AND THE WRmNG PROCESS
¥ tions of the chapter to reread or which notes to review. You can ask
Has this ever happened to you? Your professor assigns a paper, due
your professor an intelligent question: for instance, what are the
TheUniv, at the end of the semester. You're not told much more about it­
til biochemical differences between mitochondria and the cells they
perhaps you get a list of acceptable topics or learn how many pages
occupy?
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to write. Then, despite your best intentions, you wait until a couple
Writing reveals your attitude toward a subject. An assignment
of days before the due date to get started. This is an old and sad
might be to read two articles about acid precipitation and its effects
on forests. As you study one of the essays, you agree with that writ­ [Link] are better ways of doing things. Whether you need to
er's position. Then you read another piece and are persuaded to that
write a term paper, a seminar presentation, or a book review ­
point of view. Sound familiar? Professional writers can be persua­
virtually any communication, in fact ­ the most effective means is
sive ­ that's their line of work. That we readers sometimes have
the process approach. Using this method of composition, you work
trouble assessing what we read shouldn't surprise us. What should your way through three broad stages: prewriting, drafting, and re­
we do about this? Listing the pros and cons of a given policy helps
vising. Most experienced writers work this way. And writers-in­
you see the strengths and weaknesses of each side. Writing can help
training seem to make the greatest improvement when they practice
you discover how you feel about the issue. Then you're on the way
to defining your own position. composing in this fashion.
Writing helps you synthesize large amounts of information.
The human mind is a marvel unduplicated by the most advanced Prewriting
All the preparations the writer makes before starting to draft -
computer. Still, most of us don't seem to command the kind of that's what we mean by prewriting. Among these preparations are
memory we need. Making notes supplements memory and provides finding a topic, limiting that topic to manageable size, defining pur­
access to limitless information. That's why note-taking is an essen­ pose, assessing audience, choosing a point of view, researching or
hill, ftx
tial part of research. Further, you can understand how the infor­ interviewing, and taking notes. This prewriting stage of the process

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mation you have collected is related by writing about it. Writing is much more crucial than many realize. When you know that,
allows you to discover new ways of solving a problem. you're ahead of the rest. And when you master these preparations,
3 91 Writing organizes your thoughts. You already know that. you win a new control over your writing. You'll take the first steps
When you have a lot to accomplish, you make a list of "things to in the next section, The Writer's Decisions, and in Chapter 2, Keep­
do today." When you prepare a speech or a class presentation, you ing a Journal. You will also find help with prewriting throughout
jot down main ideas, then reorganize them into some sort of mean­ this book as you learn how to jot down plans and outlines and to
ingful pattern. Combining invisible thoughts with the physical ac­
tivity of forming words on paper helps you to see what you're write a discovery draft.
thinking. And somehow the need to commit your thinking to the
Drafting
page focusses the energy of your mind. That sounds sort of mysti­ The second stage of the composing process, drafting, is what most
cal, but that's what seems to happen. people have in mind when they think of writing. Drafting is getting
Learning through writing may seem to take longer, but you'll

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 WRITING IN THE LIFE SCIENCES
THE WRITER'S DECISIONS

the words down on paper, much easier when you use the process
purpose. Purpose is your intent, the reason that moves you
approach. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 will guide you through this stage.
to write and the desired result of that effort.
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Who am I writing this for?
Revising The answer to this question identifies your audience. Au­
TheUnivl dience is the reader or readers you are addressing.
Li Revising, the third stage, involves much more than most writers-in­
training suspect. Example: this chapter is now in its fifth draft. In Who am I as I write this?
other words, it has been revised four times. That's why professional The answer to this question describes your voice. Voice is
writers have such big wastebaskets: they keep working on a piece the character, personality, and attitudes you project toward
until it's right. If you were to look up the word revise in the your subject, toward your purpose, and toward your
dictionary, you would find that it comes from the Latin revidere _ audience.
to see again. True revision means just that, seeing again, looking
once more at a draft with a willingness to consider changes, often Subject, purpose, audience, and voice are controls in any job
big changes. You'll learn more about making these changes as you of writing. Once you make decisions or accept conditions concern­
proceed through this book. Then, after you've revised your way to ing their natures, you establish certain parameters. Style, tone, read­
(
a good piece of work, refer to Chapter 9, A Concise Guide to ability, even organization and use of examples, are all governed by
( Usage, and Chapter to, Make Punctuation Work for You, for help
with editing. Editing and proofreading are the final steps before
these initial choices.
The figure below is an attempt to show how the four decisions

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submitting your work to reader or editor.

TIlE WRITER'S DECISIONS

relate to each other. At the heart of the figure is subject, the focus
of any piece of writing and usually the writer's first decision. The
figure suggests the influence that subject has on purpose, audience,
and voice, as well as the relationship they have to one another.
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During the prewriting phase, before beginning to draft, the writer
confronts several questions: Why am I writing this? Who's going to Decision 1: Subject
read it? What will they be expecting? How should my voice sound? Finding something to write about is often the hardest of the pre­
Consciously or not, writers must answer these questions each time writing tasks for writers-in-training. In the "real world," of course,
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they sit down to write. Whether you are researching a term paper you would write only when you had something to say, perhaps to
for your biology course, or applying to graduate school, or writing yourself in your journal or perhaps when you felt the need to ex­
I a textbook for a course in writing in the life sciences, the questions
are the same. Only the answers are different.
press it to others. In college courses, however, you are often told to
write, whether you need to or not. That's because your professors
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view the writing process as a means of learning. One objective in
I What is this piece about? most biology courses is learning to perceive the world as a scientist.
That means making the observations, asking the questions, and de­
Your answer to this question establishes the subject, the
true topic of this piece of writing. signing the experiments in the same ways that a practicing scientist
does.
I Why am I writing this? What do I want this to do? One of the best solutions to the problem of finding a subject is
In answering these questions you make decisions about
III to anticipate it. Keeping a biology journal right from your first day

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WRITING IN THE LIFE SCIENCES THE WRITER'S DECISIONS
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Ii Purpose to failure. Trying to cover all aspects of both plant and animal cells
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ii' and their variations is hopeless. Limiting that broad topic could
yield some very workable subjects, though: one might be the struc­
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Subject
ture of prokaryotic cells vs. eukaryotic cells. Another possibility is
types and functions of muscle cells, and a third is special plant cell
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. WRITING 1.1: FINDING A SUBJECT. Write a list of five

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topics suitable for a six- to eight-page paper from the broad
III subject: cell structure and function. Use the library if you need

ill Figure 1.1 The writer's decisions.

to.

Ii in the general biology course will provide you with dozens of ideas
Decision 2: purpose
The purpose of a piece of writing can be complex, for it includes
,I both the reason that moves you to write and the desired outcome.
for writing and research. In Chapter 2, Keeping a Journal, you'll
!i learn how it is done. If you're writing a book review ~ecause your professor told you to,
the professor's requirement provides one dimension of purpose.
Whatever subject you choose to write about should meet the
I That requirement is not sufficient purpose to generate an effective
following specifications:
review, however. You need to question yourself more closely: Why
1. It should fit the assignment. Does the subject fall within the am I asked to write this? What does a book review do? You may
scope of the course? A paper on the chemical pathways in C3 vs. then decide that you were asked to do the review to get you to read
II'Ii I C4 plants would be appropriate for a biochemistry course. A paper the book, think about it, and summarize the main points of the
on vertebrate morphology would be inappropriate for the same book and their relationship to the course.
course. Does the paper come within the limits established by the
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assignment? An account of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring would not
Very likely all the biology writing you will ever do will have as
its general purpose either to explain or to persuade. A further clas­

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fit the assignment, "Write a paper about a current issue of environ­
mental concern." A study of the effects of acid rain on soil micro­
organisms would fit that assignment.
sification of kinds of explanation or exposition, as it is often called,
will be useful.
• Definition. Used to answer the question, "What is it?" of your
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2. It should be of interest to you. This is an obvious criterion, subject. Example: "What is ethology?"
but one that students often overlook. If you are to spend thirty or • Classification. Used to answer the question, "What is the pat­
forty hours researching and writing a paper, you should feel some tern?" of your subject. Example: "What are the various types
intellectual excitement about the subject. Of course, you might dis­ of muscle tissue?"
cover a new interest as you read about a topic you thought dull at • Comparison and Contrast. Used to answer the question, "What
first. But to the extent possible, begin with a question you genuinely is it like or unlike?" of your subject. Example: "What are the
want to answer. similarities and differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic
3. It should be limited to allow adequate depth and breadth of cells?"
coverage. If the assignment calls for a six- to eight-page paper, a • Analysis. Used to answer the question, "What are the relation­
topic like the structure and function of eukaryotic cells is doomed ships among the parts?" of your subject. Examples: "What are

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II", ' WRITING IN THE LIFE SCIENCES
THE WRITER'S DECISIONS
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iii i,l the roles of DNA, RNA, and ribosomes in protein synthesis?"
:!/T • Argumentation. Used to answer the question, "Can you prove You can write much more persuasively if you can define your au­
handV I1 11I1 !/ it?" of your subject when your purpose combines explanation dience precisely.

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and persuasion. Example: "Should the federal government reg­ What exactly does the writer need to know about the audience
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ulate emissions from industrial plants?" for a particular piece of writing? Although the answers to that ques­
tion depend partly on the purpose of the writing, here are some
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Li useful questions to ask:
WRITING 1.2: DEFINING PURPOSE. Begin with the
'i/' /"I What is the gender of the audience? the age? job? income?
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broad subject, the eukaryotic cell. Then ask of that subject the
questions listed above: for instance, "what is the basic cell What is the audience's educational level? religion?
structure?" Write your responses. The idea of this exercise is to What does the audience already know about the subject?
Ili !i! l learn how these purposes can help you sharpen a subject and
focus your writing.
What are its expectations likely to be? its attitudes?
What other special needs of this audience should you take into
III! ! Decision 3: Audience
account?
Only by raising these questions will you discover which ones you
When you speak, you always speak to someone. That someone is need to concern yourself with as you plan a piece. By asking these
1/1/111 your audience. It may be just one person, a group of friends, or questions about the audience of "Why Major in Biology?" you get
II,"II your entire class. You know who the listener is and can see and a much better idea of how to direct that writing.
III//ii/I hear reactions; you can tailor your talk to that audience, even mod­
ifying it according to the responses you get. When you write, how­
What about defining the audience of the writing you do in this
course? Because student writers often have a great deal of trouble
illl!! ever, your audience is unseen and perhaps even unknown. If it with that decision, you should know the options.
Iii/Ii doesn't understand something you write, it cannot ask you to ex­
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hbl,.tx IlIlii i/! plain yourself. These differences between the speaker-listener rela­ 1. You can write for the professor, the most common way of de­
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tionship and the writer-reader relationship point up the importance fining the audience of a student paper. The problem with ad­
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, of the writer's decisions about audience. dressing this audience lies in your defining exactly who your
Just as you need to define the purpose of a piece of writing, professor is and what his or her expectations are.
3 91 J1)'I,I,I/I/ you also need to define the audience. Let's take an example: the 2. You can write for the entire class, students and professor. If you
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chairman of the biology department asks you to write a short essay do, you are likely to be less pompous and more direct than you
to be titled, "Why Major in Biology?" If you agree to do the job, would be addressing the professor alone. Why is that? How

'i iIII what additional information will you need? Certainly you need to
know who is going to read this - what is your audience? The pro­
fessor tells you that your essay will appear in a brochure to be dis­
else might your work differ?
3. You can write for yourself, as you might in a journal (see Chap­
ter 2). Practically every writer-in-training would benefit from
I i III: tributed to students. Ah, but which students? Entering freshmen producing more of this writer-based prose.
'i 11/ undecided about a major? High school seniors shopping around for 4. You can write for a specified audience such as a medical school
a~missions board, people opposed to'the construction of a re­
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a college? Upperclassmen considering a change of major? Although
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the subject seems to remain the same (reasons to major in biology) gional pow~r plant, or your congressional representative.
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the requirements of these three audiences are somewhat different. S. :ou can ~nte for scholars in the field, as if you were compos­
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mg an article for a professional journal. The best way to get a
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 THE WRITER'S DECISIONS
WRITING IN THE LIFE SCIENCES

Word choice is one means. To the sensitive writer most so-called

.$ e. sense of this audience's expectations is to read several article
synonyms aren't equal. Abdicate, resign, quit, and walk out might
in biological journals. See Chapter 7, Principles of Research
mean roughly the same, but they aren't identical in meaning or in
for suggestions.
hancll voice. Some words are simple and straightforward, others seem
more forma\. The distinction is made obvious in this pair of sen­
V WRITING 1.3: DEFINING AN AUDIENCE. Choose <1"
topic that you are currently studying. Write an explanation 0 tences that have the same meaning but different voices:
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til the ways that you might adapt your treatment of that topic for "She purveys Mollusca at the littoral area."
each of the five kinds of audiences listed above. Be specific "She sells seashells at the sea shore."
••• about audience expectations and needs and about adjustments
you might make.
Another stylistic element that conveys voice is sentence struc­
ture. A long, complex sentence might be appropriate for a relatively
formal treatment of a serious subject for educated readers, whereas
Decision 4: Voice
a series of short, declarative sentences could be more apt for infor­
"Who am I as I write this review or essay or whatever?" Although
mal treatment of the same subject for the same audience.
the question may seem silly, it really isn't. Your voice is the char­ Even punctuation helps establish voice. A semi-colon, for ex­
acter, personality, and attitudes you project toward your subject, ample, is a fairly formal mark of punctuation. Writing in an infor­
toward your purpose, and toward your audience. It is the "you" mal voice, you would probably avoid that mark in favor of sepa­
that you have deliberately chosen to express on this occasion. rating the clauses with a period. Dashes and exclamation marks
Your writing voice, like your speaking voice, should be appro­ generally have an informal effect. See Chapter 10 for other punc­
priate for the situation in which you find yourself or which you
define. You don't use the same voice with your parents that you use tuation guidelines.
with your best friend. Because we have so much experience speak­ WRITING 1.4: DEFINING VOICE. Explain what voice you
ing, we adopt the appropriate voice almost without thinking about think would be appropriate for each of your responses in Writ­
it. ~ng 1.3. Be specific and relate your decision to concerns of sub-
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When we begin to write, however, we need to confront the
choices consciously and to weigh a number of complex factors.
l[ Ject and purpose.

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Consider this variety of possible attitudes affecting your voice: Voice, audience, purpose, and subject - these are the key pre­
Subject: treat it seriously, lightly, humorously, reverently? writing decisions. Making knowledgeable choices about each ­
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Purpose: praise, abuse, ask a favor, explain a process, encour­ that is your job as writer.
age, persuade, complain?
Audience: peers, enemies, professor, lover, fellow vegetarians,
other conservatives?
Occasion: formal, informal, ceremonious?
Clearly, these options are interdependent: that is, a writer prob­
ably wouldn't ask a favor in an abusive voice or complain to some­
one in authority in a humorous one. Your task as a writer is to
match your voice to the occasion, subject, purpose, and audience.
Just how do you convey a voice, once you've selected one?

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