PS390 Chapter 11: Scientific Rhetoric and Report-Writing
Document Summary
Making scientific knowledge includes presenting persuasive arguments to an intended audience. Bc all writing is dependent on authors" choices of words, writing like a psychological scientist is as partially subjective as is writing in the humanities and arts. Scientists, however, typically do not associate rhetoric w scientific activity. Scholars of scientific writing say creating scientific knowledge begins/ends w the art of persuasion, which is one meaning of the term rhetoric. Rhetoric: discursive structures/strategies used to render arguments persuasive in given situations. Rhetoric as a social practice entails literary construction, while rhetoric as a discipline refers to the study of argumentation. Rhetoric is intrinsic to scientific activity bc data are always subject to interpretation and description, which entail linguistic choices. In natural sciences, explicit standardization of the format of research reports began in the early 1900s w specific sections for introduction, method, results, and discussion. Writing-style: authors have valued precision, logic, order, and clarity.
