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EV U4 Science Texts: Features

Marlin Valenzuela

Created on November 16, 2020

Types and main features of science texts

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Transcript

Science Text: Features and Types

English V Unit 4:National Preparatory School Created by Marlin Valenzuela Sebastián

Start

Science texts

Primary Literature

Objectives

Index

The language of science texts expresses how scientists expand and refine their ideas and find new ways to solve persistent problems. Catherine O'Connor (Boston University)

Popular Science Articles

Secondary Literature

Bibliography

Objetives

Students will:

  • Understand what science texts are.
  • Identify the main features and types of science texts.
  • Recognize the main characteristics of popular science texts..

Science Texts

It is necessary that you get involved in the process of acquiring, analyzing, synthesizing, coding, evaluating and utilizing achievements in science and technology.

Science or Scientific texts are a part of informative texts because they provide information for their readers. Their purpose is to discuss a studied scientific problem. Scientific texts do not permit different interpretations since they include a clear, based-on-evidence message for the readers.

Science Texts: Types

There are different types of publications available to students, scientists and/or scholars. The type of publication you read may depend on where you are with your studies, research or what the requirements of your particular assignment are. The types of publications may be part of primary or secondary literature.

+ info

Primary Literature:

Meeting Abstracts, Papers, and Proceedings

  • Provide brief descriptions of original research presented at conferences.
  • Useful when you are looking for recent research in the scientific literature.

Primary Literature

Meeting Abstracts

  • Abstracts of scientific papers and posters that are presented at annual scientific meetings of professional societies are part of the broader category of conference literature.
  • They are an important avenue for the dissemination of current data.

Features:

  • Incomplete literature review access
  • Meeting abstracts via the Internet: more access to information
  • Timely
  • Suscint
  • Abreviated peer review

Chen You et al 2021 Meet. Abstr. MA2021-02 575

Primary Literature:

Research Articles

  • Present new and original scientific findings.
  • Explain research methodology and provide data.
  • Useful when you need primary sources (contain the original research results reported by scientists).
The image shows the main parts of aresearch article

Primary Literature:

Review Articles

  • Provide an overview of a field or subject.
  • Synthesize previous research.
  • Useful when you need background information and additional references.

They are critical evaluations of material that has already been published, some that include quantitative effects estimation (i.e., meta-analyses) and some that do not (i.e., systematic reviews) (Bem 1995). They carefully identify and synthesize relevant literature to evaluate a specific research question, substantive domain, theoretical approach, or methodology and thereby provide readers with a state-of-the-art understanding of the research topic. (Palmatier, Houston and Holland, 2017).

Primary Literature

Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • Are written by scholars and researchers (look for a university or laboratory affiliation in the article).
  • Include an abstract and a bibliography or cited list of references.
  • Use discipline-specific language.
  • Many of the Library article databases allow you to limit your search to “peer reviewed” articles.

Features:

  • Literature review
  • Methodology
  • Results
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • Have a specialized format
  • A multiple-copy submission requirement
  • An abstract

Secondary Literature

  • Information sources like textbooks, encyclopedias and other reference-type materials can be valuable in providing background information on a subject: identifying key ideas and defining important terminology.
  • These types of sources are the “secondary literature” of the sciences because they do not present new research, but provide a compilation, evaluation and/or synthesis of previously published research.
  • These resources are good aids for understanding science literature.

Encyclopedias

Secondary Literature

Reference work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or that treats a particular branch of knowledge in a comprehensive manner.

Secondary Literature

Science News Articles

  • Are written by journalists or writers who may or may not have expertise on the article’s subject.
  • Rarely have an abstract or bibliography
  • Do not follow a specialized format
  • Use language understandable by the general public
  • Undergo a limited editorial review.

Popular Science Articles: Features

Sometimes scientists write popular articles for publication in magazines and newspapers to inform a non-specialist audience about new scientific insights and discoveries. Although they don't follow a specialized format. We can find some of the following features:

Examples: Scientific American Discover Science News The Scientist National Geographic, etc.

  • A question is posed in the title.
  • Start with a good story to catch teh reader's attention
  • Use of specific examples to illustrate a general phenomenon.
  • Relate the topic to something ordinary and familiar to the reader.
  • Let the reader perform a thought experiment where different premises are given and they can speculate freely.
  • Address the reader directly.
  • Abstract phenomena represent human traits (personification).
  • Quotations and proverbs are used to create a link to the reader's knowledge.
  • Send a message that makes the reader feel worried.
  • There is usually a clear clonclusion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Distinctive features of popular science discourse Conference Paper file:///Users/marlinsmacbook/Downloads/Distinctivefeaturesofpopularsciencediscourse.pdf

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Sample scientific texts analysis through textlinguistic approach. Text retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/296314#:~:text=Scientific%20texts%20are%20a%20part,the%20subject%20of%20their%20study.

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Science - Milford Mill Academy. Image retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/9adqaxNa8D4gssAN7

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UNESCO Global Consultants on Open Science. Image retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/KpSUQ828bGUiNZrY9

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Aims and Objectives. Image retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/9LmwP3iJVDQSEuz99

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Adapted from the CSUS Library Biology Research Tutorial

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Popular science articles. Information retrieved from http://www.writingcentre.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/167/Popular%20Science%20Articles.pdf

Kelly, J.A. 1998. Scientific meeting astracts: significance, access and trends. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1998 Jan; 86(1): 68–76. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC226328/citedby/

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Palmatier, R.W., Houston, M.B. & Hulland, J. Review articles: purpose, process, and structure. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 46, 1–5 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0563-4

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