Written Communication Jan 2019

Compressing, Expanding, and Attending to Scientific Meaning: Writing the Semiotic Hybrid of Science for Professional and Citizen Scientists

Gwendolynne Reid Emory University

Abstract

Drawing on a text-based ethnography of digital writing in a biology laboratory, this article examines the text trajectory of a scientific manuscript and a scientific team’s related writing for public audiences, including for citizen scientists. Using data drawn from texts, observations, interviews, and related artifacts, the author examines how scientists conceptualize and adapt their multimodal writing for specialized scientific audiences as well as lay audiences interested in the work of scientific inquiry. Three concepts— meaning compression, meaning expansion, and meaning attention—were used to analyze the multimodal strategies that scientists employ when composing for different audiences. Findings suggest that while scientists often restrict their writing practices to meaning compression to maintain the values and conventions of scientific genres, they also sometimes deploy a wider range of multimodal strategies when writing for nonspecialist audiences. These findings underscore the complex rhetorical environments scientists navigate and the need to support emerging scientific writers’ development as versatile writers able to adapt varied multimodal strategies to diverse rhetorical and epistemic goals.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2019-01-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088318809361
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
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Cited by in this index (2)

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    Threshold Genres: A 10-Year Exploration of a Medical Writer’s Development and S…
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  2. Doody et al. (2022)
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