This course introduces essential skills necessary for any science major, emphasizing the language of science and how information is disseminated. Students who complete this course will be prepared for immediate integration into laboratories in basic and clinical science, and be better suited to overall excel in the liberal arts.

This course will present six unique skills that every scientist must master: 1) the ability to find and cite scientific literature; 2) the ability to read and write primary literature and reviews; 3) the ability to locate and take advantage of appropriate funding opportunities; 4) the ability to present data; 5) the ability to review and edit scientific literature; 6) the ability to publish. Each skill builds on the other skills so that mastering one requires building mastery for the others.

This course is designed to introduce students to the art of effective science writing. Students will learn to interpret and analyze complex scientific research findings and translate them into engaging prose with special attention given to the intended audience. The main focus of the course will be on learning to write about science for scientists. Students will learn how to craft scientific research articles; they will learn to write effective abstracts, introductions, methods, results and discussions. Students will also learn how to create effective visual representations of their data.

In the second portion of the course, students will focus on science writing for the nonscientific audience. Students will learn how to accurately communicate their scientific findings and the findings of other scientists to the general public in the format of review articles and newspaper or magazine features.

The Advanced Science Writing Seminar is the core, the intellectual home, of the Graduate Program. During the fall semester, it is a "megaseminar" that meets six hours a week, the equivalent of two regular courses. In the spring, it turns into one regular course that meets three hours a week. Over both semesters, this seminar offers the student an array of writing experiences.

No aspect of science writing falls outside the seminar's range. Students learn to draw on all the tools of research to enrich their information-gathering skills: interviews, websites, institute archives, scientific journals, personal experience. They sample daily science journalism and the culture of the newsroom, writing on tight deadlines and learning to sniff out fresh news stories. Later, these skills are applied to longer, magazine-style feature articles.

Students explore the rich possibilities of the essay, applied to science, technology and medicine, in all its myriad forms, from formal and academic, to light and personal.

Throughout this process, workshops are conducted to critique each student's completed writing assignment, as well as analyze assigned readings from books, magazines, and newspapers. Moreover, guest speakers (either distinguished scientists or noted science writers) are invited in across the year to discuss ethical and professional issues and probe recent events in science and technology.

MIT's is a one-year master's program, designed to cover much ground in a limited time. It is conducted at a rapid pace, and requires the energy and devotion of student and faculty alike. The Advanced Science Writing Seminar is designed to maximize the educational value of that year. It lets faculty more intimately integrate instruction on journalism, the essay, long-form writing, and research methods, with workshops and critiques in those subgenres. Treating the seminar as a whole, from the very beginning, as a unified academic experience, reduces the redundancy inevitably found among distinct but potentially overlapping courses. Seminar makes sure our carefully selected students get all of what they can get out of the year, and enhances the prospects for a unique bonding experience among each year's class.

GE 3513 Technical Writing provides science and engineering students with instruction and practice in the technical communication process. The course focuses on the basic steps of analysis, development, and revision:

• Recognizing specific writing and presentation situations and the objectives that arise out of them
• Analyzing audiences and suiting format, content, and tone to these audiences
• Designing documents and presentations that are structurally and mechanically effective
• Writing and revising these documents and presentations to achieve clarity and correctness

Additional major areas of emphasis include examining the role of ethics in technical communication, incorporating graphics, and writing and presenting collaboratively. Class assignments involve correspondence, reports, instructions, and proposals based on realistic cases or job situations; numerous in-class editing and analysis exercises; and a final-exam paper on the concepts and techniques discussed and employed throughout the semester.

The scientific research article is a tightly compressed document: it presents persuasive arguments while simultaneously communicating precisely what was done, exactly what happened, what it might mean, and why it all matters. In this course, students develop their expertise in scientific writing by drafting a research article based on their original research. Students learn the elements of successful writing in science and engineering: 1) How to recognize and use the persuasive aspects of conventional written structure; 2) how to use analysis, feedback, and revision to develop and maintain a strong collaborative writing process; and 3) how to craft clear, concise, and compelling arguments to establish new scientific knowledge.

WRI 502 is a half-term course, meeting once a week for 6 weeks. Each class focuses on a different section of the research article; students prepare each week by drafting a section of their article and reading the drafts of other class members. Students participate in two individual conferences with the instructor and a final conference that includes the student's research advisor.

Technical Writing Essentials is designed to meet the basic communication needs of students and working professionals in scientific or technical fields. This course is also an excellent introductory writing course for students intending to pursue a certificate in technical writing. Technical Writing Essentials covers issues of purpose and style while allowing students plenty of focused practice with short writing exercises.

Students will compose letters, memos, electronic messages, collaborative projects, mechanism descriptions, instructions, and short reports, and they will deliver brief oral presentations. Work will be graded on a portfolio system, where revision will be rewarded. Because much of the actual course work will be generated in class, attendance is mandatory.

Scientific and Technical Writing offers students practice in the forms and discourses of scientific and technical writing as they develop, research, and revise an independent project. The purpose of the class is to prepare students for their professional lives in scientific, technical, or public service fields by helping them organize their knowledge while exploring ways of applying it, thus developing their professional expertise.

We begin by working on the resume and cover letter, both as a professional document and as an example of writing for a specific audience. Then each student develops an independent class project through several stages of revision, culminating in a final paper. Topics are freely chosen, though students taking the course usually propose experiments, construction projects, or education initiatives.

Science Writing offers students an opportunity to refine their skills in presenting technical and scientific issues to various audiences while they critically examine social aspects of scientific information. The course examines new opportunities for covering science (especially on the Internet), the skills required to produce clear and understandable prose about technical subjects, important ethical and practical constraints that govern the reporting of scientific information, and the cultural place of science in our society.

The class features several written assignments and close discussion of readings from various media. The final grade for the course will be based upon a portfolio of writings (including a review of online sources, a news brief, a book review, a scientist interview, a story based on an interview, a news summary based on research, and a feature story for a news or Internet source).

Writing as a Naturalist involves writing based on natural observation to develop your skills in reading, observation, and writing. Though the course is designed to meet the needs of students in the natural sciences (including those majoring in Natural Resource Management and Environmental Science), it should be a very good class for anyone interested in the environment and the world around them.

The course will begin with attention to the readings, about which you must produce a short essay. During this time, you will also begin keeping a nature journal to record general observations, observations in response to specific assignments, observations made on a class excursion, and the observations you make as part of your project. Before midterm, you will begin to develop a focused, independent project involving observation of an animal, place or other specific part of the natural world. There will then be a short midterm paper about your project in response to the writings of a specific naturalist (or naturalists) who has already written on the subject. In the last third of the class, you will develop and write your independent project where focused natural observation is combined with a response to your independently researched reading to produce an original work of natural history.

This course will explore what it means to think about literature and representation in relation to physical environments and ecological concerns. However, since Ecocriticism is a branch of literary theory whose influence and interests have moved far beyond the analysis of what was traditionally thought of as "nature writing," the range of topics we will consider includes both the traditional and the cutting edge (the pastoral, the sublime, taste, landscape, wilderness, animals, vitalism and mesmerism, objects and things, parasites, neurobiology, and biopolitics). Like Ecocriticism itself, our literary readings will be rooted in Romanticism (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Clare, Charlotte Smith), but will branch out to other writers of the nineteenth century, both British and American (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Darwin, Ruskin, Hopkins). More recent work in both prose (Maclean, Coetzee, Harding) and poetry (Eliot's The Waste Land, Ginsburg's Howl, as well as a wide range of works drawn from the recently published The Ecopoetry Anthology and The Arcadia Project) will also be explored. In addition, brief critical readings will be culled from the work of philosophers (Heidegger, Kant, Spinoza), theorists (Adorno, Derrida, Bennett, Connolly), and literary critics (Bate, Buell, Morton). During the course of the semester we will also consider how these issues relate to other media such as painting, music, and film. A particular emphasis will be placed on how the films of Terrence Malick (The New World, The Tree of Life) may relate to both ecology and literary form.

Influential scientists can express themselves clearly and memorably, and successful people are often skilled communicators. Unfortunately, the world is full of geniuses with valuable, painstakingly-acquired knowledge whose achievements remain hidden due to failures of communication. Many feel uncomfortable giving expression to ideas outside an audience of immediate peers. But writing well is a skill. It can be learned.

This class aims to transform writing-related anxieties into anticipation. We will lay down lasting foundations for a daily writing practice, a key to getting that which is bottled up inside out and onto the page. Writers will learn principles of persuasion and rhetorical technique. Experimentation is encouraged.