Abstract
In this paper I investigate the status of popular science texts as a literary genre, and ask how a text can be recognized as belonging to that genre. To determine this I compare popular science texts with science fiction, which indicates that it is popular science's truth claims which give the literary genre of popular science its place in literature as a whole. However, critics have argued that literature is not concerned with truth, which implies that popular science texts—despite being written documents—are not literature. To resolve this I compare popular science with autobiography—another genre which makes truth claims—and examine the products of their shared intention of telling the truth about the natural world in the case of popular science and about oneself' in the case of autobiography.
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