Writing Assignments as a Continuum In Geoscience Education

Abstract

The ability to write well is among the most valuable, if not the most valuable, of the skills anyone can learn. A recent survey indicated that at many colleges, however, writing skills geared to geoscience majors typically are taught as a senior seminar and are included only “in passing” in other geoscience courses. By contrast, at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), writing skills are incorporated into the requirements for the BS/BA degrees in geoscience. The geoscience student is required to enroll in a sophomore-level reporting-skills course, for which the prerequisite is freshman composition, and which teaches the student how to write a scientific report, using the format common to the major geoscience journals. Based on the adage “practice makes perfect,” the student uses library resources to write weekly reports, up to 1000 words each, on titles selected from a prepared list of geological topics. The depth of the content must exceed the student's previous course work, there...