Writing for Botany

Chapter 3 - Getting Started

Science consists of grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.
Charles Darwin

The finest thought runs the risk of being irretrievably forgotten if it is not written down.
Arthur Schopenhauer

The card-player begins by arranging his hand for maximum sense. Scientists do the same thing with the facts they gather.
Isaac Asimov

Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject. Thomas Mann

Writing is all a matter of choice and arrangement.
Graham Greene

Trouble in writing clearly . . . reflects troubled thinking, usually an incomplete grasp of the facts or their meaning.
Barbara Tuchman

The discipline of the writer is to learn and to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him.
Rachel Carson

The first and most important step in writing is to know who you're writing to--who they are and what they want.
David G. Lyon

Too much of what passes for the scientific literature is not literature at all but a way of stringing code words together . . . The immediate interests of readers that they should be able to read and understand are given only scant attention.
John Maddox, Editor, Nature

Many students dislike and are frustrated by writing because they consider only the product of writing (term papers, essay exams) rather than the process of writing. This uncoupling of writing from thinking is frustrating and usually produces "writer's block." A more accurate description would be "thinker's block."

It's impossible to write effectively about a subject if you don't have anything to say about the subject. Thus, the first task in writing is to discover your ideas about the subject.


DISCOVER YOUR IDEAS

Writing is making meaning. The first stage of making meaning involves discovering your ideas.

There is no one best way to do this. Rather, you'll discover your ideas in a variety of ways and places--for example, by doing experiments, by reading books and articles, by reviewing your notes and data, by discussing topics with friends and colleagues, and by writing. All of these activities help you generate ideas, pose questions, and gather information.

Regardless of how you discover your ideas, it's critical that you get your ideas onto paper. To do this, try the following techniques:

Doing Botany

The best way to answer questions you have about plants is to do an experiment. Indeed, that's why your textbook helps you design experiments (see the "Doing Botany Yourself" section of each chapter) and why your botany course probably includes a laboratory.

If possible, do experiments to answer your questions and generate ideas. Write down your findings, your conclusions, and your questions.

Reading About Botany

Reading about botany is an excellent way of learning about botany. Thus, throughout this book (and your textbook) you'll be asked to read articles about botany. These articles will help you generate ideas and questions for your own writing. While you're at the library, familiarize yourself with the botany journals, the reference section, the card catalogue, and any on-line services that are available. Take notes about what you read, and gather more information than you suspect you will use. Just as high water pressure makes water flow faster, the greater amount of information you have gathered will help your words flow faster.

The library is an excellent laboratory for learning botany and discovering your ideas. Use it often.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a way of generating ideas with a group of people. It can be used with or without other approaches such as free-writing, and almost always creates fresh ideas, viewpoints, and connections. Brainstorming will stimulate your thinking, reduce your apprehension about writing, expose you to new ideas, show you different ways of looking at a subject, help you appreciate your audience, and motivate you to revise and rethink your ideas. That's why brainstorming is such a popular technique among botanists and other scientists.

When brainstorming, jot down the ideas that your group generates. Think uncritically. Don't judge your ideas; just get your ideas onto paper in any way and in any order you can.

Outlining

Outlining is a favorite technique of Hollywood scriptwriters, who often refer to the process as storyboarding. This technique involves making an outline or list of the topics that you are studying. If you were going to write a paper about root gravitropism, your brainstorming might produce something like this:
How roots perceive gravity
Occurs in the root cap May involve sedimentation of amyloplasts in columella cells Involves electrical asymmetries
How roots respond to gravity
Involves differential growth
Occurs 1-4 mm behind the root cap
Signal must move from cap to elongating zone
Probably involves IAA and Ca2+
Importance of root gravitropism

Questioning

Questioning involves posing and answering important questions, such as who, what, where, when, why, and how. For example:
How does a root sense gravity?
Where in the root does perception occur?
Where in the root does the response occur?
When does the response occur?
What controls root gravitropism?
Why is root gravitropism important?
If you can answer these questions, you probably understand the topic. If you can't, you'll know what you need to learn.


Free-writing

As its name suggests, free-writing involves writing freely about a topic. Get your ideas onto paper in any form: phrases, sketches, and prose. Ignore grammar, style, organization, and the urge to "find the right word." You can organize your ideas later. At this point, just write until nothing fresh comes to mind.


Asking People for Information

Who has information that you need? The reference librarian? Your professor? Your teaching assistant? The greenhouse manager? The author of a paper you read at the library? Don't hesitate to ask questions; it's an excellent way to collect information and discover ideas.


ORGANIZE YOUR IDEAS

After you've discovered your ideas, you must organize your ideas. To do that, try the following: Your outline should chart a logical progression of important points of your paper. It will keep you from straying from your topic and help you develop ideas that are related to your subject. However, it will probably be incomplete. To help make it complete, ask yourself questions such as these: Are my arguments logical? Do I have enough information to make my arguments? What am I missing? As you answer these questions, feel free to add or delete topics.

DEFINE YOUR SUBJECT AND AUDIENCE

Surprisingly, the most important decisions that any writer makes about his or her writing involve no writing at all. Rather, they involve defining his or her subject and audience.

The primary beneficiary of your writing will be you; your writing will help you understand what you are writing about. However, you must know who your audience is; after all, your writing is for their benefit also. In most courses, your audience will be your professor or laboratory assistant. To best understand your audience and subject, ask yourself these questions:

Start writing about your subject at a point from which your audience can easily follow; then use evidence and logic to lead readers to your conclusions. Do all you can to make your conclusions seem inevitable. As Dale Carnegie said, "The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation." Remember: it is not the readers' responsibility to understand what you have written Rather, it is your responsibility to make the information understandable.

GOING FROM OUTLINE TO DRAFT

To produce a first draft, expand each section of your outline. Here are some tips: As in brainstorming, don't be concerned with grammar and other details. Recognize that what you produce will need more work. However, that comes later. For now, be satisfied that you've gotten some of your ideas onto paper. You'll discover more of your ideas as you revise and rethink your first draft. Those are the topics of the next chapter.


Exercises

1. Botanists have used molecular biology to design a variety of plants with resistance to insects and viruses, thereby increasing the plants' growth and survival in field conditions. However, seeds of crops such as corn and beans usually have little resistance to insects and related pests (in countries such as Brazil, farmers lose as much as 40% of their stored seeds to pests). This leads to periodic food-shortages.

Go to the library and read about the use of genetic engineering to produce pest-resistant seeds. Then write a short essay about what you've learned. For a start toward collecting information about this topic, see Schmidt, K. 1994. Genetic engineering yields first pest-resistant seeds. Science 265: 739.







2. Use brainstorming to gather your ideas about the following quotations. Then write a short essay that either supports or refutes the point of each quote.

I . . . object to dividing the study of living processes into botany, zoology, and microbiology because by any such arrangement, the interrelations within the biological community get lost. Corals cannot be studied without reference to the algae that live with them; flowering plants without the insects that pollinate them; grasslands without grazing animals.--Marston Bates







Destroying species is like tearing pages out of an unread book, written in a language humans hardly know how to read, about the place where they live.-Robert Holmes III







I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not.--Sir Peter Medawar







The role of biology today, like the role of every other science, is simply to describe, and when it explains it does not mean that it arrives at finality; it only means that some descriptions are so charged with significance that they expose the relationship of cause and effect.--Donald Peattie






3. Appendix A lists articles that discuss a variety of botanical topics. Scan the list of articles and read two or three whose titles you find appealing. Also browse the botanical journals at the library to read more recent articles. In the space below and on the following pages, use brainstorming and free-writing to discover your ideas and write a rough draft describing what you've learned. In upcoming chapters, you'll turn this draft into a polished essay.

Search | How to Order | E-mail Us
Copyright ©1997 McGraw-Hill College Division