What do English, psychology and chemical engineering majors all have in common? In a word, writing. However, the type of writing is quite different in each discipline. This was the focus of the September 4 brownbag panel discussion in Skillman Library titled, “How and Why Does Writing Change Across the Disciplines? Perspectives from Psychology, Engineering, and English.”
From the humanities, English Professor Christopher Phillips began telling the audience the process he went through to become a good writer in his field. Phillips outlined his graduate school experience with thesis writing and the editing process. Peer reviews were essential to help Phillips advance his writing skills. He described humanities writing as collaboration “with many tributaries of a stream of ideas that the author wishes to present.”
Phillips later condensed and published his thesis as the book Epic in American Culture.
Representing the social sciences, Psychology Department Professor Lauren Myers discussed how psychology’s focus in writing is empirical-based evidence. Therefore, the APA publishing manual is used as “a standardized way to present findings to colleagues,” according to Myers.
For Myers personally, she admits to being intimidated by blank word documents—a fear many students and scholars share. To overcome it, Myers gave the tip of using recordings to replay ideas and help formulate reports and essays.
Lastly, the sciences were delegated by Chemical and Bio Molecular Engineering Professor Joshua Levinson. He typically writes in two genres: industry and academia. For Levinson’s field, writing articles that are submitted to peer reviewed journals is standard practice, and the focus is on the content and collaboration “to tell the complete story” with colleagues and other experts.
When asked what he found interesting about the panel discussion, chemical engineering student Seth Gottlund '14, stated that it “was very informative in showing how writing styles can differ in various disciplines, but at the same time they are very connected. Each professor spoke of challenges they encountered to get to their current academic level. Many of these challenges were in different contexts but had similar solutions.”
Reflecting on what one may take away from the brownbag, Gottlund said, “Things such as FYS, College Writing, VaST and other courses have developed my writing abilities for any type of writing I may encounter in the future and [having] professors with varying styles has helped me to better myself as a writer.”