This blog is a repost. It was originally published on the APU Writing Center’s Coach Corner blog, a site for other university writing coaches.

As an English major with a concentration in creative writing, I saw myself as a “good writer.” Then I took ecology to fulfill my science requirement. I was one of the few non-science students taking this course. We worked as groups in labs, and my lab group gave me the responsibility of writing our lab report methods sections. 

In the first methods section I wrote—measuring the cleanliness of the water in a local creek by identifying and counting which species inhabited the stream bed mud—I told the story of what my lab group did. I had a narrative arch with plenty of active voice, first person point of view, and figurative language. When I got the lab report back, I was surprised to see that the professor had crossed out over half of my writing and scrawled a note in the margin: “just give me the essential details!” 

The next methods section I wrote included lots of imperatives and step-by-step instructions for assessing the health of a forest slope after a fire by measuring the growth density of red maple trees—or what I thought were “the essential details.” This assignment came back with the following note: “the methods section is not a recipe!” 

The class subject fascinated me, and I was doing well on the exams, so I was floored that I was turning out to be such a “bad writer.” As the semester progressed, I realized that the way a discipline approaches its subject manifests in its writing. I had discovered the concept of genre. 

What is Genre? 

According to the OED, the English term genre comes from the 19th century French term for “a kind.” Simply defined, genres are classifications for various kinds of communication.

When most people think of genre, formal features come to mind. For example, a lab report revolves around an explicitly stated hypothesis and commonly has an introduction, methods, results, discussion, and overall conclusion. On the other hand, short stories are structured through plot line—rising narrative tension that resolves in the end. Instead of stating a main point, the writer paints an immersive picture of an experience to impress that point on the reader. These formal features set up readers’ expectations, enabling readers to recognize what kind of communication they have encountered.

A genre’s formal features combined with expectations set up the possibility for dialog within a professional community. These characteristics mean that genre, as a written format, captures a discipline’s social practices. Learning genre therefore means more than deftly imitating form, tone, and style of writing; instead, it requires writers to internalize how a discipline approaches its subject. 

This understanding shows us why students often struggle when they write in a genre for the first time. Mary Jane Curry (2016) seemingly described my experience writing the methods section for my ecology lab reports when she says that students don’t necessarily have linguistic difficulties with writing; instead, the social practices structuring that genre are unfamiliar to them, and thus they write it badly.

The Link between Genre, Discipline, and “Bad Writers” 

Taking ecology, what hurt my ego the most was that I was turning out to be such a “bad writer.” My professor was not docking me for run-on sentences, misplaced punctuation, or incorrect subject-verb agreement. Why then was she giving me such low grades on my lab reports? 

As my professor’s comments demonstrated, the writing style I employed did not fit the purpose of the methods section: to show in a clear and concise way the actions taken during the lab. Instead, my stylistic choices put the focus squarely on the actors. My professor wanted me to show my work by detailing what I actually did in labs, but my writing focused on how I felt conducting these labs. 

My problem consisted of not thinking like a scientist. My awareness of my experience and choice to depict it in writing were priorities I had learned as an English major, but writing a true methods section meant that I had to learn to see the world like a scientist. Indirectly, I was learning how a discipline’s practices directly translate into writing style within genre. 

Learning Genre in Community 

I gained new lab partners halfway through the semester, all of whom were science majors. Reading the first draft of our compiled lab report (I was still writing the methods section), I noticed that their writing was more direct and concise and much less descriptive than my own. 

Seeing examples of science writing certainly helped, but I also became more comfortable conducting labs as the class progressed. By the time we observed raptor migration and goldfinch behavior, I was more attuned to what needed my attention, which changed my writing. Even though my methods sections still had vestiges of narration and description more appropriate to a creative writing class, I was relying more on direct, concise sentences and an occasional use of passive voice to focus the reader’s attention on the actions taken in the course of that lab. 

I had discovered that genre wasn’t just about imitating form—my science writing improved as I learned how to do science.

Conclusion 

As my experience taking an ecology course demonstrates, students who are self-proclaimed “bad writers” are often still learning what is important to a discipline and how that discipline expresses those values in writing. Writing coaches can help these students in the following ways: 

• Encourage students by reframing their writing struggles as part of their learning process instead of as a moral deficiency.

• Talk through examples: if a student has examples of the genre (e.g., a model paper provided by the professor), then discuss how its features and style might reflect the values or practices that the student is learning in class. If a student doesn’t have examples, we have handouts on several genres that can be used as conversations pieces.

• Help students formulate questions to ask their professors to clarify what they need to do and why they are supposed to do it: when done well, asking such questions is not rude; instead, it helps the professor see which conventions of their discipline they need to more clearly explain to their students.

Reference 

Curry, Mary Jane. 2016. “More Than Language: Graduate Student Writing as ‘Disciplinary Becoming.’” In Supporting Graduate Student Writers: Research, Curriculum, and Program Design, edited by Steven Simpson, Nigel A. Caplan, Michelle Cox, and Talinn Phillips, 78-96. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.