Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating INFORMATION

Being literate in science and engineering requires the ability to read and understand their literatures. Science and engineering are ways of knowing that are represented and communicated by words, diagrams, charts, graphs, images, symbols, and mathematics. Reading, interpreting, and producing text* are fundamental practices of science in particular, and they constitute at least half of engineers’ and scientists’ total working time.

Even when students have developed grade-level-appropriate reading skills, reading in science is often challenging to students for three reasons. First, the jargon of science texts is essentially unfamiliar; together with their often extensive use of, for example, the passive voice and complex sentence structure, many find these texts inaccessible. Second, science texts must be read so as to extract information accurately. Because the precise meaning of each word or clause may be important, such texts require a mode of reading that is quite different from reading a novel or even a newspaper. Third, science texts are multimodal, using a mix of words, diagrams, charts, symbols, and mathematics to communicate. Thus understanding science texts requires much more than simply knowing the meanings of technical terms.

Communicating in written or spoken form is another fundamental practice of science; it requires scientists to describe observations precisely, clarify their thinking, and justify their arguments. Because writing is one of the primary means of communicating in the scientific community, learning how to produce scientific texts is as essential to developing an understanding of science as learning how to draw is to appreciating the skill of the visual artist. Science simply cannot advance if scientists are unable to communicate their findings clearly and persuasively. Communication occurs in a variety of formal venues, including peer-reviewed journals, books, conference presentations, and carefully constructed websites; it occurs as well through informal means, such as discussions, email messages, phone calls, and blogs. New technologies have extended communicative practices, enabling multidisciplinary collaborations across the globe that place even more emphasis on reading and writing. Increasingly, too, scientists are required to engage in dialogues with lay audiences about their work, which requires especially good communication skills.