Writing Plan Phases
Collecting Baseline Data
First Edition Writing Plan
Second Edition Writing Plan
Third Edition Writing Plan
  • phase completed
  • phase in-progress

Approximately 150 students are currently enrolled in the School of Physics and Astronomy's undergraduate Physics major. Physics graduates go on to careers as high school teachers, industrial physicists, medical physicists, engineers, lawyers, and finance managers. After graduate study in physics, others will become professors, junior college teachers, and researchers at national labs or industrial research centers. Annually, the department's 59 faculty members also teach over 4,500 students from 30 different majors enrolled in its writing-intensive introductory Physics courses.

In its first implementation phase, this department developed teaching resources for several large-enrollment introductory lab courses. Developing and piloting a Revised Grading Rubric, a Review of Graphs, and an Interactive Guide to Writing Lab Reports, the department endeavored to ensure that these multi-section courses, which primarily enroll non-majors, approach writing instruction and grading in a uniform manner.

Physics Writing Plan

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Writing in the School of Physics and Astronomy

The Physics and Astronomy faculty generated the following list in response to the question, “What characterizes academic and professional communication in this discipline?”

  • Involves logical, qualitative, and quantitative descriptions using skillful prose, mathematics, and graphics.
  • Includes the presentation of results and contains a description of the uncertainty of those results.
  • Includes the grounding of conclusions on basic physical principles.
  • Involves the use of visual aids (such as posters and slides) to accompany oral presentations.
  • Is organized and formatted using accepted styles appropriate for specific audiences (technical writing, academic or industrial, popular writing, etc.).

Writing Abilities Expected of Physics and Astronomy Majors

The Physics and Astronomy faculty generated the following list in response to the question, “With which writing abilities should students in this unit’s major(s) graduate?”

Minimum Requirements for Writing in the Major:

  • Integrate physics concepts, mathematical equations, and technical graphics seamlessly into prose.
  • Clearly define physics concepts, their range of validity or uncertainty, and use them consistently in an argument.
  • Compose solutions to problems that support a logical process with appropriate mathematics, prose, diagrams, and/or graphs/tables.
  • Maintain a logbook of research activities, including figures, data tables, graphs, calculations, and explanations of ongoing work.
  • Generate reports about experiments in a range of accepted styles appropriate to the audience and situation.
  • Demonstrate an ability to communicate uncertainty in scientific results by describing the appropriate statistics.
  • Use tools for technical writing, including typesetting of mathematical symbols and equations as well as using software for analyzing data and generating technical graphics.
  • Present results in appropriate formats, including poster presentations and oral presentations (with appropriate visual aids).
  • Cite sources in APS or other professional journal style.
  • Conform to standard Academic American English.

Menu of Grading Criteria Used in Physics and Astronomy Courses

Integrate physics concepts, mathematical equations, and technical graphics seamlessly into prose.

  • Seamlessly integrates physics concepts and mathematical equations into prose using comprehensive in-text references.
  • Seamlessly integrates technical graphics into prose by using in-text references, titles, and appropriate captioning.
  • Provides appropriate numbering protocol for in-text references in the case of equations.

Clearly define physics concepts and use them consistently in an argument.

  • Clearly defines and demonstrates understanding of relevant physical concepts.
  • Consistently uses the defined concepts in arguments.

Compose solutions to problems that support a logical process with appropriate mathematics, prose, diagrams, and/or graphs/tables.

  • Composes comprehensible problem solutions.
  • Adequately supports solutions with diagrams and/or logical explication of work, assumptions, and limitations.

Maintain a logbook of research activities, including figures, data tables, graphs, calculations, and explanations of ongoing work.

  • Records all information necessary for reproduction of the experiment as performed.
  • Uses style and formats appropriate to record information quickly and clearly.

Generate reports about experiments in a range of accepted styles appropriate to the audience and situation.

  • Uses style based on that of a scientific paper (containing abstract, introductory material, description of methods and materials, and discussion of results).
  • Formats reports using consistent and logical headings.
  • Includes cohesive description of experimental procedures.

Demonstrate an ability to communicate uncertainty in scientific results by describing the appropriate statistics.

  • Represents, in graphics, mathematics, and/or prose, the kinds of statistics and principles used to identify and quantitatively analyze uncertainties.

Use tools for technical writing, including typesetting of mathematical symbols and equations as well as using software for analyzing data and generating technical graphics.

  • Uses tools for technical writing, including software for mathematical typesetting and for generating technical graphics.

Present results in appropriate formats, including poster presentations and oral presentations (with appropriate visual aids).

  • Implements stylistic features specific and appropriate to diverse formats.
  • Writings in distinct formats about same or similar subjects complement one another.

Cite sources in APS or other professional journal style.

  • Consistently cites sources using APS or other professional journal style.

Conform to standard Academic American English.

  • Conforms to standard Academic American English usage and mechanics.

Highlights from the Writing Plan

As the department implements the third edition of its Writing Plan, it has focused on developing teaching resources for selected upper-level courses. The first of these courses was PHYS 2605 Quantum Physics Laboratory, which is an intermediate lab course for physics majors. In this lab, students develop writing skills important to their field of study, including keeping a well-organized and detailed record of their work in a lab logs and writing formal scientific papers. Resources offer students examples of excellent/poor practices in keeping lab log books and writing formal papers. The course has recently been designated a 3K-level course, and through WEC-related work, the course now has a “writing intensive” identifier: PHYS 3605W. Furthermore, peer review continues to be explored for courses such as PHYS 3605W and another advanced physics laboratory (PHYS 4052W Methods of Experimental Physics II) as a way of improving student engagement and understanding of what practices make the communication of science work successful.