Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Course Aims

• To provide an introduction to popular science communication in the broader contexts of (a) the role of communication in science, and (b) the cultural, practical and policy-related role of science communication in wider society;
• To provide intellectual resources for constructive critical analysis of popular science communication in a variety of real-world settings;
• To cultivate students' practical communication skills, with particular emphasis on effective speaking, writing and exhibiting on scientific and science-related topics to a variety of audiences;
• To provide students with a range of resources and skills for effective communication of complex material;
• To provide students with the opportunity to undertake a substantial practical project in either science writing or science exhibiting.

Textbooks

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Publishers, 2011. ISBN: 9781400052172.

Other required readings (and required audio, video and exhibition materials) are listed separately on the readings page.

Course Requirements and Assessment

The course will comprise two 90-minute seminars per week, at 11:30am – 1:00pm on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the fall semester. The Monday seminars are devoted mainly to seminar discussion of key topics, and the Wednesday seminars are devoted mainly to work (individually, and in groups) on practical communication projects.

Students are required to attend and participate actively in the seminars. Students who are unable to attend a seminar for medical or other reasons should inform the professor in advance. Unexplained poor attendance and failure to participate actively in seminars will affect the overall grade on the course.

Assignments (which may involve reading, listening to or viewing relevant sources before class, written composition, or exhibition-related work) will be set on a weekly basis. It is essential that students should complete pre-class assignments, as this will be essential to effective participation in the relevant seminar discussions.

This is a communications intensive (CI-HW) class. CI-HW subjects are a subset of CI-H subjects concentrating more particularly on the writing process. Given how important revision is to composition, many assignments will be revised. The emphasis in all the CI-HW sections is on writing: the writing process, from pre-writing through drafting, revising, and editing; and the rhetorical dimensions of writing: the audience for whom one is writing, and the purpose for which one is writing—to argue, inform, persuade, explain, convince, and so on.

Assessment

Grades on the course will be based on the following marking scheme:

Class Calendar and Overview