Reading Scientific and Technical Texts

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey http://www.faculty.english.vt.edu/Collier/stc/ch2.htm

Part 1.Introduction

Practitioners entering scientific and technical fields are confronted with an ocean of information, and the tide will constantly rise. As a reader, you will struggle to stay current with the literature in order to maintain and advance your position in your field. It is a truism that the task of reading all the information published in leading journals, in all but the most narrowly defined specialties, is impossible. The problem for you as a reader will not be reading faster, but learning how to select what is worthwhile to read slowly.

The Possibilities of Reading

Our approaches to reading often vary widely, and for the most part remain unexamined. Typically, we understand reading as a passive, individual activity about which we receive no formal instruction after childhood. Implicitly, it seems, we develop our own reading strategies. You may prefer to read in a certain place under specific conditions. Pressed for time, you may only read the introduction, conclusion and subheadings to an article to be discussed in class that day. You may skip the words in a physics textbook altogether to get to the mathematical formulas. You may read a newspaper in a ritual manner, one section proceeding the next. While each these strategies are unique, academic disciplines encourage certain possibilities for reading by regulating the expression, production and presentation of a text. In part, how we read results from the activities going on "behind the scenes" of the words we read.

Behind the scenes of a text may lie the complex linguistic skills of a poet, or the complex research skills of researchers in a laboratory. In a poet's case, the activity of writing is generally private. Poets use imagination and personal insight in deciding what is true. However, consumers usually see the services of poets as minor. Reading poetry is associated with leisure. In a researcher's case, the activity of writing is public within their profession. Researchers use each other's work in deciding what is true or factual. Consumers see research as valuable. Reading science is associated with accomplishing a task. What we face, in part, when reading a poem or research article is the organizational structure that helps write the text. As readers we approach poetry, rightly or wrongly, as the product of a less formal, highly individual process, which makes poetry more accessible. Reading poetry, one does not have to contend with the technical apparatus, graphs, charts, references to instruments, jargon, and references to other work, found in scientific and technical writing. Scientific and technical writing is less accessible.

A First Reading

It may surprise you to learn that many technical documents are written not to be read. More precisely, documents are designed to allow certain readers to avoid reading certain parts: a company president, for instance, might read only the recommendation section of a final report; the project manager might read only the recommendation and conclusion; only a study group for a subsequent project might read the entire report. What allows this procedure is a commonly recognized format: the company president knows there will be a recommendation section, and knows where to look for it: she opens the document to the table of contents page, looks to the bottom for a page number, then moves to it. When she has found the information she needs, she files the report, or sends it to the next reader. A first reading of scientific and technical texts generally includes a consideration of what you need, and how you initially respond to the text.

Reading What You Need

Most readers are unaware of the mental models they possess which motivates their reading of a text. In scientific and technical fields, the largest percentage of reading (66% for students, 78% for people on the job) is done in order to perform a task. Readers tend to ignore lengthy introductions and manuals and strike out on their own. Reading in the sciences and technology is generally performed to gather information for practical application. As the readers of scientific and technical documents are, generally, practitioners in the field, the writer usually assumes the same or a higher degree of knowledge on behalf of the reader. By following familiar forms supplemented with indexical headings, scientific and technical documents direct a reader's movement through the text.

In a study of seven physicists in a variety of subspecialties, Charles Bazerman (1988) examined the basis on which the choices of what to read were made. Given the unbelievable amount of literature that surfaces in physics, the researchers had to rely on time saving measures to stay current in their fields. Bazerman's study suggested that scientists originally made choices of what to read based on the requirements of current or future work. In addition, choices about material on which to focus included a consideration of the author's reputation and the appearance of key words in the title. Once these initial criteria were met the scientists moved to other reading strategies, selecting sections of articles to read, judging the significance of the research, determining how to use the material in their work, taking notes and, finally, re-reading the article. These schemes for reading, Bazerman concluded, were a combination of individual experiences, some dating to childhood, and the scientist's "map of the field", a conception of where the field will go and how professional needs will change.

Determining our needs for reading can be partially traced to the social roles we play. As scientific and technical communicators assuming many social roles, we may feel a tension between more immediate roles- such as a parent and electrical engineer, and less defined ones, such as a member of a democratic society.

Different models offer explanations for how we read and process information. The design of texts, size of margins, length of paragraphs, use of subheadings, amount of white (empty) space on the page, placement of visuals, mirror assumptions about the reading process. For instance, your initial impressions from looking at a text, the size of the type, the number of references, the use of color, can influence your approach to a text, or if you will read it at all. How you read indicates what your needs are. On one hand, the number of references an author makes in a text may suggest authority and knowledge of a field. You may read such a text closely in order to familiarize yourself with the current state of research. On the other hand, the number of references may intimidate you, and you may jump to the conclusion. In part, you decision of whether or not to read on is based on your assumptions and initial response to the text.