JoinWriting Toward a Scientific Identity: Shifting From Prescriptive to Reflective Writing in Undergraduate Biology
Analytical writing enhances retention of science learning and is integral to student-centered classrooms. Despite this, scientific writing in undergraduate programs is often presented as a series of sentence-level conventions of grammar, syntax, and citation
formats, reinforcing students’ perceptions of its highly prescriptive nature. The authors designed their research to transform students’ perceptions of scientific writing in an upper level class in biology through a semester-long, inquiry-based writing project.