学科大讲堂：English for Biologists

Author: Kevin Gayle, biology teacher, Chengdu Shishi Cambridge A-Level Center.
　　Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves, Abbé Dimnet, Art of Thinking, 1928.
　　Some time ago I set my Biology students, a homework assignment to write-up a lab practical. After marking I returned the reports and watched their faces as they read my comments. I could see they knew they had done well. It was happy faces all around.
　　A few minutes later however, those pleased and contented young biologists had been reduced to bewildered, baffled and befuddled juveniles. Question - Why was this and what had happened? Answer - One simple question which was: Who did you write your report for? In surprise, one girl had said something that sounded like "Ngurrh". My class as a whole was filled with incomprehension. They were all dumbfounded. "What do you mean 'Who' "? Is this a trick question?
　　I had to explain to another student that because she had written her own report her friend couldn't give her the "right answer" and that it certainly wouldn't be found in her textbook; rather, she had better try looking in her own brain…Eventually they began to give me some answers which included: "for myself", "for my family" and "for the examiner".
　　I tried to convince my students, through simple logic, that these answers couldn't possibly be true. First, why would you write a lab report for yourself when you already know what you did and what the results were? I mean, wouldn't you rather spend your time doing whatever it is that you guys do on your mobile phones? Second, how many times has a student sat down and decided to write their homework as a gift for their family? Third, the examiner is never going to see this piece of homework. So, the question still remained. Who did they write it for? The answer was actually "No-one in particular".
　　Effective Communication and your Audience
　　Mo Yan recently won his Nobel Prize because he was able to effectively communicate the ideas in his mind through literature.
　　Something similar is necessary for biologists. No scientist would ever receive a Nobel Prize if they couldn't communicate the meaning of their work to their audience. If you visit the Nobel Prize website, you'll read just as much about why a scientist's work is important, as what was actually done. In other words, the meaning of each discovery is as important as what was discovered.
　　Writing lab reports is about communicating not just what you did but more importantly what it means for the people who will read it. You need to keep your reader, your audience, in the centre of your mind.
　　OK. So I told you what happened in my class one day, so what? What does that mean to you, my audience? I want to tell you something important. That is why I tried to get your attention with the story about my students. I want you to understand my idea - that your written communication will be better if you consider your audience. I want you to use my idea when you write your biology practical reports. There are three things here:
　　"Get attention
　　"Give your message
　　"Encourage your reader to use the idea in your message
　　Think about your audience- your reader(s). What do they need or want to get from your piece of writing? How can you get their attention? How can you make them understand the idea you want to give them? This is sometimes called your message. Confucius said: "You cannot open a book without learning something." Proverbs are excellent examples of making an idea understood i.e. giving a message. So, what do you want your reader to learn from your lab report? What is your message? This is not the same as saying what you did. Often, you may find the message of an experimental report somewhere in the discussion or conclusion section.
　　The student who said she wrote her report for her family took the opportunity to re-think my question. After a while she decided she wanted her audience to be students who may not think they are "good" at biology. You see, she, herself, needed to do her practical twice because she didn't get satisfactory results on her first attempt. This was probably because she had rushed her work. So now she wanted students to learn not to give up and maybe to take more care. That was her message and she was now clear about her audience.
　　I thought it was a fantastic message; nothing to do with the experiment really. The same idea is expressed in this Jamaican proverb: "One, one coco full basket" or in the English equivalent, "Less haste, more speed".
　　Once she knew who her audience was (students needing more confidence) and what her message was she re-wrote her report. It was much better this time because she had thought about who she was writing for before she put pen to paper. Her report will appear in the first issue of GBIO, our centre's Biological Science Journal - due out at the beginning of the next semester.
　　So, who are you going to write your next lab report for?
　　What message do you want to get across? That you know how to write a report? That you enjoyed the experiment? That you know how the experiment could be improved? That you have done some extra research? That you care about your work? That you care about Biology? Or will it be because you are blindly "following orders"?
　　Well, I hope you got my message: that last one is simply not good enough.