Download File - The Portfolio of Juliana Madzia

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Juliana Madzia
English Composition 2089
2 December 2014
From Novice to Expert: Pathways of Integration and Dissemination
Developmental neurobiology is a field of neuroscience research that focuses on
describing the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which complex nervous systems emerge
during embryonic development and throughout life. Dramatic discoveries on these topics have
been made in recent decades, paving the way for developmental neurobiology to move from
being a small sub-field of research to being its own independent specialty. Although a substantial
amount of research has been done on the discourse community of scientists in general (Florence
and Yore, 2004; Abbamonte and Mattarazzo, 2008), little to no research has been published on
discourse communities within neuroscience and its related fields. The present research
establishes the existence of a discourse community within the realm of developmental
neurobiology. It then furthers this notion by exploring the processes of becoming enculturated
and gaining authority within this community and evaluating the role that language and rhetoric
play in such processes.
The data for this research were acquired in various ways. Numerous examples of
ethnographies of other discourse communities were read to determine where there might be a
need for more research and to determine which concepts of a discourse community might be
interesting to study. The existing literature on scientific discourse communities is somewhat
limited, but several case studies were found that evaluated the use of rhetoric and the process of
enculturation into the world of science. Since no published works could be found on the idea of
developmental neurobiologists as a discourse community, all information on this topic is the
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result of primary research. As an undergraduate researcher in a developmental neurobiology
laboratory at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, I have had the opportunity to make observations of
the community, its culture, and its methods of communication throughout my year of
employment in the lab. Additionally, I interviewed the principal investigator of my lab, Dr.
Kenny Campbell, to obtain the perspective of someone who, after twenty years of work in
developmental neurobiology, would be considered an expert in the field.
In an article published in Writing about Writing: A College Reader, linguistics professor
John Swales discusses the concept of discourse communities and their importance in the
academic and social worlds. Since this research seems to be the first of its kind on the idea of
developmental neurobiologists as a discourse community, it was important to establish that this
community met John Swales’ six defining characteristics for the conceptualization of a discourse
community before proceeding to more deeply examine the processes that shape this community.
A discourse community is said to exist if the community in question:
1. Has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
2. Has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
3. Uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.
4. Utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of
its aims.
5. In addition to owning genres, has acquired some specific lexis.
6. Has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and
discoursal expertise (Swales 221-222).
While developmental neurobiologists have a very vast array of specific research interests,
they all have the mutual objective of advancing the scientific community’s knowledge on
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developmental neuroscience as a whole. Researchers within this community communicate with
other researchers on a global scale by attending conferences such as the Biennial Meeting of the
International Society for Developmental Neuroscience and by reading and contributing to
publications such as the International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience. On a smaller
scale, communication takes place between members of individual institutions by the holding of
various meetings and presentations where researchers may present their findings to their peers
and facilitate discussions on future objectives. These mechanisms of participation all allow
developmental neurobiologists to provide information and feedback to one another.
Developmental neurobiology publications could be described as their own genre by virtue of the
fact that such publications are used by researchers to gain background information that points
them in the direction of where their future research should go. These publications have a very
specific form and function of which all members of the discourse community are aware.
One of the strongest arguments for the existence of a discourse community within the
field of developmental neurobiology researchers is the very specialized lexis that must be
acquired in order to be a fully integrated member of this community. It is not uncommon to hear
two researchers in my lab carrying on a conversation about the “distinct temporal requirements
for homeobox genes” and the “establishment of a pallo-subpallial boundary” so fluidly that it
seems as if they have been using such vocabulary since the day they were born. Finally, there are
varying levels of expertise within the community. Members range from graduate students who
have very recently entered the field to seasoned PhDs who have been in the field since its
emergence. The role of language and writing in scientific discourse cannot be overstated,
especially in the way that it affects students’ enculturation into the discourse community and
their future success in the field.
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According to a 2004 multiple case study published by Marilyn Florence and Larry Yore,
“Reading and writing are inextricably linked to the very nature and fabric of Science. Individuals
who aspire to become experts in science must have the ability to transform their findings into
both oral and written form” (638). They declare that enculturation of novice scientists into elite
expert communities is a long process that begins early in their undergraduate careers and
continues even past the start of their research careers. In this article, scientific literacy is defined
as ‘‘the cognitive abilities and emotional dispositions to construct science understandings, the
big ideas of science, and the communications to inform people about these big ideas and to
persuade them to take informed actions” (Florence and Yore 638).
The interview conducted with Dr. Campbell illustrates the very same point. Speaking
about young students beginning to work in the developmental neurobiology lab for the first time,
he says:
There, I think the challenges are greater because the concept is even further away
from a comfortable place for them. So as an undergrad coming in you have a
vague understanding but not the same level as if you were a PhD trained
molecular biologist. So what you have to grasp as an undergraduate is the overall
picture. But I would argue that that’s the perfect time to be able to do it because
you’re coming in at a point where most of your exposure is overview exposure.
You have exposure to all aspects of that big picture. Once you have a concept of
the anatomy, you could back around and learn what controls those processes. So
you can come back and learn at each of those levels. You can learn from others in
the lab or be involved in experiments. A good undergraduate would be able to
progress.
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This was exactly the experience that I had when I began working in the lab as a freshman
undergraduate student. I was taking first-year biology at the time, which acted as an introduction
to the complex biological concepts of the developmental neurobiology laboratory. As my
research progressed, I learned in greater depth about each of the topics specifically related to my
own research and eventually integrated that information into an understanding of the broader
research project.
Although the learning curve in the world of developmental neurobiology is great, it is
rarely so large that it drives students away from the field entirely. It has been shown that the best
way to ensure that students become successfully enculturated into scientific discourse
communities is through “legitimate peripheral participation,” which allows a young student to
gain access into the community through association with an expert mentor (Birch-Bécaas 3).
These expert-novice relationships often consist of co-authoring a paper and attending academic
conferences together. Mentors showcase the language norms and practices of the discourse
community and share knowledge of the community with their students (Florence and Yore 650).
Though the novice does have a position within the discourse community, he or she does not yet
play a fully integrated role. Over time, novices become more familiar with the “ways of being”
and the “ways of knowing” of their academic discourse community (Florence and Yore 644).
Eventually, the students will have gained enough knowledge and familiarity with their
discourse community to move on to what is arguably the biggest step in legitimizing oneself as a
scientist – publication (Campbell). Most students do not immediately have the skills necessary to
successfully write in the style of the academic sciences. According to Birch-Bécaas, these
students often “do not have the reader awareness they need,” and their writing tends to reflect
“greater familiarity with the technical aspects of work than with the rhetorical skills needed to
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present that work effectively to other scientists” (6). This is where the importance of a strong
expert-novice relationship again comes into play, as it is necessary for the mentor to strike an
appropriate balance between guidance and inhibiting over-correction. Students that are given the
opportunity to learn to write in this way are best equipped to become regular contributors with
full integration into their scientific discourse community (Birch-Bécaas 7).
Although it seems to be the exception rather than the norm, there are times when young
scientists experience conflicts during their process of enculturation that ultimately drive them
away from the field entirely. This can occur if the mentor does not have adequate skills or
awareness to properly convey the norms and expectations of the discourse community to the
student or if the mentor himself does not possess satisfactory writing skills (Birch-Bécaas 8).
From Dr. Campbell’s perspective, the majority of these failed cases can be attributed to what he
sees as a lack of passion. “They’re not very driven to go deeper. They come in and they actually
realize that it’s a climb. Those students find themselves less passionate about it and don’t
necessarily feel it’s worth the effort to go forward” (Campbell).
Additionally, even if a student makes it all the way through the initial process of
integration into the academic or scientific discourse community, he or she is still not guaranteed
success. College professor and genre theorist Ann Johns states in "Discourse Communities and
Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity" that it is not uncommon for
students to go through all of their training, only to find out later that there are no faculty
positions available or that their approach to research will not lead to advancement in their field
(507). This issue has been brought to light in the media recently, as both the lack of funding from
the National Institutes of Health toward biomedical research and the unavailability of principal
investigator positions have gained more publicity as major factors driving graduates away from
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science (Andrews et al. 1). Often, young scientists are forced to complete several consecutive
post-doctoral fellowships for which they are highly over-qualified before they reach full-fledged
faculty status. During this time, post-doctoral fellows already have all of the knowledge
necessary for integration into the discourse community, but they are barred from gaining full
authority because their research topics and methods are still essentially at the mercy of their
principal investigator. Therefore, they are stuck in a state of partial assimilation with little
authority due not to a lack of ability but to the inhibiting qualities of the structure of the field.
A challenge that has not yet been thoroughly explored is the dissemination and
presentation of research findings to the larger scientific community outside the realm of
developmental neurobiology. This is arguably even more difficult than the original adoption of
the vocabulary and lexis required for integration into the discourse community of developmental
neuroscience. According to Dr. Campbell, learning the vocabulary and gaining access to the field
are not outside the capability of an average intellect person. He says:
Within the developmental neurobiology field it’s very true that I can be pretty
specific about things and leave out a lot of details and people are right there with
me… But actually, there’s really little value in only communicating to that
group… It’s much more meaningful when you’re able to have a broader impact.
And that’s when your jargon and your terminologies have to be put into context or
even abolished to find a way to disseminate on a larger level.
The most valuable goal that a scientist can attempt to achieve is to talk to and influence
every segment of the scientific community. It is when a developmental neurobiologist can
disseminate his or her research to a broader sphere and make non-specialists realize that the
research is important and exciting that he or she can make the greatest impact on society
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(Campbell). Although extremely specialized journals that form the basis of communication
within this discourse community, like the International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience,
have their uses and their benefits, it is the ability to publish in more general journals that will be
read by neurophysiologists, biochemists, and medical researchers alike that truly makes a
developmental neurobiologist successful not just in the developmental neurobiology discourse
community, but in the discourse community of all scientific research (Campbell).
The command of proper language in the sciences, and specifically in developmental
neurobiology, is highly necessary and is interwoven into the processes of grant funding,
understanding experiments and data, presenting results, and persuading other scientists and
laypeople of the validity and importance of those results (Yore et al. 113). This pathway of
acquisition is often viewed as a steady upward slope; one would expect scientists to expand their
range of specialized vocabulary continuously as they move up in their fields and gain expertise.
Indeed, current literature on the topic states that “experts are not allowed to be comfortable with
their current expertise; as a result, they constantly push the boundaries of their knowledge and
competence” (Florence and Yore 640).
I do not dispute this, but I would also argue that for successful developmental
neurobiologists this language trajectory includes a second pathway that develops simultaneously
with language acquisition. Both my own experiences and my interview with Dr. Campbell point
to the idea that once new developmental neurobiologists have successfully become enculturated
into the discourse community and have obtained the necessary lexis and rhetorical skills, unless
they are able to take the information that they have obtained at a high level of specialization and
find a way to bring it back down and disseminate it to the broader scientific community and the
general population in a meaningful way, they will not reach the maximum level of success
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outside of their own discourse community of developmental neurobiologists. I have found this
to be true even in my own short time working in the field. It is simple enough to memorize
impressive-sounding jargon about molecular genetics and laboratory techniques describing my
research, but this kind of talk is generally met with blank stares from friends and family
members that are unfamiliar with the topic. It requires the ability to connect these ideas to a
broader subject – to emphasize that what we discover at the molecular level is directly related to
childhood cognitive development and mental illness – before people outside the field can
appreciate the importance of the research being done.
After the original establishment of developmental neurobiologists as their own discourse
community within the broader communities of neuroscience and scientific research as a whole, it
becomes clear that proper command of language and scientific rhetoric are absolutely vital to
students’ enculturation into the discourse community and their future success as published
researchers. Having a capable, expert mentor and having the opportunity to co-author a paper
with this mentor are key elements in this integration process. Lack of these and other factors
have been shown in some cases to lead students to be driven away from the field of
developmental neurobiology or scientific research entirely. Preliminary research indicates that an
even greater challenge than attaining the specialized lexis of the developmental neurobiology
discourse community is sharing the research done at such a high level of specialization with the
greater scientific community in a way that demonstrates its importance in a significant way.
Developmental neurobiologists that are able to overcome this challenge may experience greater
career success than those that cannot. According to Dr. Campbell, though, the greatest indicator
of successful integration and enculturation into the developmental neurobiology discourse
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community is passion. He concluded our interview with the following words of wisdom from his
years of experience in developmental neurobiology:
You’ve got to care about what it is you’re doing, because the reality is, it’s really
hard… So unless you’re incredibly passionate about it, unless you’re driven by
trying to get answers to things we don’t know, you won’t succeed in this field…
If you’re passionate you’ll say, “Okay, I’m going to learn that stuff.”
Although the processes of becoming assimilated and gaining authority in the discourse
community of developmental neurobiology researchers are often difficult and extensive, the
benefits that can be reaped from joining this discourse community are great. Developmental
neurobiologists have an important and unique niche in providing new knowledge and discoveries
to the scientific community and to the world at large, leading to critical progress on disease
understanding and prevention. None of this could be achieved without the cooperation,
cohesiveness, and communication that exist within this discourse community.
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Works Cited
Abbamonte, Lucia, and Olimpia Matarazzo. "Rhetorical Communication in the CogSci Discourse
Community." World Academy of Science, Engineering, and Technology 02.08 (2008): 475-84.
Web.
Andrews, Nancy, et al. "A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at
Risk." United for Medical Research (2008): 1-20. Web.
Birch-Bécaas, Susan. "The Initiation of French PhD Students into the International Research Discourse
Community." ASp 53-54 (2011): 1-10. Web.
Campbell, Kenneth. Personal interview. 7 November 2014.
Florence, Marilyn K., and Larry D. Yore. "Learning to Write like a Scientist: Coauthoring as an
Enculturation Task." Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41.6 (2004): 637-68. Web.
Johns, Ann. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and
Diversity." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. 1st ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug
Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 499-518. Print.
Swales, John. “The Concept of a Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader.
2nd ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 217-228.
Print.
Yore, Larry D., Marilyn K. Florence, Terry W. Pearson, and Andrew J. Weaver. "Written Discourse in
Scientific Communities: A Conversation with Two Scientists about Their Views of Science, Use
of Language, Role of Writing in Doing Science, and Compatibility between Their Epistemic
Views and Language." International Journal of Science Education 28.2-3 (2006): 109-41. Web.