Section I
Chapter 1:
Scientific and Technical Communication in Context
Part 1;
Part 2;
Part 3
Chapter 2:
Reading Scientific and Technical Texts
Chapter 3:
Writing Scientific and Technical Texts
Part 1;
Part 2;
Part 3
Chapter 4:
Conducting Research
Part 1;
Part 2
Chapter 5:
Understanding Audiences
Part 1;
Part 2
Chapter 6:
Persuasion and Critical Thinking
Part 1;
Part 2
Chapter 7:
Participation and Policy
Part 1;
Part 2
Section II
Chapter 8:
Definitions, Descriptions, and Instructions
Part 1;
Part 2
Chapter 9:
Correspondence
Chapter 10:
Job-Finding Materials
Chapter 11:
Proposals
Part 1;
Part 2
Chapter 12:
Technical Reports
Chapter 13:
Scientific Articles and Abstracts
Chapter 14:
Oral Presentations
Chapter 15:
Formatting, Designing, and Using Graphics
Part 1;
Part 2
Grammar Handbook
Section III
Chapter 16:
Opening
Geoff Cooper:
"Textual Technologies"
Discussion
Chapter 17:
Opening
Steve Fuller: "Putting People Back Into the Business of Science"
Part 1; Part 2
Discussion
Chapter 18:
Opening
William Keith: "Science and Communication"
Discussion
Chapter 19:
Opening
Sujatha Raman: "Challenging High-Tech War"
Discussion
Chapter 20:
→ Opening
Dale L. Sullivan: "Migrating Across Disciplinary Boundaries"
Discussion
Chapter 21:
Opening
Tobias, Chubin, Aylesworth: "Restructuring Demand for Scientific Expertise"
Part 1; Part 2
Discussion
Opening
Since the 1960's, two opposing but related trends affect the structure of academic disciplines. The first trend is increasing public interest in how their money is spent. Since the public supports academic institutions with taxes, corporate sponsorship, tuition payments and contributions, they want to know the relevance of programs receiving money. Academics must explain and legitimate their practices to students, parents and funding sources. In some instances, esoteric or irrelevant research programs hide behind the label of "progress." As disciplinary practitioners are finding, however, the issues of public concern are not adequately addressed by any one discipline's resources. For example, many of the problems that scientists and engineers tackle — treating diseases, finding new sources of energy, developing environmentally friendly ("green") technologies — require input not only from members of different disciplines but the lay public as well.
The second trend is increasing specialization. To achieve "scientific" status practitioners in many academic disciplines took up, and encouraged a demand for, ever narrowly defined areas of research. Increased specialization was taken as a sign of a highly developed research tradition. Academics and professionals speculated that if they could reach a unified theory or get practitioners to apply a uniform set of methods or standards, their fields would gain tangible success, display progress, and acquire influence. The paradox of increased specialization was that many practitioners in the subdisciplines began to call for the elimination of traditional disciplinary boundaries - while trying to prove that their own fields had matured into unique, organized research fields.
Recent calls for interdisciplinary (or disciplinary integration) have been pegged by many scholars — among them Stephen Toulmin and Gerald Holton — as part of the constant swing between "unity and diversity in Western civilization." But the growth in interdisciplinary scholarship over the last three decades — inspired by an economic conceptions of information and knowledge — indicates the emergence of a social movement as opposed to simple intellectual fashion. Recent proclamations of either the end of inquiry — the end of history, the end of knowledge — or the rise of grand unifying theories (physics, genetics, sociobiology) signal the desire to reconfigure traditional methods and forms of knowledge.
Put broadly, interdisciplinary is defined along a sliding rhetorical scale. On one end interdisciplinary acknowledges the need for collaborative research on narrowly defined set of questions; but the research itself does not entail rethinking the disciplinary status quo. On the other end interdisciplinary refers to eliminating the traditional disciplinary order and asserting a meta- or supradisciplinarity position — a science of science for example. Out of an examination of the roles and responsibilities of disciplines a new audience for academic discourse has arisen — the interdisciplinary audience.
During the last period of the Mesozoic era, approximately 65 million years ago, mass extinctions of animal and plant life occurred. The question of "what killed the dinosaurs" is still the subject of scientific debate, but recent interest can be traced to 1980. This controversy touches many disciplines — geology, biology, astrophysics, statistics — and has affected many scientific careers. Dale Sullivan's case study analyzes the rhetorical resources scientists must use to convince interdisciplinary audiences of their views. Scientific and technical communication typically takes place during well-defined occasions. Examining the vagaries of scientific discourse during a time of discord, Sullivan surveys the possibilities of scientific communication in the future — where disciplines collide and audiences transform.