Charles Bazerman: Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (1988)

The immense force of scientific knowledge in our world has in recent years commanded the attention of a number of scholarly disciplines, ranging from the history of science to literary theory, from philosophy to the teaching of writing. Each foray into the language of science, however, has been motivated by the discipline and school of the researcher. Shaping Written Knowledge confronts scientific language more directly, by making its special character the real center of the inquiry. Original and extensive, this work will be of great interest to scholars concerned with the sociology and history of science, language theory, the history of literacy, the rhetoric of knowledge, technical writing, and the teaching of composition.

The emergence of the experimental article in science, Bazerman shows, is a response to the social and rhetorical situation of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural philosophy activated by the need to communicate findings and the exigencies of conflict that arise from communication. The appearance of the argumentative forms of scientific writing are coincident with the rise of the scientific community and the development of experimental procedures. All three interactively structure each other. Bazerman shows that later developments of the experimental article, in both the physical and social sciences of the twentieth century, have been made within the contexts of various disciplines. An understanding of what forces have shaped the experimental report, what functions the features were designed to serve, and the impact of rhetoric on the rest of scientific activity help to evaluate all statements of knowledge and increase our ability to make intelligent writing choices.

Edited for digital presentation by Patricia Klei
Publisher University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1988
ISBN 0299116905, 9780299116903
356 pages

publisher
ebook publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-6-13)
PDF (alt)

The Rutherford Journal, Vol 1-4, incl. Alan Turing web-book (2005-2012)

The Rutherford Journal publishes invited articles from leading international scholars.

The New Zealand Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
Editor Jack Copeland
Publisher Department of Philosophy, The University of Canterbury, New Zealand
ISSN 1177-1380

View online (HTML articles)
View online (Issue 4: Alan Turing web-book)

Isabelle Stengers: Power and Invention: Situating Science (1997)

Explores the interplay between science, society, and power.

One of the most penetrating and celebrated thinkers writing about the philosophy of science today, Isabelle Stengers here provides a firsthand account of the meeting of science and history. Concerned with the force and inventiveness of scientific theories, this work offers a unique perspective on the power of those theories to modify society, and vice versa.

Foreword by Bruno Latour
Translated by Paul Bains
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 1997
Theory Out Of Bounds – Volume 10
ISBN 0816625174, 9780816625178
249 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-17)