By flipping quickly through your college course catalog, you’ll see how many academic disciplines exist, and each discipline comes with its own type of writing or writing style. For example, scientific reports, like those for chemistry and physics courses, commonly use the passive voice to convey information. Think “the water was poured into the beaker” instead of the more personal and active “I poured water into the beaker.” The passive voice removes the individual from the equation and provides a sense of scientific objectivity. Successful writing in the disciplines depends on understanding and following such conventions, which are described in more detail in the following sections.

Writing in the Sciences

Instructors outside of English may assign logs or journals to familiarize students with a specific subject, such as geology, marine biology, archaeology, or anthropology. These logs or journals will model writing done in the field, the laboratory, school, or another setting by academics or other professionals in the discipline. Your instructors may provide guidance about the type of information that you should record in a log or journal. To give you some examples, you may be asked to take notes on your research findings or to answer questions typically posed in a discipline, supporting your answers with evidence. You might also be asked to reflect on what you’ve discovered, much as you have done if you have completed any of the Reviewing and Reflecting activities in this textbook. Consider writing in these logs or journals an opportunity to practice using new words, new styles, or anything unfamiliar to you about a discipline. As with any skill, practice makes perfect.

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If you are enrolled in a science class involving a lab, you will write lab reports. If you are planning on going into a research field, you will write scientific essays. We’ll examine both of these types of writing next.

Lab Reports. Typically, lab reports follow a standard format. Your instructor may provide you with a sample lab report to use as a model or merely tell you what is expected. Be certain to follow the instructions carefully and consistently. Successful lab reports typically include the following components:

Scientific Essays. The components of a scientific essay are similar to those of a lab report: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Analysis, Discussion (these words form the acronym IMRAD). The principal difference between a lab report and a scientific essay is that the scientific essay includes more historical context, placing the experiment in the context of what has come before and inviting further study.

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Whether you are writing a lab report or a scientific essay, remember that your audience is other scientists in the field. Therefore, your writing should be factual and objective, not humorous or entertaining.

Writing in Nursing

In nursing school, you will write about treatments, best practices, medical cases, and patient (sometimes referred to as “client”) experiences. As a practicing nurse you might also write memos, assist in the preparation of patient education booklets, and contribute your own research articles to medical journals. In all the writing in this field, it is important to support any claims with observations, data, and evidence.

Following are descriptions of some common types of papers in nursing school.

A Nursing Philosophy. A nursing philosophy is a narrative that expresses your reasons for pursuing a career in nursing. It is a place to discuss your values and how past experiences may have shaped your decision to enter the field.

A Practice Paper. In practice papers, you apply learned knowledge to client needs. You may be presented with a problem or diagnosis and asked to produce a care plan. This can include a concept map, a visual diagram connecting possible diagnoses and supporting research, the client, and a proposed care plan. Practice papers can also include a process or research essay. Practice papers must include a detailed patient history, a diagnosis of client health issues, recommended interventions and their rationale, expected outcomes, and observed outcomes.

Case Studies. Case studies in nursing can include both individuals and groups of people. You may be asked to interpret laboratory results, evaluate data from a previous nurse’s notes, prioritize patient medical needs, assess guidelines for health care, and consider the patient’s personal history in that care, including language and cultural background. Case studies, like practice papers, also ask you to apply your learned knowledge to the care and treatment of individual clients.

Research Essays. Research essays often ask you to look at twenty-five (or more) peer-reviewed journal essays on a particular medical issue in order to determine the best course of treatment or to answer a research question. You may think that twenty-five sources is quite a large number, but in real-world medical practice and research, it is often necessary to gather a lot of information to make effective treatment decisions or to answer challenging questions.

Literature Reviews. Literature reviews require you to read and analyze published work. However, unlike a research essay, a literature review summarizes the findings of one or more current journal articles on a topic. The review critically evaluates the information.

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Nursing Narratives. You may be asked to write two types of nursing narratives: experiential and reflective. An experiential narrative is a record of what happened while caring for a client. A reflective essay asks you to consider your own emotions in a specific scenario.

Position Papers. In position papers, you take a stand on a nursing-related issue using the strategies discussed in Chapter 9 of this textbook.

Although writing conventions in nursing vary, all writing in the field should be based on detailed information. The use of first-person voice (the pronoun I) is expected in reflective essays; however, when describing a procedure or making clinical observations, it is conventional to use the passive voice, keeping yourself out of the conversation. Direct quotations of sources are rare, with the profession choosing to paraphrase over quote, but you will still need to reference your sources. Typically, writing in the field of nursing uses American Psychological Association (APA) style for citing and listing sources.

Writing in the Arts (Art, Drama, Music)

Reviews of books, films, music, and plays are common assignments in many arts-based classes. When writing reviews, include the title; the name of the author/composer, director, or conductor; and any other information that would help to identify the specific artifact that is your subject. Provide an introduction that discusses the criteria used for evaluating the work, and remember to qualify and explain evaluation words, like good, great, or poor. (What is “good” to one person may be “excellent” to another.)

Reviews of books, films, or plays should include a summary of the work, but the summary should be concise, ideally twenty-five to thirty words. Your task is not to retell the story but rather to review it. As with most essays, you will need strong evidence to convince the reader that your position is accurate. Don’t insult, but be honest.

In arts-related writing you do in college, your instructor will probably require you to cite and fully document all sources you refer to, including any work that you review. Often, academic papers in the arts use Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style.

Writing in Business

Many types of writing are produced by business professionals, including business plans; reports; proposals; memos; correspondence; and executive summaries, which briefly outline key points from a larger document, such as a business plan. Reports may compare and contrast one product or plan with another to aid in purchasing and other business decisions.

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Businesspeople may also produce marketing materials, such as brochures; Web site content; press releases; and presentations, which can include printed handouts or computer-generated visuals, like PowerPoint slides.

The primary difference between business and academic writing is that business writing generally is less formal. Typically, you may use personal pronouns like you or I. However, be aware that slang or overly casual language can be off-putting to fellow professionals, especially in formal documents such as business plans and annual reports. Regardless of the type of document you are producing, it is important to avoid words that insult or stereotype individuals or groups by gender, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion, or physical ability. It is also essential to use concise and clear language. Wordiness wastes readers’ time and consequently their money.

If you cite sources in business writing, especially in a college course, you may be required to use a certain citation style. Business writers commonly use APA style or the guidelines presented in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Writing in Education

As in other disciplines, there are common and specialized types of writing in education. These include reflection essays, journals and notes on field work (i.e., student teaching), curriculum designs, lesson plans, “reviews” of instructional materials, case studies, research essays, and self-evaluations.

Reflection-type assignments are similar to the Reviewing and Reflecting exercises that you may have completed in this book. During student teaching, you might be asked to think back on a strategy that you tried in class, considering how well it worked and determining what you might do differently in the future to get better results. If a teaching session goes spectacularly well, you might evaluate your performance to determine whether your success can be duplicated.

Many schools will require that you file lesson plans a week or more in advance. Having distinct lesson plans helps you stay organized in the classroom. In college education classes, you will write lesson plans to practice managing your classroom. To be successful, you will need to review the existing curriculum, discussing how it meets specific objectives.

You may identify trends in the classroom, either as a student or a career teacher. To document these trends, case studies are used. A case study is an observation and analysis of an individual student, teacher, or classroom interaction, and it includes your conclusions and recommendations.

Self-evaluations are another type of writing you may be asked to complete as either a student or a teacher. In these evaluations, you might discuss strengths and weaknesses of lesson plans, how your lesson plan met student learning objectives and outcomes, what you learned about yourself or your students, and how you could improve a teaching method or lesson plan.

You might also be asked to keep a teaching portfolio, a collection of your best work and therefore something of great interest to prospective employers. Generally, a teaching portfolio contains not only sample course materials, like lesson plans or syllabi, but also your teaching philosophy, professional goals, résumé, and evaluations. (Portfolios are used not just in education programs but in a variety of other disciplines.)

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Like many other fields, writing in education includes a specialized vocabulary that most people in the field will understand. Research essays are formal in nature, similar to writing in the sciences, with few if any personal pronouns. For reflection assignments, it is acceptable to use the first-person I voice and viewpoint.

If you cite sources in education writing, you may be required to use a certain citation style. Education writers commonly use APA style or the guidelines presented in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Writing in History

Historians analyze information about past events to explain how or why something happened. They may also write about important figures in history. Generally speaking, historians write for students, interested readers, or scholars in their field. As a student writer in a history course, your audience typically will consist of your instructor and fellow students.

Forms of writing in history include critical essays, book reviews, and research essays. Generally, critical essays are shorter works that examine one or more primary documents and then formulate a theory about those documents. Book reviews, similar to art reviews, examine and critique a scholarly work. Research essays often pose a question and examine evidence that responds to this question. The focus is how or why something happened, as opposed to merely reporting an event. When writing a research essay, bear in mind that historians value counterarguments and appreciate writing that considers a variety of viewpoints. Therefore, research different theories or perspectives about the event or historical figure that is the subject of your paper. Also, be aware that the convention in the discipline is to use past tense verbs.

Whenever you cite sources in a history paper, be sure to use the citation style that your instructor specifies. In history, writers commonly follow the guidelines presented in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Writing in Psychology

Writing is an integral part of psychology. Whether it is a journal article for peers, a grant to fund research, or an article for the media, writing in psychology should be clear, logical, concise, and as objective as possible. Writing types for this discipline include literature reviews, research essays, theoretical essays, and poster presentations for conferences.

Literature Reviews. Literature reviews require that you evaluate current research on a specific topic. In this type of review, you will not only report on current research but also take a position on it, a position supported by qualitative and quantitative data. In graduate courses, a literature review might be the introduction to your own research. If that is the case, the review discusses past research that supports your work.

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Research Essays. Research essays in psychology generally report on research done to answer a specific question. In undergraduate psychology courses, your instructor might pose a question that you have to answer by referring to published sources. For an example of this type of assignment, and of a paper written in response to it, see Learning from Another Writer: A Developmental Psychology Assignment.

More advanced psychology courses, and professional work in the field, may require original research. Writing that reports on this research generally has the following components: a research question, a literature review, a theory or hypothesis about possible answers to the question, the methodology used to test this hypothesis, results of the research, and an analysis of those results. This writing may also incorporate tables, figures, graphs, or charts.

Theoretical Essays. In a theoretical essay, you are asked to examine existing research about a particular topic and to set forth an experiment testing your own theory about the topic. You are expected to support your ideas with evidence from the field, even if it is contradictory.

Poster Presentations. Psychologists often attend conferences in which they share innovations and discoveries with peers. In poster presentations, as opposed to formal talks, researchers exhibit data in the form of graphs and tables, making it easier for conference attendees to read information while walking through an exhibit area. If the poster is effective, an attendee might stop to ask questions and learn more about the research. Obviously, the more attractive the poster and the easier it is to read, the more interest the researcher will generate.

Regardless of the type of writing, psychologists frequently use specialized vocabulary. If you believe that definitions will help readers understand your material, include brief ones. Some other tips: when writing about results, use the present tense, and when writing conclusions, use the past tense. Also, write as objectively as possible, avoiding the use of you and I.