Invention Varies Across Disciplines
Differences in Style Exist, But Don’t Forget About Differences in Invention.
Even If You Can’t Recognize It, Writing and Invention Within That Writing Exist.
When I inquired of my RA, junior biomedical engineering student Kenneth Nguyen, what he routinely wrote, he paused to think for a minute before responding simply “nothing”. Since I doubted that any Case student would be exempted from all forms of writing, I pressed him further. After a few more questions, I learned he often crafted procedures in preparation for labs and then reports after the lab. I began to think about this in relationship to the writing I’ve done so far here at Case, and the writing I expect I will do based on my experiences and what I learned through my faculty interview. While people often focus on the stylistic differences between scientific writing and writing in the humanities, even more important is the varying methods of invention.
Writing for science is much more scripted than other writing. If your procedure misses just one step along the way, the data from your experiment can be off. Conversely, if you fail to notice a metaphor or a simile through the course of a novel it will likely not alter your overall perception of the novel as a whole. In the end, the conclusions you can reach in a scientific paper are limited, they must be directly supported by empirical evidence. On the other hand, in a paper for an English or a History class, you can use the same evidence as a previous piece, interpret it differently and draw a new and equally valid conclusion.
In science, precedent limits your invention because you must respond to it. You cannot propose a new theory of relativity without explaining how it better explains existing phenomena than Einstein’s current theory. In History, contrasting theories can coexist. The causes of the Civil War illustrate this beautifully. Renowned historians blame everything from slavery to states’ rights and tariff prices in the Southern states. These hypotheses can modify each other and help shape our understanding of history without pitting one against the other.
These different methods of invention spring from varying goals for writing based in the sciences and the humanities. In science, writing allows you to structure an experiment or report your conclusions of an experiment that’s already been concluded. Either way, the focus is on the experiment, where the real innovation takes place. While in the humanities, the papers themselves are used to innovate and expound on new ideas. Either way, writing is based on innovation.
However, my RA’s answer was telling. While writing, loosely constructed, is a part of all academic pursuits, people often overlook the forms of writing that take place outside Language and History departments. Our goal as an upperclassmen should be to acknowledge the writing we do, work on the areas which are not strengths and broaden our horizons. We must keep in mind as an upperclassmen that we should not focus solely on classes for our major at the exclusion of any other classes. It is important that we recognize invention in all it’s forms, regardless of whether you consider yourself a more science or humanities-oriented person.
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