ScWRL is an open educational resource (OER) for students and instructors to support research writing and communication in STEM (Science, Technology, Education, and Math) disciplines — though we think it is a great resource for academic writing more broadly.
Students:
For student guides and content, start on the STEM Writing Resources page, which includes tips, guides, specific examples, and quizzes to help you learn and develop STEM writing practices and concepts. Our resources cover communication, features of academic research writing, academic integrity, and writing tips and strategies.
Educators:
We have also developed comprehensive teaching materials to make it easier for instructors, particularly in STEM writing courses, to incorporate writing skills lessons and workshops into their classes, and support students in developing their STEM writing capacities. Topics in this section include strategies for teaching writing, providing feedback, lesson plans, activities, assignments, grading techniques and podcasts. To access the supplementary materials in the resources, please request a password by clicking here. These resources provide instructors with the tools they need to support students as they develop writing skills.
Approach:
Because our resources are particularly useful for teaching and learning in writing courses (e.g., WRDS 150, SCIE 113) that bring together students from various disciplines, we recognize the need for context-based content in our resources. These resources therefore take a Writing in the Disciplines (WID) and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) approaches. These approaches view communication as reflecting the practices and knowledge-making practices and expectations both within and across the different STEM disciplines, as well as writing beyond the curriculum.
Project History and Acknowledgements:
The ScWRL site was initially developed in 2012-2015 by faculty and staff in Science involved with SCIE 113 (First-Year Seminar in Science) and SCIE 300 (Science 300) with the support of the UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund and in-kind contributions by the UBC Science Centre for Learning and Teaching and the UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning & Technology for their in-kind contributions. We thank the following contributors to this major undertaking: Mette (Meghan) Aubé, Eric Jandciu, Jackie Stewart, David Oliver, Loren Gaudet, Thomas Deane, Shannon Obradovich, Rebecca Shaw, Joanne Fox, Alice Cassidy, Gülnur Birol, Randall Lao, Katelyn Low, and Anita Restivo.
In 2019-2021, faculty and staff from WRDS (Writing, Research, and Discourse Studies), Science writing, the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication, and Skylight collaborated to update and revise the site, in particular the student resources, to reflect the needs of students with writing not only in Science but in STEM disciplines. This redevelopment project was completed with the support of a grant from UBC’s Open Educational Resource fund. Work on this phase of the project was led by Loren Gaudet and Jonathan Otto (WRDS), Laurie McNeill, and Jackie Stewart, Eric Jandciu, Patty Kelly, and Mike Borkent. We extend particular thanks to our work-learn student, Jamie Lozano, for her insights, web design, and editing. Finally, we are thankful to instructors and students in the following units for their generous feedback on the materials provided on the site: SCIE 113, Engineering, The School of Journalism, Writing and Media (JWAM), and the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication (CWSC).
