A Demonstration of a Scientific Writing Workshop for Undergraduate Students

The National Weather Center’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program (NWC REU), funded by the National Science Foundation, has conducted a series of scientific writing workshops for the past three summers. This series of workshops—which have been held online, in-person, and hybrid—employ active learning to guide undergraduate students through the process of scientific writing to help them see themselves as scientists.

The series contains three main workshops (1.5 hours each) and five shorter (30-minute) workshops. The main workshops address 1) Introduction & Literature Review, 2) Revising & Editing, and 3) Discussion & Conclusion. The shorter workshops cover Brainstorming & Outlining, Plagiarism & Citations, Methods & Results, Titles, and Abstracts. The workshop content is inspired and supplemented by the text Eloquent Science, which provides a further reference for student learning. Each workshop is free-standing, and programs can “mix and match” workshops that are most relevant to their individual program goals or the time they have available.

The workshops are being refined, distributed to pilot sites, and tested, with the goal of wide distribution through open availability. While the workshops complement each other, each workshop is free-standing, and other REU-like programs who wish to use these workshops can “mix and match” those that are most relevant to their individual program goals or the time they have available.

Several of the workshops were tested at two external REU-type programs, and we are recruiting additional pilot sites for summer 2024. A portion of one of the workshops will be demonstrated to help us build interest, connect with potential pilot sites, and gain feedback to improve the workshops.