WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM AT UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-FOX VALLEY: A COLLABORATION BETWEEN GEOLOGY INSTRUCTION AND WRITING CENTER EXPERTISE

Writing instruction is an important part of education, but it can be challenging to convince students that methods and writing techniques learned in composition courses can and should be applied to writing assignments in all academic disciplines. This is particularly true for geoscience courses, a discipline which many undergraduate students perceive to be less rigorous or less important than other sciences. This research came about as the result of a collaboration between the geology instructor and the director of the campus writing center at University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, a small two-year transfer institution in northeast Wisconsin.

Prior to the start of research, it was observed that over 20% of all writing assignments in introductory geology courses failed to use any kind of citation or references within the project’s text. Rather than applying increasingly draconian punishments for lack of citations, an activity was developed that forced the students to visit the campus writing lab and work with staff on the uses of direct quotes, paraphrasing, MLA citation, and APA citation with print and web sources.

Participating students were given an initial survey to determine their understanding of citation methods, relative comfort with them, and previous composition classes. Base line understanding of citation was measured with a diagnostic test asking what quoting a passage meant, what paraphrasing a passage meant, and what is required an embedded or in-text citation for both citation formats. After completion of the citation assignment and the term project, students were surveyed a second time with the same diagnostic tool. As expected, most students (98%) reported a strong familiarity with MLA prior to the project, with only 43% familiar with APA, but students reported gains in usage of both. Ninety-eight percent met expectations in MLA compared to 67.5% for APA. This success with MLA usage over APA also carried over into creating citations, with 84% correct in MLA compared to 70% correct in APA. One interpretation of this result is that many students were learning APA for the first time in this project, where MLA is the standard method used in many high schools and college communication classes. Complete results of this research support this as a successful example of cross-discipline instruction.