Blog #14

Writing in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences have key differences that set them apart. All three use very different writing techniques to get their points across to their audiences. When it comes to the humanities, the arguments are usually thesis drive, using evidence to support a claim. It is more often that a five paragraph structure will be used, utilizing descriptive and rhetorical language. Humanities also tends to use the active voice, which provides the clearest, most transparent meaning.

With social sciences, we are trying to understand why we do what we do (economic, political, personal). Writing format in the social sciences usually follows IMRAD, which stands for introduction, methods, results, and discussion, considered the conventional form for scientific inquiry. Social sciences will often include a visual representation as well, whether that be a graph or chart. Both the active and passive voices are used in this convention, depending on whether the researcher wants to maintain more a of a sense of objectivity or not.

Writing in the natural science often follows the idea of the scientific method, which translates to the scientific writing process. In the natural sciences, interdisciplinary research is very common, which includes observing something, posing a question about it, then construct an experiment and collect data to test your hypothesis. Objectivity is valued in the natural sciences as it is essential to the research that scientists do, because bias can undermine the reliability of research.