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Xuanlin Wu

Professor Webb

Ling 12

11 March 2019

Writing Genres in Experimental Physics

Has someone even imaged that the midterm and final exams of physics ask students to

write essays? It is impossible, right? When talking about physics, people usually relate this

subject with mathematics, astronomy, and engineering. Indeed, physics is full of numbers and

equations, and there is hardly a chance that students will write essays. However, according to

my interview with Professor Deborah Fygenson, one experimental physics teacher at

University of California, Santa Barbara, writing is a required skill in physics, especially in

research. Therefore, the rest of this essay will introduce three types of writing in experimental

physics that are valued.

The first type of writing that university physics students will encounter is lab report

because lab is a required class for physics major. Even though lab report is an introductory

type of writing in physics, it still conveys two fundamental features of all writing genres in

physics—progression and concision. The first character of lab report is related to the way of

recording experiment procedures. In Professor Fygenson’s lab guides such as “Week

8_Refraction Lab Guide,” she emphasizes that students should write down all attempts in

deciding measurement approaches, record what is changed during this process, and highlight

their final method. For example, in my lab report for refraction experiment, I first recorded

my initial method which was filling the transparent box with water and shooting laser to the
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water surface. However, the refraction angle that I read from the box was very rough, so I

switched the box to a small one that can be put on a large protractor and got a much more

precise refraction angle. Finally, I highlighted this change in red color to indicate that this

was my final method. By following this instruction, students are able to perform experiments

in a clear and logical way and raise the “reproducibility” of their experiments. The concept of

“reproducibility” is crucial in physics and other experimental science because if other

scientists redo the process described in lab reports and fail to get the same results, these

experiments will be considered as unreliable.

Besides the above requirement for procedure, the language in lab report should also be

concise. Writers need to avoid long sentences because readers will gradually lose focus and

then skip some significant parts when reading them. At the same time, every sentence should

provide enough information to improve the “reproducibility” of the experiment. In the article

“The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales provides a great example of a stamp

description in Hong Kong Study Circle:

“1176 1899 Combination PPC to Europe franked CIP 4C canc large CANTION dollar

chop, pair HK2 carmine added & Hong Kong index B cds. Arr cds. (1) (Photo) HK $ 1500”

(475).

This description perfectly combines high concision and sufficient information because it has

less than 30 words but includes all details such as publisher, published date, and price. This

description is very similar to the pattern in experimental physics. For example, my conclusion

for refraction lab report is “After 5 attempts with incident angles as 20, 40, 50, 60, and 80

degrees, I derived the average index refraction of tap water with the value of 1.3±0.13 (no
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units).” This short conclusion covers the number of measurements, the subject of this

experiment, and the actual result, so it successfully addresses the two important features of

language in lab report.

Another important type of writing in experimental physics is research paper, and it is the

writing genre that physicists will most frequently deal with. In my interview with Professor

Fygenson, she introduced research paper from three aspects: the general goal, two useful

techniques, and one possible difficulty. She first pointed out that the purpose of every

research paper in physics is to reach “logical conclusions drawn from objective observations.”

The definition means that all evidence in research paper should be true, reasonable, and

unbiased. In physics research paper, in order to construct articles in a logical and unbiased

way, writers must include works from other scientists’ articles which are already proved to be

trustworthy. Then, authors need to form their arguments based on these sources. For example,

if a student wants to write a research paper on how to measure the speed of light, he or she

could include the first measurement approach, compare and contrast this method with his or

her, and explain why his or her procedures are valid based on established physical facts. This

process ensures the research paper is both logical and objective. Then, Professor Fygenson

provided two techniques for writing research paper: websites and outlining. Since outside

sources are required in physics research paper, writers need reliable accesses to authentic and

peer-reviewed articles. Therefore, Professor Fygenson recommended “Web of Science.” This

website is better than other common research websites such as “Pro Quest” for two reasons.

First, its search options are more advanced: it has 5 types of search options such as cited

reference search while “Pro Quest” only has basic and advanced search. Additionally, the
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advanced search in “Web of Science” has 28 field tags such as “Funding Text” (FT) while

there are only 11 tags in “Pro Quest.” Another advantage of “Web of Science” is that it

includes more articles in specific areas such as astrophysics and biophysics. Therefore,

physicists are more likely to finding useful peer-reviewed articles in their particular fields on

“Web of Science.” The second tool that Professor Fygenson introduced to me is outlining. As

a pre-writing technique, outlining is a common method used in all types of writings, but it is

highly recommended in this particular writing genre because research paper is generally 6-10

pages of necessary contents. If there is no pre-organization of the whole structure, authors can

easily miss certain indispensable evidence or write over 10 pages. When the paper is too long,

it may simply become repetition of other scientists’ work or conclusions with insufficient

evidence, and this change will greatly reduce the credibility of this paper. Additionally, when

authors write over 10 pages, they tend to focus less on using concise language and therefore

add too much redundant information which largely reduces readers’ patience and focus.

Finally, Professor Fygenson mentioned that when writing a research paper, she often needs to

solve the “gap” between data and results. In other words, the problem is how well the writers

explain the results and relate them to the data. As discussed above, recording procedures are

essential in lab report. However, it is not enough in the case of research paper. In this type of

writing, authors must ensure every single piece of information in conclusions matches data

provided. Therefore, this strict correspondence is often an issue in research papers.

Besides research paper, Professor Fygenson also described two special features of

funding proposal. First, the topic of funding proposal must be both “interesting and

achievable.” If physicists want to raise fund for their experiments, they must ensure that their
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topics are attractive because the number of labs is much larger than the number of sponsors.

In Hope Jahren’s memoir Lab Girl, she claims that the budget of National Science

Foundation was $7.3 billion, but there was only $10,000 of available money that she could

use (122-124). This huge gap shows how fierce the competition between researchers is.

Consequently, the topic must be competitive in order to successfully apply for funding.

Meanwhile, Interesting topic does not mean funny. In the article “Analyzing the Research

Funding in Physics: The Perspective of Production and Collaboration at Institution Level,”

the authors conclude that “For the institutions in physics, research funding is associated with

the publication impact, production of high-impact papers, and lower ratio of uncited ones”

(Zhao). This excerpt points out that the topic should be far-reaching and based on existed

works. If the topic is simply decorating other’s works, there will be no significant progression

which will result in low profits. However, the topic cannot be too far from reality because

sponsors will regard the project is not achievable if it does not have sufficient physics

evidences or background from others’ work. Therefore, it is really important to find the

balance between interesting and achievable. The second characteristic of funding proposal is

that writers must provide several alternative methods to achieve objectives. The way of

describing measurement approaches in lab report is recording while improving. However,

physicists in this case must design processes before actually operating, which requires much

more imagination and solid experimental experiences. This feature eventually contributes to

the achievability of the project because sponsors will not input fund unless they can see

multiple ways towards outcome.

Lab report, research paper, and funding proposal are the three types of writing in
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experimental physics discussed in my interview with Professor Fygenson. Lab report is an

introductory writing and requires writers to show the improvement of measurement approach

and use concise language. Research paper must be logical and objective while clearly convey

the relationship between data and conclusions. Funding proposal need to have attractive and

obtainable topics and backup methods. Learning about different types of writing helps me to

prepare for my future career in physics and explore deeper into the charm of physics.
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Works Cited

Fygenson, Deborah. Personal Interview. 26 Februray, 2019.

Fygenson, Deborah. “Week 8_Refraction Lab Guide.” Professor’s Lab Guide. Accessed 26

February, 2019.

Jahren, Hope. Lab Girl, 1st ed., Vintage Books, 2017.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing, edited by

Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2011, pp. 466-480.

Originally published in Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings,

Cambridge UP, 1990, pp.21-32.

Zhao, et al. “Analyzing the Research Funding in Physics: The Perspective of Production and

Collaboration at Institution Level.” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its

Applications, vol. 508, 2018, pp. 662–674.