English 302 is an Advanced Composition course; this section will focus on the writing and research needs of students in the Natural Sciences. Although we will make use of technical formats (such as lab and field reports, professional journal articles, and peer reviews), the focus will be on conducting secondary research, organizing the results of the research, and presenting your interpretations of your findings to appropriate audiences, including interested non-experts.

English 302 focuses on the research process, and for this section our model of the research process will be the scientific method of gathering data, forming hypotheses, testing these hypotheses with new data via prediction and experimentation, and refining the hypotheses. The readings focus on one primary model of the scientific method: Darwinian evolutionary theory. In the class readings, we will explore how the theory developed, how it has been applied, and how it has changed over time. We will see that this one theory has applications in nearly all of the natural sciences, as well as in computer science and sociology.

In this course, you will not be gathering new data first hand; rather you are conducting secondary research by reading and analyzing the writings of others, forming your own opinion (a preliminary thesis, or hypothesis), then gathering more information via research to support or modify that thesis. Aside from the distinction between primary and secondary research, the research method in this course is the scientific method: you develop an idea based on the material you find, and you modify your ideas as you uncover new information.

The act of interpretation is key; theses, hypotheses, and theories are all based on facts, but theories are not facts themselves. Facts are raw data. In the course of constructing a thesis, you must discriminate relevant from irrelevant data; you must analyze, select, and conscientiously try to avoid bias. Bias, however, is practically unavoidable. The very act of gathering information and presenting it requires you to make decisions as to the importance of certain details. As we shall see in the summary-writing exercise, even a "simple" task such as summarizing a difficult passage introduces bias.

In the sciences, and in most professional writing, such biases are alleviated by the process known as peer-review. Peer review is part of the general scientific method as well: when a new hypothesis is presented, others in the field try to disprove it. They aren't just doing this out of professional jealously (not all of them, anyway). A valid hypothesis is falsifiable; that is, it makes predictions or statements which can be tested. If a hypothesis can withstand the tests of new data, if it makes predictions which can be shown to be true or false, then the hypothesis is accepted. Generally, however, hypotheses require refinement and alteration. One reason initial hypotheses so often fail is due in part to initial biases. Some data will be ignored as irrelevant because the researcher assumed it was unimportant. This "irrelevant" data often contradicts the hypothesis, and a better hypothesis will be required to explain as much relevant information as possible. This is the process of revision.

We will also make use of the peer-review process, and you will revise your theses as you find more information. Information which contradicts your thesis cannot be ignored if it is relevant (and contradiction doesn't automatically imply irrelevance). Rather, the thesis will need to explain the apparent contradictions.