Most of us believe that once we learn about our own writing process, about how to analyze a situation to correctly identify the audience and most appropriate genre for that audience, and about how to craft mostly-correct text in terms of mechanics, that we’re done. I’ve got this!
But the truth is, that’s only part of what we need to know. When we begin to write in different disciplines like the sciences or art history or human services, we figure out fairly quickly that those disciplines have some very specific rules for writing.
These are called conventions and they vary from discipline to discipline in terms of:
- Verb tenses
- Citation conventions
- Use of first person
- Use of passive voice (using “The research was done” or “Dr. Strange and his team researched the issue”)
- Abbreviations
- Jargon/specialized language
- Use of numbers (numerals versus spelling out)
This handout from The University of Portland will give you a good overview of all kinds of disciplines, especially how to think about college writing in general and specific disciplines like the natural sciences, history, philosophy, etc.
For specifics about individual disciplines, click on the handouts in this section of Tools & Resources. If you’re new to a field/discipline, or you’re having trouble, these can help. Your instructor and the writing center tutors can also give you more guidance — professors tend to forget that the language of their field isn’t familiar to everyone, so a respectful question can go a long way toward clearing up your confusion.
