Advanced Composition (305-0-20)
Topic
Science, Medical, and Health Writing
Instructors
Laura Pigozzi
847/491-4560
555 Clark St., Room 237
Meeting Info
Parkes Hall 223: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
This writing course will explore various genres used in the health professions and examine
these genres with a rhetorical lens; rhetorical study—essentially, the study of persuasion—is a
good means of illuminating and recasting problems in health and medicine.
Judy Segal observes, "Medicine is not only rhetorical as it is reproduced in published texts; it is
also rhetorical as a system of norms and values operating discursively in doctor-patient
interviews, in conversations in hospital corridors, in public debate on health policy, and in in the
apparatus of disease classification."
To anchor the course in rhetoric the first module looks into concepts in the interdisciplinary field
of the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine. We will then explore the conventions of scientific
discourse followed by a module on medical writing. Our class will end by exploring the role of
storytelling in medicine. We will hear guest speakers who specialize in each topic.
Learning Objectives
• Understand how science and medicine is rhetorical and how knowledge is
constructed
• Understand and be able to author different genres found in medical and health
writing.
• Define "rhetoric" and understand how rhetorical choices construct meaning
• Define and apply rhetorical analysis to medical and health writing
• Understand the importance of audience and be able to localize text or
media for a particular audience
• Understand and demonstrate writing as a process; as a process that creates
knowledge, by revising and editing, by writing for different audiences and genres
• Practice reflection on writing to become more conscious, deliberate writers