Before this course, I thought genre was just fiction, nonfiction, teen romance, mystery, you know, the usuals. I also did not have a fixed definition for it. Applying this knowledge into what I thought scientific writing was, I could only think of lab reports. During the semester, we wrote various genres that are in scientific writing, which helped me develop a definition for it.

Genre is defined as the types of writing. In this course, we learned to analyze and compare the differences for scientific narrative, informative review, a position paper, and a flyer:

Scientific narratives use a story-telling approach to address a problem or topic in the scientific world. Its genre conventions are plot, subjectiveness, and it hold’s the narrator’s thoughts and opinions.

Informative reviews inform the audience about an issue by showing two or more sides of the argument and summarizing it. Its genre conventions include that it does not have any thoughts, feelings, or opinions from the writer, it discusses all sides of the topic, and there is no stance.

Position papers are papers with an arguable opinion about a science-related issue or topic. Its genre conventions include thesis/stance, logical and abstract truths, and counter arguments.

Flyers are papers with short, concise informational deliverance of a topic. The genre conventions for it are easy-speaking, short but substantial information, and its mostly for the general public.

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