LB 492: Blog Post Assignment Week 4

This is blog post, but we will now name them according to week so they will match the reading assignments in the syllabus.

This week we finished radioactive, and read a bit about the experiences of women in physics today. During week 3, we also read a bit about the “draw a scientist” experiment and discussed the importance of representation. For this week’s blog post, we’d like you to consider Marie Curie’s story, along with some of the other stories we have learned about (perhaps including the scientist you chose for your artistic expression) in terms of standpoint theory.

Your prompt for this week: Please draw on Feminist Standpoint Theory and Science Communication (from Week 2) to help explain how Marie Curie’s personal experiences shaped her work.

For this week’s writing challenge, you’ll practice making a claim and supporting it. So, as you think about the prompt, try to refine your thinking so that you can make a specific claim. This means you’ll need to explain your reasoning, drawing on the standpoint article to do so. You’ll then want to find three examples from the book that help support your claim.

Bonus challenge: relate your claim and examples to your own life, the scientist you chose for your visual art project, or one of the other readings. You don’t need to do this, but if you’d like to add another level and challenge yourself as a writer, this is a good excercise.

Remember, you don’t want to assume your reader has read either the standpoint article or Radioactive. Describe both your reasoning and your examples clearly for readers who are unfamiliar. You always want to have your audience in mind. This is often a new skill, and I often suggest you start by imagining your audience as yourself before you read the texts you’re writing about.

Please use the tags LB492 and LB492Week4.