SciComm Analysis

Published

October 1, 2025

Quick links

What is this assignment?

This assignment, the “scicomm analysis,” takes the place of traditional papers in this class. It’s designed to help you develop your skills in the four learning outcomes for the course: as a critical consumer and trustworthy critic of science and technology, exercising intellectual curiosity, and applying philosophical analysis, specifically casuistry or reasoning by case studies.

The basic idea is that you’ll

  1. identify an area of scientific research or technological development,
  2. relate it to case studies in our readings, and then
  3. use those case studies (and the theoretical discussions surrounding them) to identify ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of the research.

SciComm or science communication is the practice of explaining scientific research to the general public. SciComm is sometimes done by practicing scientists, but more often by journalists or other people with a communications background. (A few graduate programs in journalism offer a specialization in science communication.)

“Science communication” is also a subfield of the academic field of communications. Experts in this field are mostly trained as social scientists, and conduct research on issues like effectively communicating scientific uncertainty or the causes of trust/distrust in science. These researchers might study scicomm, but they don’t usually engage in it themselves. Some academic journals in this field are Public Understanding of Science and Science Communication, and these might come up if you do a web search for “science communication.”

We’ll look at pieces of scicomm for two reasons. First, they’re much more accessible, i.e., easier to read, than primary scientific research. Second, they usually include more discussion of the ethical, legal, and social implications we’re interested in.

How you’ll turn it in

There’ll be a CatCourses assignment for each scicomm analysis.

Write your analysis in a Google Doc, set it to “anyone can edit,” copy-paste the URL into CatCourses, and hit submit.

SciComm analysis, step-by-step

Important

You won’t do all of these steps for every particular scicomm analysis.

0. Review feedback and make a plan

This step is new for analysis #2.

Go back and take a look at your previous scicomm analyses, especially the most recent one. Most of my feedback will be as comments on the Google Doc, but there might also be some in CatCourses. (Instructions on how to find those comments here.)

Re-read your analyses and my feedback, then come up with 2-3 things you’d like to focus on for this new analysis. They can be areas for improvement, or things you did especially well that you want to practice again. Add these as a bullet list at the top of the Google Doc for this analysis.

1. Find a source

I have a whole list of potential sources in Section 5. You don’t have to stick with that list; it’s just a resource to help get you started. A good source will be something that you understand, remind you of things that we’ve read, and have ethical, legal, and social aspects that you can discuss.

Also important: your source needs to be non-fiction. Speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, etc.) can be a great way to explore ELSI of science and technology, but it’s beyond the scope of this class.

2. Write a summary

The purpose of your summary is to introduce the scientific or technological issue you’re discussing. Your target audience is other college students who aren’t in this class. Keep your writing clear and direct, and explain any technical terms. Make the summary self-contained: even if I know nothing about the issue, I shouldn’t have to look up your source to understand what you’re talking about. Treat this as formal academic writing.

The target length is 100-150 words. You need to include a quote from and citation to your source.

3. Connect to a case study from class

You’ll only do this step starting with analysis #2.

Note

We have a quick reference to the case studies in the readings here.

Pick 1-2 case studies from our assigned readings. This can be something we discussed in depth, or something that was covered in the readings but we didn’t have time to discuss.

Your goal here is to show how these case studies are similar to the case you’re analyzing. For each case study, identify 2-3 similarities to your subject (3-5 similarities in total), and explain how they work. Target length is 75-125 words per similarity, roughly 325-425 words total.

You can and should be very organized and direct in this part of your analysis. You might use this template:

[my issue] is similar to the cases of [case #1] and [case #2]. For [case #1], there are three important similarities. First, …. Next, …. The final similarity between [my issue] and [case #1] is that ….

4. Use the case studies to analyze your issue

You’ll only do this step starting with analysis #4.

The central idea of this section is that because they’re similar, lessons from the case studies can be applied to your issue. “Lessons” here might include problems/challenges, solutions, or just important questions that need to be addressed.

For each case study from step 3, explain the lesson from the case study and how it applies to your issue. These lessons should relate to the similarities you identified in step #3, because those similarities are the basis for transferring the lesson from one case to another. Target length is 75-125 words per case study.

5. Critique your analysis

You’ll only do this step starting with analysis #4.

Important

An important aspect of philosophy is considering the weaknesses and limitations of our own arguments. This is really hard. You’ve probably written argumentative essays where you had to include a “counter,” an argument from a contrasting point of view. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Instead, you have to take your own argument, and actively try to undermine it. I’ve been teaching philosophy classes since 2005. Most of my students have struggled with self-critique. But everyone gets it after a couple of tries.

Pick one of your case studies, and identify one important difference between the case study and your issue. An important difference is something that challenges the lesson you’re taking from the case study in step 4: because X (the case study) and Y (your issue) are different in way Z, the lesson from X (maybe) doesn’t apply to Y.

Explain the difference, and why it potentially undermines the analysis from step 4. Target length is 75-125 words. This should be its own paragraph, separate from both the analysis (step 4) and reply (next paragraph). This is important: don’t switch to your reply in the middle of the critique paragraph. The other side gets a full paragraph to critique your analysis.

In the next paragraph, give your reply to the critique. Consider taking one of these basic approaches:

  1. X and Y are actually similar in way Z, not different.
  2. Despite the difference Z, X and Y are still similar in a way that supports the lesson.

Target length for your reply is 75-125 words.

Citations

Use academic-style citations in your analysis, and include a bibliography at the end. You can use whatever citation format you like — APA, MLA, and Chicago are all very common — but you should be consistent and include the usual essentials: author, title and source title, publication date, URL.

This site has references on how to cite websites in APA, MLA, and Chicago. (I’m not familiar with their plagiarism checker and other tools; this just came up in a web search.)

Potential sources

You aren’t required to use these sources, but they’ll get you started if you don’t already regularly watch/read/listen to scicomm.

As you look through these sources, keep in mind the later steps of the assignment: you’ll need to explain the research, make connections to our readings, and use those connections to identify ethical, legal, and social aspects of the research. A good source will be something that you understand, remind you of things that we’ve read, and have ethical, legal, and social aspects that you can discuss.

Note that some of these potential sources are paywalled, but you might be able to access them while you’re on campus or using the campus VPN.

Magazines

Podcasts

Some of these podcasts devote an entire episode (hour or more) to one particular issue; others use a “magazine” format with multiple smaller stories. If you decide to work with a podcast, it can be helpful to find a text transcript.

Generalist Journals

Journals are the primary way scientists and other academics share their research findings. Most journals have a particular scope, which might be a discipline (think: biology) or specialization (molecular biology, or more specifically proteins) or even a narrow topic (maybe how proteins fold).

Generalist journals are intended to super broad, read by and publishing research by scientists of all different fields. These journals also tend to publish science news, and commentary on broadly science-relevant issues. The news and commentary should be written for the general public, while the research articles are intended for experts in a particular field.

Press Releases

Press releases are generally written by university public relations officers, who collaborate with faculty and other researchers to write short descriptions of newly-published research. These press releases are picked up and used as the basis for stories in science sections of mainstream news outlets.

Video

I’m including both short- and longer-form video channels here. A tool like this can be used to extract a transcription.

Science Sections of General New Sources

Major news sources such as the New York Times and NPR often have one or more sections that contain scicomm. Some common sections include science, health, technology, and environment or climate news. You can use stories from these sections for this analysis.

We have a campus subscription to the New York Times, which means you can read it for free. More details here.