Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jul 1999

On Scientific Narrative: Stories of Light by Newton and Einstein

Richard Johnson Sheehan ; Scott Rode

Abstract

Despite the prevailing assumption that narrative and scientific discourse are incompatible genres, in this article the authors show that scientific texts typically follow a narrative pattern. This simple observation that narrative and scientific texts are similar is not all that surprising when we recognize that scientific discourse, like all narratives, describes what happened and what it meant. Indeed, scientific texts are almost always accounts of scientists' experiences in reality. After developing a vocabulary of narrative, the authors analyze the works of Newton and Einstein, using narrative analysis to illuminate scientific texts as stories.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
1999-07-01
DOI
10.1177/105065199901300306
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Topics
genre theory discourse analysis
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Small (2017)
    (Re)Kindle: On the Value of Storytelling to Technical Communication
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Moran et al. (2011)
    A Bibliography of Works Published in the History of Professional Communication …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Spoel et al. (2008)
    Public Communication of Climate Change Science: Engaging Citizens Through Apoca…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Malone (2007)
    Historical Studies of Technical Communication in the United States and England:…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication

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Show all 20 →
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  5. Labov, William (1972)
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  8. 10.1080/03637758709390221
     ↗
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  10. Newton, Isaac (1968)
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CrossRef global citation count: 13 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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