Texts as Knowledge Claims: The Social Construction of Two Biology Articles
Abstract
The procedures of review and revision of a scientific article can be seen as part of the negotiation of the status that the scientific community will assign to the text's knowledge claim. This study locates some textual features of this negotiation by considering two articles by two biologists, the comments referees and colleagues made on them, and the authors' responses to these comments. The articles illustrate contrasting problems in the creation of a persona-one author is a well-known researcher in his field, and the other is publishing his first article in what is for him a new area. But they both have disagreements with journal editors and referees over the placement of their findings in a hierarchy of claims. And they both revise their articles to make them more conventional in form. Each article was reviewed five times before being accepted: while the long review makes the cases atypical, the layers of criticisms and responses allow us to see in detail processes that are usually compressed and decisions that are usually unnoticed.
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Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communications, New York, March 1984; at the Discourse Analysis Workshop, University of Surrey, September 1984; and at the Sociology of Science Study Group, British Sociological Association, London, September 1984. I would like to thank Lester Faigley, Edward Smith, Charles Bazerman, Carolyn Miller, Susan Cozzens and Kenneth Bruffee for their comments on an ealier version, and Trevor Pinch for letting me see the manuscript of the article cited in note 8, and for helpful discussions of the levels of claims. One of the anonymous reviewers for this journal also made helpful suggestions. This study would not have been possible without the help of David Bloch and David Crews.
1.
1. B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific facts (Beverly Hills, Calif. and London: Sage, 1979)
2.
2. For my use of these terms, see G.N. Gilbert and M. Mulkay, `Contexts of Scientific Discourse: Social Accounting in Experimental Papers', in K. Knorr, R. Krohn and R. Whitley (eds), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, Vol. 4 (Dordrecht, London and Boston, Mass.: D. Reidel, 1980), 269-94. In another study (J. Law and R. Williams, `Putting Facts Together: A Study of Scientific Persuasion', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 12 [1982], 535-58), Law and Williams reach conclusions similar to mine in an analysis of discussions among the co-authors of articles, and relate these conclusions to the concept of a network.
3.
3. D. Bloch, B. McArthur, R. Widdowson, D. Spector, R. Guimares and J. Smith, `tRNA-rRNA Sequence Homologies: Evidence for a Common Evolutionary Origin?', Journal of Molecular Evolution, Vol. 19 (1983), 420-28.
4.
4. D. Crews, `Gamete Production, Sex Hormone Secretion, and Mating Behavior Uncoupled', Hormones and Behavior, Vol. 18 (1984), 22-28.
5.
5. For my use of the term `network', see H.M. Collins, `The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks', Science Studies, Vol. 4 (1974), 165-86.
6.
6. G.N. Gilbert, `The Transformation of Research Findings into Scientific Knowledge', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 6 (1976), 281-306.
7.
7. Latour and Woolgar, op. cit. note 1, 78-86.
8.
8. T. Pinch, `Towards an Analysis of Scientific Observation: The Externality and Evidential Significance of Observational Reports in Physics' Social Studies of Science, Vol. 15 (1985), 3-36. H.M. Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (Beverly Hills, Calif. and London: Sage, in press), has a discussion of these approaches to presentation of claims in Chapter 6.
9.
9. D. Crews and W. Garstka, `The Ecological Physiology of a Garter Snake', Scientific American (November 1982), 159-68.
10.
10. M. Gordon, `The Role of Referees in Scientific Communication', in J. Hartley (ed.), The Psychology of Written Communication: Selected Readings (London: Kogan Page, 1980), 263-75.
11.
11. B. Latour and F. Bastide, `Writing Science-Fact and Fiction', in M. Callon and J. Law (eds), Qualitative Scientometrics (London: Macmillan, forthcoming).
12.
12. C. Bazerman, `What Written Knowledge Does: Three Examples of Academic Discourse', Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 11 (1981), 361-87.
13.
13. For instance, P. Medawar, `Is the Scientific Paper Fraudulent?', Saturday Review (August 1964), 42-43.
14.
14. E. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).
15.
15. D. Bloch, C.-T. Fu and P. Dean, `DNA and Histone Synthesis Rate Change During the S. Period in Erlich Ascites Tumor Cells', Chromosoma, Vol. 82 (1981), 611-26.
16.
16. See the letter on this term from M. Gossler, `Numerology', Nature, Vol. 306 (8 December 1983), 530.
17.
17. D. Crews, `Psychobiology of Reptilian Reproduction', Science, Vol. 189 (26 September 1975), 1057-65.
18.
18. See Mayr, op. cit. note 14, 465, and M. Norell, `Homology Defined', Nature, Vol. 306 (8 December 1983), 530.
19.
19. D. Bloch, `tRNA-rRNA Sequence Homologies: A Model for the Origin of a Common Ancestral Molecule, and Prospects for Its Reconstruction', Origins of Life (in press).
20.
20. D. Crews, `Diversity of Hormone-Behavior Controlling Mechanisms', and `Alternative Reproductive Tactics in Reptiles', BioScience, Vol. 33 (1983), 545, 562-67.
21.
21. Mayr, op. cit. note 14, 494.
22.
22. See, for instance, C. Bazerman, `Physicists Reading Physics: Schema-Laden Purposes and Purpose-Laden Schemas', Written Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1 (January 1985), 3-23; and the articles surveyed in S. Cozzens, `Taking the Measure of Science: A Review of Citation Theories', International Society for the Sociology of Science Newsletter, Vol. 7 (1981), 21-60.
23.
23. See, for instance, C. Bazerman, `The Writing of Scientific Non-Fiction: Contexts, Choices, and Constraints', Pre/Text, Vol. 5, No. 1 (in press); K. Knorr-Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981); Latour and Woolgar, op. cit. note 1; and M. Lynch, E. Livingston and H. Garfinkel, `Temporal Order in Laboratory Work', in Knorr-Cetina and M. Mulkay (eds), Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science (London and Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1984), 205-38. Also G. Myers, `The Social Construction of Two Biologists' Proposals', Written Communication, Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 1985), 219-45, describes the process shaping Dr Bloch's and Dr Crews's applications for research grants.
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