Cognitive Neuroscience

Overview Discipline Writing Tips Resources

An Overview of the Discipline

Cognitive science is the empirical study of intelligent systems, including the human mind. An interdisciplinary science, it combines results from biology, computer science, linguistics, mathematics, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology to the study of language processing, perception, action, learning, concept formation, inference, and other activities of the mind. Work in cognitive neuroscience may be applied to information technology and the study of artificial intelligence.

Writing in the Discipline

Reasoning

Writing in cognitive neuroscience can be what Professor Sharon L. Thompson-Schill calls "a little bit of everything." As with science writing in general, the main focus is on describing and analyzing data (explanatory reasoning), as well as convincing others of the importance and validity of the findings (justificatory reasoning). The primary purpose of most experiments is to disconfirm some existing hypothesis in favor of another hypothesis. Researchers in this field typically design an experiment in an effort to find evidence that favors one hypothesis over another. According to Professor Martha Farah, "We try to understand how something works or why something comes about. So the logic of the research is, 'If something is caused by such and such, then if we produce the cause, it will result in the predicted effect."

Evidence

The primary source of evidence is data. The data may be gathered by the researcher, or based on data collected by other researchers in the field. Scholarly articles may be based on empirical findings that have already been published, using data collected from the discussed experiment. For an article based on original research, data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted in order to create original findings.

Student assignments will seldom call for original data and findings. Most assignments require students to collect evidence from other researchers' published work. In such assignments, students’ findings must be persuasive and consistent with collected data, and provide an accurate portrayal of what is known in the field.

Authorship

Cognitive science is largely a cooperative discipline that uses others' findings, and articles are often collaboratively written. Dr. Thompson-Schill notes, "Before something gets submitted to a journal, at least a half dozen pair of eyes have passed over it. It's typical in the field to have many coauthors on a paper, so their eyes have all passed over it. It's also typical to share one's work with others who are unfamiliar with the material--other people in the lab or in the department, boyfriends and girlfriends, anyone who is walking past the printer!"

Writing Tips

Student writing must demonstrate mastery of other’s ideas. For undergraduates, the emphasis is not on coming up with original interpretations. Instead, the goal is for students to be able to ground their ideas in the literature and focus on data and objectivity. Reasoning and evidence are also important in creating a persuasive scientific argument. Finally, students must be sure to always follow assignment instructions, including how to cite sources.

Common Errors

Students often list rather than synthesize evidence, with each paragraph a summary of a specific article or study rather than a synthesis of the shared and contrasting findings of the studies as a whole.. Students also mishandle citation format, for example using footnotes instead of parenthetical citations or incorrectly formatting their parenthetical citations.

Writing Process

Pre-writing Tips

Dr Farah encourages students to have an outline and know exactly what they want to say before they begin writing. Dr. Schill adds that it is crucial to understand the audience, as this helps the writer get a sense of what needs, or does not need, to be explained. Lastly, it is extremely important to understand how relevant studies relate to one another. This kind of synthesis is essential to the paper's content.

The Writing Process

Cognitive neuroscience has two primary approaches: empirical and theoretical. Empirical articles deal with quantitative data and results derived from observation and experimentation. Theoretical articles focus more on theoretical concepts rather than results of experiments. Empirical articles have a relatively stable set of generic conventions and structure: Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion (IMRD). Theoretical articles, on the other hand, are "a little trickier," notes Dr. Thompson-Schill. "You have to immerse yourself in the literature and create an outline." In other words, the theoretical articles require you to invent your own organization structure.

In many respects, work in cognitive neuroscience is similar to the complex synthesis process taught in Penn’s critical writing seminars, with the synthesis used to arrive at the proposition and explanations of the synthesis providing the reasoning and evidence that demonstrates it.

Editing for Content, Accuracy, Style

Cognitive neuroscientists note that writing in their field requires lots of revision, particularly to arrive at the required word count. The first review of a piece of writing typically focuses on content, with grammar and mechanics last, with an eye to eliminating needless words.

Counterargument is frequently used in cognitive neuroscience as a way of testing one’s reasoning as well as the reasoning of alternate points of view and findings, and assuring the reader that one has thoroughly considered the terrain. Writing in cognitive neuroscience typically strives for objectivity, although in select subfields the discourse can become antagonistic because of conflicting theories. However, the ideal is generally to remove oneself from the article as much as possible and strive for the absence of an authorial voice. Thus the pronoun "I" is generally discouraged.

Stylistically, being concise, precise, and straightforward are all highly valued aspects of writing in this field. Shorter sentences and paragraphs are preferred.

Style

Writing in cognitive neuroscience must be objective, although in select subfields it can often become antagonistic because of conflicting theories. Professor Schill says that several disciplinary scholars argue that a successful writer removes himself from the article entirely and that there should be no authorial voice to written content. Meanwhile, teaching assistant Marc Coutache generally advises against using the pronoun "I." The goal is to be concise in order to get to the point, so writers should be straightforward and down-to-earth. Specifically, this includes using shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs.

Because the audience that cognitive neuroscientists are writing for (usually others with the same speciality) is often critical or skeptical, writers should compensate for this skepticism by addressing possible counterarguments throughout the paper. One need to make sure that one's argument "holds water," so to say.

Genre

Student Assignments

There does not appear to be a "typical" assignment in cognitive neuroscience. However, most assignments tend to be short: 2 to 3 pages. Students are rarely asked to write 20 page papers. Assignments include writing short summaries of individual articles or writing a comparison/contrast of a set of articles. However, students can also be asked to write informal pieces, such as letters to the editor inspired by a news article on a topic in neuroscience.

Professional Writing

Articles
Books
Blogs (occasionally)

Helpful Books and Articles

Shadlen and Gold (2004), “The Neurophysiology of Decision Making as a Window on Cognition.”

Meet the Professors

Martha J. Farah

When it comes to writing in genres or subfields that are less familiar to her, Dr. Martha Farah does not hesitate to ask colleagues for feedback. She notes that writing in cognitive science is, in general, a collaborative effort. More...

Sharon L. Thompson-Schill

Professor Sharon Thompson-Schill advises her students to "err on the side of citing," believing that very little in the field can be taken as truth without evidence. More...