To contribute intelligently to the scholarly debate in their field, students must realize that variations in vocabulary, stylistic conventions and methods of argumentation among different disciplines' literature reveal distinct assumptions about and methods for working within the world. The broad agreement between author and audience on the…

An evaluation of four seventeenth and eighteenth century essays on optics revealed early trends in the evolution of scientific articles. The later articles showed a growing tendency to (1) separate practice from pure knowledge, (2) organize information around problems of knowledge and theory rather than around chronological events, (3) emphasize…