To make a long story short: A rubric for assessing graduate students’ academic and popular science writing skills

Graduate students are future scientists, and as such, being able to communicate science is imperative for their integration into the scientific community. This is primarily achieved through scientific papers, mostly published in English; however, interactions outside of academia are also beneficial for future scientists. Therefore, academic writing courses are prevalent and popular science communication courses are on the rise. Nevertheless, no rubrics exist for assessing students' writing in academic and science communication courses. This article describes the development and testing of a rubric for assessing advanced L2 STEM graduate students’ writing in academic (abstract) and popular science writing (press release). The rubric was developed as part of a longstanding academic writing course, but was modified to include a module on science communication with the lay public. Analysis of student needs and the literature inspired a pre-pilot that assessed 16 descriptors on 60 student works. A subsequent, adjusted pilot version on 30 students resulted in adaptations to fit each genre and course goals. In the third round, a modified, final rubric tested on 177 graduate students was created that can be used for both assessment and comparison of the genres. This rubric can assess scientific genres at the graduate level and can be adapted for other genres and levels.