I-Corps: Wrangler - for rounding up research writing resources

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the opportunity to enhance inexperienced research writers? written science communication by using a self-paced, web-based research writing software that provides on demand instruction, practice, and feedback throughout the writing process. If successfully commercialized, the technology can transform how both educational and professional spheres approach the research writing process and understand disciplinary writing conventions. Hence, the technology can contribute to an increase in the research competitiveness of individual research programs. In addition, the availability of state-of-the-art writing resources will help promote science by enhancing the public dissemination of research results. Participation in the NSF I-Corps program also offers a great opportunity for graduate students to develop skills in entrepreneurship and innovation, which may lead to a start-up venture that can increase the economic competitiveness of the state. This I-Corps project investigates the commercial potential of the technology, which leads users through a series of interactive, instructional videos that help users become critical readers of how language is used in discipline-specific, research writing in order to become better research writers. Users integrate their new knowledge of language use into practice tools derived from the field of applied linguistics. These tools help users analyze and discover language use patterns that are used to effectively structure a scientific argument. Automated feedback then guides users toward more purposeful analysis of writing. Studies have demonstrated that these tools can heighten user?s awareness of how to construct an original research argument while increasing their self-efficacy in becoming successful published research writers. Furthermore, the tools have helped users become more independent writers, requiring users to seek less guidance about writing from research mentors who need the extra time to focus on their own research agendas.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.