OUT OF THE LABORATORY AND DOWN TO THE BAY - WRITING IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES

This article offers a personal view of some developments in science an d technology studies that may be important to researchers on writing a nd to writing teachers. The field has emerged from laboratory studies to engagement with broader issues of power and change. Frameworks deve loped in the sociology of scientific knowledge have been applied to th e analysis of things (not just people and facts), of social boundaries (not just specialist disciplines), and of organizations (not just ind ividual writers). The article draws on approached from critical discou rse analysis to show how we might read noun phrases, clause structure, discourse representation, and discourse practices in terms of this ne w perspective on texts. Throughout the article, the implications are i llustrated with the example of a news article reporting the temporary shutdown of a nuclear power plant.