INTEGRATING SCIENTIFIC WRITING INTO A STATISTICS CURRICULUM - A COURSE IN STATISTICALLY BASED SCIENTIFIC WRITING

A course in writing and critical appraisal of medical papers that uses statistics is described, and its relationship to the goal of better i ntegrating scientific writing into the statistics curriculum is discus sed. It is concluded that writing should play an increased role in sta tistical education and that this can best be accomplished by distribut ing exercises in writing and critical appraisal throughout the curricu lum. Writing assignments, such as simulated practice in producing comp onents of scientific papers and grants, should reflect students' likel y uses of statistics.