Quantitative Writing

This material was developed as part of the Carleton Teaching Activity Collection and is replicated on a number of sites as part of the SERC Pedagogic Service Project

Compiled by John C. Bean at Seattle University

What is Quantitative Writing?

Quantitative writing engages students with numbers by asking them to analyze and use quantitative data in written reports and arguments. Quantitative writing assignments give students rich, sustained experiences making meaning out of quantitative data. Students are asked to analyze and interpret numbers and to use them effectively in papers. Assignments are sometimes based on teacher-provided data sets. However, students can also be asked to find data through library or internet research or to generate their own data in the laboratory or through field observations. learn more here

Why use Quantitative Writing?

Quantitative writing teaches students how to analyze quantitative issues in real-world problems and can transform their view of mathematics. Quantitative writing assignments can transform students' attitudes toward numbers by moving quantitative data out of math classes into vital disciplinary or public contexts. QW assignments ask students to address the quantitative dimension of disciplinary or civic problems and to analyze and use numbers effectively in different communicative contexts. QW assignments promote quantitative literacy as well as writing proficiency. learn more here

How to use Quantitative Writing?

QW assignments can be used like any other writing assignment to stimulate learning and critical thinking. Quantitative writing assignments, like all good writing assignments, ask students to write about a subject matter for a purpose to an audience within a genre. The content of the assignment, however, involves a problem with a quantitative dimension. Successful student papers reveal critical thinking about quantitative data, employ numbers and other data as evidence, and often include student-produced graphs and tables. learn more here