Despite reform efforts emphasizing written communication implemented in the undergraduate science curriculum, college science students still struggle with scientific research writing. Further, science majors have few opportunities to engage in authentic disciplinary scientific research writing. This research was set in an upper-division Scientific Research Writing course (SRW 401), where biology students participated in authentic disciplinary research writing. First, I used a social epistemological perspective to uncover how science epistemology was framed during the teaching and learning of scientific research writing. Second, I used a situated learning and community of practice framework to understand how students with intentions to go to graduate school (N=6) described learning to write research in their discipline, ways their perceptions of scientific research writing changed during the course, and in what ways the SRW 401 instructor described supporting student learning. I describe four main conclusions: 1. Epistemology was framed as a human endeavor, part of a larger research conversation, responsive to new evidence, and disciplinary; 2. Knowledgeable others (in the sense of both content and writing) supported students learning of scientific research writing in various ways; 3. Newcomers’ understanding of scientific research writing changed throughout the semester, and student perception of their writing ability improved, but they attributed different sources to this change; and, 4. The instructor distinguished her role as part of the story, outlined pedagogical challenges, and supported student learning through field-independent, discipline-general biology, and discipline-specific biology instruction. I found the teaching and learning provided a rich setting to explore science epistemology. Additionally, my findings suggest that courses like SRW 401 are important in the undergraduate curriculum if our goal is to prepare our students to write research after graduation. If the goal is to align with current reform efforts, we need to consider how to best support our undergraduates – especially those that wish to engage in research after graduation. I developed a theoretical and conceptual framework to explain how knowledgeable others guide legitimate peripheral participants into discipline-general and discipline-specific communities of practice.