Reference no: EM132645157

Assignment: Discourse Community Investigation (A2: Research)

Audience: Your instructor and other members of your discourse community.

Purpose: Answer the research questions: "How does my discourse community communicate? What are commonly used genres in my community?"

Length: 6+ pages and References

Instructions: Research a minimum of five different genres used by an organization within your discourse community - a non-profit, a social justice organization, a health care system, a judicial system, etc.

Examples could include: press releases, advertising materials (build boards, print ads, video ads), websites, memos, reports, scholarly articles, Twitter feeds of major figures or institutions, Facebook pages, job ads, descriptions for majors at colleges, and so on. Include a References page in the style of your field.

Step One: Locate an organization or institution in your field. Our library session will help with this step.

Step Two: Examine the genres used by the organization. For example, in a higher education discourse community, you could look at the following genres associated with the University of Baltimore: the school's website, the school's Twitter feed, an article about the school from a newspaper, a job ad from UB, and a scholarly article dealing with the school's policy on sexual harassment program. Each of these constitutes a different genre.

Step Three: Draft an informative paper showcasing your research.

A. Identify each type of genre. What genre is it? What are the general conventions associated with this genre? In other words, what expectations do we have surrounding this communication? Explain it as though you're explaining it to someone who has never seen this type of text before.

B. How does your discourse community adopt this genre in order for the purposes of spreading information for members? What is the purpose of the piece? What information does it present? How do we know it is part of your discourse community - jargon, content, or both? Include textual evidence and a citation from your specific examples.

C. In your conclusion, reflect on how your discourse community spreads information to members.

Writer's Revision Memo

• Comment on your research process for this assignment: How hard of a time did you have finding sources to use? Where did you look for them? What kinds of sources did you find most useful for your purpose?

• Describe your plan to revise the draft before submitting it to me. What changes are you going to make to it, and why?

• If you could start this project over again, what might you do differently?