Discourse Community Investigation: Analysis
For the last several weeks, you have been observing and researching your chosen discourse
community along with your group. In this culminating assignment of your investigation, you
will individually write a thorough analysis of the discourse community and come to your
own conclusions about it. This analysis should be in APA format with a student title page
(see example here). You do not need to include an abstract or to use the four “major paper
sections” described. You will have 3 major paper sections described below, plus your
References page (see sample APA student paper here). Also remember there are student
examples of this assignment in Canvas→Modules→Resources→Extended Inquiry Project.
Directions
Your analysis essay will have multiple parts, so you will need to create a document outline
with headings and subheadings to organize it. See tutorial here.
Section 1: Explain how your discourse community meets Swales’ criteria (or doesn’t)
In this section, explain how your discourse community meets all six criteria:
1. A broadly agreed upon set of common public goals
2. Mechanisms of intercommunication among members
3. Use of these communication mechanisms to provide information
and feedback.
4. One or more genres that help further the goals of the discourse community (Note that in
the next part of your analysis, you will do a detailed analysis of one main genre. So, in this
part, you simply need to introduce and briefly describe the important genres of your
discourse community.)
5. A specific lexis (specialized language)
6. A threshold level of expert members
You may have found over the course of your investigation that your discourse
community doesn’t quite fit Swales’ definition, and that’s OK. Explain that here.
*Evidence: A thorough analysis requires that you support your claims with
evidence. In this case, your evidence will primarily come from the discourse
community itself. You’ll want to quote from the community throughout this section. It
might also be helpful to reference your research here.
Section 2: Genre Analysis
In this part of your paper, use your Genre Analysis Notes to help you explain a major genre
in your discourse community and come to some conclusions about it.
1. Who is the writer? And who is the audience(s) for the genre, and how
does the audience shape the genre?
2. What does the genre achieve for the discourse community? How do you
know?
3. What are the conventions of the genre? That is, what are the rules–what
is appropriate–when writing this genre? Consider Aristotle’s Appeals, and
also
modes of communication. What does content consist of?
What are the prominent features of the text? (Hint: In addition to looking at your Genre
Analysis Notes, you’ll also want to revisit the Genre Conventions assignment.)
4. How much flexibility do authors have to vary the conventions of
the genre?
5. Have the conventions of the genre changed over time? In what
ways and why?
6. To what extent does the genre empower members of the discourse
community to speak, and to what extent does the genre marginalize or silence members of
the discourse community?
7. Where can a new discourse community member find models of
the genre?
8. What is the importance of this genre to your online discourse community?
*Evidence: A thorough analysis requires that you support your claims with
evidence. In this case, your evidence will come from the genre you’re analyzing. You’ll need
to have multiple examples of the genre you’re analyzing in front of you to complete this
analysis, and you’ll need to quote from those examples. If your Genre Analysis Notes are
thorough, you may be able to work straight from them.
Section 3: Discussion
This is your opportunity to discuss what you think is most important. In this
section, you should explain your research and come to some conclusions about the
discourse community you’ve spent all this time investigating. Use the questions below to
guide you.
• What stood out as most important to you during your investigation, and why?
• What was most helpful about your research (your Annotated Bibliography), and
why? Please quote from and cite at least three of your sources here. Remember
since you’re citing sources, you’ll need to include a References page at the end.).
• What questions were you able to find answers to during your investigation, and
what questions were you unable to answer? Why does this matter?
• Do you think the discourse community is a positive place? Do all the members
benefit from participating in it? Why or why not?
• What should people know before trying to enter this discourse community, and
why?
• If you could share something about your investigation with members of the
discourse community, what would it be, and why?
*Evidence: Again in this section, you’ll want to provide evidence for your claims
whenever necessary. Along w/ citing research (see 2nd bullet point above), you may reference
earlier parts of your paper (“As I mentioned in Section 2….”) and quote your discourse
community as well.
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