Questions we Can Help you to Answer
Paper Instructions:
Data Collection Report
Introduction
The Data Collection Report (DCR) forms the heart of the genre studies work we will do this semester. To complete your DCR project, you'll begin doing the work needed to answer the research question(s) you developed in your Research Proposal. You'll collect data, begin analyzing it using a process called coding, and draft a description of your research methods. You'll use that work when you complete your next major paper, the Synthesis Project (SP), which asks you to make an argument that answers your research question about your discourse community. The DCR prepares you to make that argument. You'll gather the information you need for the SP by interviewing someone in your discourse community, observing writing-related activities in that discourse community, and analyzing texts from three genres used in that discourse community. Steps and due dates for conducting your interview, observation, and genre analysis are listed below. While each preliminary step is required, only the final DCR will be graded.
In addition to completing those steps by their due dates, you'll draft a description of your research methods and a list of three to four themes you developed by coding your data. Your themes should link all three of your data types (interview, observation, and genre analysis). They should connect the data to your research question and to larger concerns in the field of writing studies. Your list of themes should explain how each is supported by all three data types and how each relates to your research question and to larger concerns in writing studies.
You'll submit these materials as the final draft of your DCR. The description of your research methods should explain what data you collected and the procedures you used to collect it, how you analyzed the data, and how it relates to your research question. This section should also explain your sampling procedures, that is, how and why you chose your interviewee, observation site, and genre analysis texts.
Prompt
Locate three short texts (or sections of texts) that represent three different genres used in your discourse community. Start by asking your interviewee(s) for examples of texts read, written, or otherwise used by professionals in the field. For instance, if you're investigating a medical discourse community, you might examine the introduction of a research article, a patient medical history form, and an article from a newsletter for doctors, nurses, or other medical professionals. Other places to seek texts are on the websites of professional organizations for your field. You can find these sites by using the Occupational Outlook Handbook, available on the ENG3010 library guide: http://guides.lib.wayne.edu/content.php?pid=62407&sid=848449
Your goal is to explain the genres you're analyzing in terms of Beaufort's five knowledge domains (genre knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, subject matter knowledge, writing process knowledge, and discourse community knowledge). Use your analysis of the genres to show what features characterize each genre, how it functions in your discourse community, how it seems to be produced, how it uses or adds to subject matter knowledge in the discourse community, and how it enacts teh values and attitudes of the discourse community. Organize your paper by using these headings: "Rhetorical and Other Textual Features," "Function," "Production," "Subject Matter Knowledge," and "Discourse Community Attitudes and Values." In each section, compare the three genres you're examining by discussing what they show about the relevant knowledge domain in your discourse community.
To develop your explanation, start by using the questions and lists from Devitt, Reiff, and Bawarshi's discussions of genre, genre analysis, genre critique, and genre change. See pgs. 63, 64, 65, the bolded terms on pgs. 65-66, the two paragraphs on genre critique on pg. 151, and the first full paragraph on pg. 180, which describes how students changed an existing genre. Use the questions, lists, bolded terms, and ideas in these sections to examine the texts you've chosen. For instance, use the list on pg. 65 to develop lists of features of each of your texts for your section on "Rhetorical and Other Textual Features." Keep in mind that you may want to critique one or more of your genres and/or to suggest possible changes in them. Base your critique or recommendations for genre change in your analysis.
To generate other ideas and see examples of what your texts should do, review the sample genre analysis (pgs. 74-79), the sample genre critique (pgs. 154-158), and the sample researched position paper on genre change (pgs. 164-173).
Learning Objectives
Locate three short texts that represent three different genres used in your discourse community
Develop an effective rhetorical genre analysis of the three texts that explains them in terms of Beaufort's five knowledge domains
Organize the proposal to effectively meet readers’ expectations
Use appropriate style, citation conventions, and grammar, punctuation, and mechanics
