Read and Response for May 11th

“Create a Research Space” (CARS) Model of Research Introductions

By: John Swales

“Sometimes getting through the introduction of a research article can be the most difficult part of reading it.  In his CARS model, Swales describes three “moves” that almost all research introductions make.” (Swales)

            I thought that this passage was important because it is the first thing you read in the article and tells the reader the purpose of the writing.  It presents the problem to the reader and everything that follows are the steps to resolve that problem.  Swales talks about all the points that must be present when writing an introductions and walks you through the process that you should use in order to successfully introduce your argument.  He starts with establishing a territory which basically means to provide background information on your topic.  The second thing he says to do is establish a niche which means to convince the reader that there is still room for research in whatever it is your talking about which can be done in a couple ways that Swales provides.  The last move that Swales talks about is actually occupying the niche which consists of the writing gathering the research and actually making the point you are trying to get across.

Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively

By: Margaret Kantz

“A key concept in this change is learning to recognize that facts aren’t so much inherently true statements as they are claims- that is, assertions that most of a given audience has agreed are true because for that audience sufficient proof has already been given.”

            I thought that this was a very interesting passage because it talks about how facts are true because they are proven and evidence is present for the audience.  Anything that the audience has not come to a consensus on are still considered claims.  Kantz talks about how even texts that we believe to contain all facts such as textbooks and encyclopedias still contain claims.  Kantz then goes on to talk about the importance of finding valid sources that contain facts rather than claims.  There are always ideas in writing that are personal which make them not purely factual so it is important for students to find writing that provides valid information and supports your argument.  It is important to analyze the reading before actually getting into it.  Some things you can do is find the argument and establish whether you agree or disagree and try to find the writers supporting arguments.

Read and Response for May 9th

Annoying Ways People Use Sources

By: Kyle Stedman

“It helps me to remember that the conventions of writing have a fundamentally rhetorical nature. That is, I follow different conventions depending on the purpose and audience of my writing, because I know that I’ll come across differently to different people depending on how well I follow the conventions expected in any particular writing space.” (Stedman, 244)

            I thought that passage was very important because it explains the argument that the writer is presenting to the reader.  He wants readers and writers to know that there are specific ways to source things in different kinds of writings.  He brings to the attention all the “annoying” things that people do when sourcing and provides examples and ways to fix those things.  The key purpose of any kind of sourcing is to make sure you get the point you want to make across the reader as smoothly as possible without any confusion.  Stedman makes it clear that he is not saying there is a specific right way or wrong way to do it but that there are certain techniques that are better than others.  Stedman states that the conventions of writing are called conventions for a reason rather than calling them rules because they are there to shape your writing not to limit it.

Genre Analysis

Genre Analysis

Read and Response for April 27th

Ecology of Genre

By: Anis Bawarshi

“We use language to construct rhetorical environments in which we exist, interact with one another, and enact social actions.  We are constantly in the process of reproducing our contexts as we communicate within them, speaking and writing about our realities and ourselves to the extent that discourse and reality cannot be separated. Within these rhetorical constructs, we assume different rhetorical identities and perform different social activities as we negotiate our way from one environment to the next, often balancing multiple identities and activities at the same time.” (Bawarshi, 71)

            I thought that this passage was important because it talks about how genre can be a rhetorical ecosystem and the reasons why.  I agree that we are constantly shaping our own environment with our experiences and our actions.  Our world is constantly evolving and our language is the same way and this is what this passage is basically saying.  Our environment reflects who we are because we are in the environment and everything we do or say can change that environment.  Everywhere we go we experience an environment created by people as well as nature; however, in today’s world there is nothing but advertisements and shopping malls which directly affect the environment and how people act in it.

The Rhetorical Situation of the Scientific Paper and the “Appearance” of Objectivity

By: Matthew Allen

“What is most interesting about the rhetorical situation of the scientific paper is that the writer persuades his or her audience largely through the appearance of objectivity.  Many people, as Charles Bazerman points out, think that writing based on scientific premises is not really writing at all, that it is an unbiased vessel for transmitting truth.” (Allen, 94)

            I thought that this passage was important because it tells the reader what the author is arguing against.  He explains that people think just because scientific writing is more based on fact, that it is not a form of writing at all.  I think that is completely untrue because in any form of writing whether it’s scientific or not, your going to have the point of view of the author somehow incorporated into that work.  I do agree that sometimes scientific writing is for the most part objective but that still doesn’t mean that it isn’t a form of writing.  The purpose of any writing is to persuade your audience to believe or think what you do, and for scientific writing you are still doing that to an extent, it is just more on an informational basis.

Young Scholars in First-Year Writing, College Admissions Essays: A Genre of Masculinity

By: Sarah-Kate Magee

“There is no awareness of the expectation solely to highlight achievements in college admissions essays, a style of composition Flynn describes as masculine.  Such awareness needs to exist to allow for a wider range of experiences to write about in a successful essay.  The unintentional bias in the college admissions essays genre only furthers and perpetuates the suppression of womens’s own ways of thinking and composing.” (Magee, 121)

            I thought that this passage was very important because it basically states what the problem is in college admissions essays according to the author.  She debates whether there is an intellectual difference between men and women.  She thinks that a lot of college admissions essays are based around masculine ways of writing.  The argument is if there is a difference between a way a woman writes and the way a man writes.  Personally, I think that both women and men have similar writing and when it comes to admissions essays it is not whether it is masculine or feminine but rather is it what the admissions office is looking for or not.

Read and Response for April 25th

Teaching Critical Genre Awareness

By: Amy Devitt

“All genre pedagogies appear to share the same larger goal: to give students access to language, structures, and institutions that are important for their individual, academic, and professional development.” (Devitt, 342)

            I thought that this passage was important because it is explaining the overall purpose of genre.  The basic function of genre is to classify according to certain characteristics in order to create a model for future works.  As a reader, when you know what genre the work your reading is, you can gather some expectations based solely because of the specific genre it is.  It allows students to better understand whatever it is they are reading when they know what to expect and prepare their techniques for reading before they actually start.  Genre creates a shared idea about literature for groups of people and creates social structure because they all agree on the characteristics that make up each genre.  However, there are no set in stone characteristics that need to be present to make it a certain genre and there is room for interpretation, but there are definitely characteristics that stick out that allows you to classify literature in certain genres.

Navigating Genres

By: Kerry Dirk

“In other words, Bitzer is saying that when something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when that situation happens again, another person uses the first response as a basis for the second, and eventually everyone who encounters this situation is basing his/her response on the previous ones, resulting in the creation of a new genre.” (Dirk, 252)

            I thought this was a very interesting way to look at genre.  It really makes sense and gives the reader a good idea of how genre started and how it’s developed over time.  It basically means that genre is still evolving with every work that is created and will still evolve in time as works are made in the future.  They give a great example in the text which said that George Washington, being the first person to be president and address the Union, he had complete freedom when he was trying to think of the content on which to cover.  After then, each President based their content on the person before them.  Dirk talks about how genre is more than just something that is used for academics but is a huge part of our everyday lives, while Devitt talked about genre being best used for teaching and learning for students.  I think for me, I think genre is more of an academic things and I never really thought to use genre in anything else but literature.  However, after reading both these articles I can see how genre can be mixed in with certain things in everyday life.  I just never really thought of social action as something that can be classified into a genre.

Read and Response for April 20th

Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity

By: Ann M. Johns

“It has been suggested that people can join communities at will and remain affiliated at levels of their own choosing.  For a number of reasons, this is not entirely accurate.  In some cases people are excluded from communities because they lack social standing, talent, or money, or because they live in the wrong part of town.  In other cases, community membership requires a long initiatory process, and even then there is no guarantee of success.” (Johns, 511)

            I thought that this passage was important because it is a counter argument to what every other article that we’ve read has said.  The passage is the main idea that the writer is trying to get to the reader: that it is not as easy to join a community as people make it out to be.  There are several factors that people take into account when you are trying to join an established group.  It is up to that group whether they want to accept you or not and it comes down to whether you have the necessary attributes that the community is looking for.  For example, if you wanted to join some kind of political community, it is most likely that you and your family are well off and have some kind of role in the community already.  What the basic message is in this passage is that there are factors beyond a person’s control that affect their success in anything they do.

The Idea of Community in the Study of Writing

By: Joseph Harris

“The troubles of many student writers, Bartholomae suggests, begin with their inability to imagine such a position of privilege, to define their views against some “common” way of talking about their subject.  Instead, they simply repeat in their writing “what everybody knows” or what their professor has told them in their lectures.” (Harris, 587)

            I thought that this passage was very important because I found it to be very true in my eyes.  I feel like so many people are programmed to write what the professor wants to hear or what they think is factually right.  When talking about a subject in a community, people tend to have the same thing to say about it because that is the social consensus on the matter.  It is important for people to have their own opinion on things and when people are constantly telling you what to do and how to do it, it tends to shape the way you do things in a way that makes your work the same as everyone else’s.  Both Johns and Harris challenged the idea of discourse communities by pointing out the flaws in a discourse community and some of the problems people could run into when trying to become a part of one of these communities.  You get the idea the both writers are trying to make the point that being in a discourse community is not as easy and as beneficial as some of the past readings indicated them to be.  I think that being in a discourse community could be both beneficial and detrimental because it does provide a good social network for people to be in and broadens someone’s experience with others but also could be bad because of all the restrictions and standards that could possibly take away from someone’s individuality.

Read and Response for April 18th

Finding Harmony in Disharmony: Engineering and English Studies

By: Ruth Johnson, Beth Clark, and Mario Burton

“Since our goal is to help bridge the gap between engineering and writing, which is usually associated with English courses, we must establish some background on writing in the field of engineering and define the gap between the two disciplines.” (Johnson, 64)

I thought that this passage was very important because it is basically the thesis for the whole article.  This passage shows how you must associate engineering with writing in order to see the relationship between the two.  Writing allows an engineer to put down his thoughts into writing which makes it easier for him or her to visualize and develop their idea.  The article talks a lot about the importance of writing skills to an engineer and the advantages having great writing skills can provide.  The article brings up the lack of writing preparation that most engineers receive during their schooling and that there needs to be added stress on writing skills for all types of students.

Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces

By: Elizabeth Wardle

“Learning to write in and for new situations and workplaces is complex in ways that go far beyond texts and cognitive abilities.” (Wardle, 521)

            I thought that this passage was important not only because it is taken out of the reading and quoted already, but it is the whole argument of the article.  It says that people can’t just know how to write in their new workplace just from process of thought, but has to learn and experience the new techniques needed to do the appropriate writing in that workplace.  People in new workplaces have to apply the things they already know and rethink their techniques after they are given some kind of direction.  You must follow the new workplaces standards and techniques in order to come out with the appropriate writing.  Wardle’s ideas related to the discourse communities because both talk about how you must adapt to your surroundings in order to achieve the desired outcome.  This suggests that you must learn and change what is needed in order to develop the skills required to do the best work possible in the profession that your in.

Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering

By: Dorothy A. Windsor

“Knowledge is not found ready-made in nature. Instead, knowledge is constructed in the interplay between nature and the symbol systems we use to structure and interpret it.” (Windsor, 58)

            I thought that this passage was most important because it was literally the first sentence of the article and it caught my attention right away.  I thought that this passage was very deep and it was an interesting way to look at knowledge.  It means that knowledge is a mixture between the things that occur in nature and the systems we as humans use to examine and record that knowledge.  However it talks about in some cases, such as engineering, where knowledge is gained solely on physical objects rather than in writing.  The article goes on to try explain how the gap between engineering and writing can be narrowed.