A Step-­by-­step Guide Plan: Choose a discourse community related to your progra

A Step-­by-­step Guide
Plan: Choose a discourse community related to your program of study. This should be a community that you are already a part of (such as students in your program area) or are going to be joining (such as professionals in your chosen field).
Research: Your research will be based on information gathered from secondary sources, including course readings, and from job postings, job profiles or job descriptions from organizational websites. You can also include information from primary research conducted in the form of an interview with a discourse community expert. This could be a professional in the field, an instructor in your program, or an upper-­‐semester student. However, please note that an interview isn’t mandatory. You are not required to complete one for this assignment, but it is an option. Suggested questions you may ask:
• What activities do they engage in?
• What means of intercommunication do they use?
• How do they share information and feedback?
• What kind of things do they say, what kind of specialized language do they use?
• What kind of text/documents do they create?
Analyze: Take the data that you have collected through research and analyze your findings using concepts learned in the course, specifically, Swales’ (1987) six characteristics of a discourse community. You should apply 3-4 of Swales’ characteristics, focusing on those that relate to communication (Swales’ characteristics 2-5).
Draft: Write a report of 750 words (plus/minus 75 words). Remember, the audience for your report is a newcomer to the community. Your report must include at least one direct quotation that is cited according to APA–can be taken from any of the readings suggested in “Unit 1: Discourse Communities,” or your own research. Your report must also include the section headings listed below:
• Introduction
• Background
• Research and Analysis
• Conclusions and Recommendations
Revise: Use instructor feedback to revise your draft.
Submit: Upload your final draft to the dropbox in D2L in the format requested by your professor (either Word or PDF).
What am I supposed to write under each section heading?
Introduction
Purpose (why are you writing this report? who is the audience?)
Method (how are you going about the task of writing the report? what sources have you used?)
Background
General description of a discourse community including basic duties
Education, training or certification requirements
Details required for new a community member to make sense of the report
Research and Analysis
Summary of research findings (from interview/secondary sources)
At least one direct quotation and/or paraphrase from each of your sources
Application of 3-­‐4 of Swales’ 6 characteristics of discourse communities to day-­‐to-­‐day job responsibilities involving communication (using Swales’ characteristics 2-5)
Conclusions and Recommendations
Summary of significant characteristics of the discourse community
Bulleted list of top three recommendations for action–in other words, what are the most important three steps for a newcomer to become a successful member of the discourse community?
Note: Draft #2 and the Final Version of this assignment will be submitted to the Turnitin.com reference database for textual similarity review when it is uploaded to the dropbox. More information on the use of Turnitin.com can be found on the official course outline.