Writing Homework Help

In this assignment, write your field notes and share documents with your instructor for feedback on your research.

Observations

1. What are the shared goals of the community? Why does this group exist? What does it do?
2. If you can, observe members of the
   discourse community (or the community website) and take notes: What are
   they doing? What kinds of things do they say? What do they write? How do
   you know who is in and who is out of the group?
3. What mechanisms [or genres] do members
   use to communicate with each other? Collect at 2-3 texts that members
   of the community read or write. Be sure to ask permission before
   collecting genres that might be private to the community. Examples might
   be:

• • brochures
  • newsletters
  • reports
  • forms
  • notes

Analyze

1. What are the purposes of each of these
   mechanisms of communication (i.e to improve performance, make money,
   share research, etc.)?
2. What kinds of specialized language
   (lexis) do group members use in their conversation and in their genres
   (name some examples—ESL, on the fly, 86, etc.)? What communicative
   function does this lexis serve (i.e. why say “86” instead of “we are out
   of this”?)
3. Who are the “old-timers” with
   expertise? Who are the newcomers with less expertise? How do newcomers
   learn the appropriate language, genres, and knowledge of the group?