Blog Post 3

Prompt:

The purpose of this piece of writing is for you to describe and evaluate the research and analysis methods of two Discourse scholars. I will ask you to look closely at not only what these authors write about discourse communities, but also how they present their analysis and why they conducted their research as they did. Ultimately, I hope this piece of writing will help you focus in on developing your own research methodology to carry forward into your midterm project. You will also be sharing these pieces with your peers, so it is my hope as well that you will learn from one another's writing.

Suggested structure:

A) Describe the approach each author takes to studying discourse communities. Here you're trying to draw out the choices and methods your first author took in conducting research and analyzing results.

  • Why did the author pick this particular discourse community to study? What was she/he hoping it would reveal?
  • How did your author do her research? What kind of data did she/he gather? Why gather this kind of data, specifically?
  • What conclusions does this piece offer about discourse communities? What do we know now about discourse communities (or about this community in specific) that we didn't know before reading this piece?

B) Compare this first approach to a second author's approach. Try to draw out the differences between their methods as well as the similarities.
C) Now think about your discourse community project. Think of the research choices and writing choices these authors have made.

  • How might the work these authors are doing serve as useful models for your own discourse community project? Or, if you don't think they're useful for your own intentions with this project, do you think others in the class could find them to be useful models? And if so, explain how they might be useful to others?

Specs and Constraints:

  • Post should be at least 500 words
  • At least one of the authors should be from the reading due 3/12

Deadline:

  • Tues 3/12 at 10pm
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