Reflective Introduction:
The Preliminary Analysis assignment required us to do an “analysis of scientific discourse in a discourse community to which you belong or wish to.” The goal of the assignment was to help us to better understand genre and rhetoric within discourse communities. To complete this assignment most effectively, I found that it was important to more clearly define discourse communities beyond just a "group of people involved in or communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field." While this definition is accurate, I felt it was lacking based on our classroom discussions and reading. After some research, I found a definition that I thought gave more meaning: "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." In pondering the assignment in the context of this definition, I was surprised to realize that I belong to a discourse community myself. Through my internships at the New England Aquarium, I am an active part of the discourse community of aquarists there and I decided that learning more about this group should be my focus.
To better understand how aquarists are focused on accomplishing a common goal through communications, I leveraged my relationships with Senior Aquarists at the Aquarium’s Quincy Animal Care Facility and primary facility in Boston. I thought that the best approach to uncover how particular genres shape scientific discourse within this community was to conduct some one-on-one interviews. While schedules proved to be challenging for a couple of the people I contacted, I did get multiple email responses that provided me with input and I was able to have an interview with one of the Senior Aquarists, Hannah Cutting. My goal was to learn more about the language aquarists use and any challenges they may have faced in communicating their work through written and spoken language. In addition to the interview, we also researched scientific journals and reviewed sources of scientific publications that the aquarists recommended as well as sources we had also found.
Based on my research and interview, as well as my own experience in the community, I worked with my partner to draft our initial analysis. I found this step in the process to be somewhat challenging since much of the communication within this community is verbal and doesn't necessarily take the shape of formal texts that I could compare and analyze. I spoke to my professor about this concern and he guided my group partner and me on ways to leverage the information that we got from the emails and interviews in a way that would meet the criteria of the assignment. At this stage we also sought input from peers (both in class and at the writing center) to validate our thinking and our approach. One peer, in particular, provided input that I found to be particularly valuable. Jacob said that he thought that it would be interesting to "get someone's point of view on this topic from someone that isn't in a typical research field but also working in a professional community of peers." He also reinforced the value of looking not only at how they choose to communicate but the rhetorical techniques they use within that communication as well. He further acknowledged that because my partner and I are both interested and newly experienced in the community that it could be an advantage for us to learn more about this genre early in our careers. Some of Jacob's other feedback was more pointed as it related to our reliance on the interview process rather than the comparison of texts so we once again validated with our professor that our approach was in line with the expectations of the assignment. We also spent more time reading and researching texts that the community was using so that we could have a well-rounded perspective. Once we completed our research and reviewed all of our feedback, we went back to revising and refining our final draft analysis and sought to incorporate what we had learned and heard.
I believe that by working on this assignment, I was able to strengthen my writing skills and focus on several of the other course outcomes that we have prioritized. These include demonstrating an understanding of discourse communities and their importance, the use of rhetorical language in scientific writing, tailoring communication to particular audiences and the practical application of the writing process through revision, review, and editing. The final product that we were able to create was a direct result of this improved understanding of these outcomes.
The Preliminary Analysis assignment required us to do an “analysis of scientific discourse in a discourse community to which you belong or wish to.” The goal of the assignment was to help us to better understand genre and rhetoric within discourse communities. To complete this assignment most effectively, I found that it was important to more clearly define discourse communities beyond just a "group of people involved in or communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field." While this definition is accurate, I felt it was lacking based on our classroom discussions and reading. After some research, I found a definition that I thought gave more meaning: "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals." In pondering the assignment in the context of this definition, I was surprised to realize that I belong to a discourse community myself. Through my internships at the New England Aquarium, I am an active part of the discourse community of aquarists there and I decided that learning more about this group should be my focus.
To better understand how aquarists are focused on accomplishing a common goal through communications, I leveraged my relationships with Senior Aquarists at the Aquarium’s Quincy Animal Care Facility and primary facility in Boston. I thought that the best approach to uncover how particular genres shape scientific discourse within this community was to conduct some one-on-one interviews. While schedules proved to be challenging for a couple of the people I contacted, I did get multiple email responses that provided me with input and I was able to have an interview with one of the Senior Aquarists, Hannah Cutting. My goal was to learn more about the language aquarists use and any challenges they may have faced in communicating their work through written and spoken language. In addition to the interview, we also researched scientific journals and reviewed sources of scientific publications that the aquarists recommended as well as sources we had also found.
Based on my research and interview, as well as my own experience in the community, I worked with my partner to draft our initial analysis. I found this step in the process to be somewhat challenging since much of the communication within this community is verbal and doesn't necessarily take the shape of formal texts that I could compare and analyze. I spoke to my professor about this concern and he guided my group partner and me on ways to leverage the information that we got from the emails and interviews in a way that would meet the criteria of the assignment. At this stage we also sought input from peers (both in class and at the writing center) to validate our thinking and our approach. One peer, in particular, provided input that I found to be particularly valuable. Jacob said that he thought that it would be interesting to "get someone's point of view on this topic from someone that isn't in a typical research field but also working in a professional community of peers." He also reinforced the value of looking not only at how they choose to communicate but the rhetorical techniques they use within that communication as well. He further acknowledged that because my partner and I are both interested and newly experienced in the community that it could be an advantage for us to learn more about this genre early in our careers. Some of Jacob's other feedback was more pointed as it related to our reliance on the interview process rather than the comparison of texts so we once again validated with our professor that our approach was in line with the expectations of the assignment. We also spent more time reading and researching texts that the community was using so that we could have a well-rounded perspective. Once we completed our research and reviewed all of our feedback, we went back to revising and refining our final draft analysis and sought to incorporate what we had learned and heard.
I believe that by working on this assignment, I was able to strengthen my writing skills and focus on several of the other course outcomes that we have prioritized. These include demonstrating an understanding of discourse communities and their importance, the use of rhetorical language in scientific writing, tailoring communication to particular audiences and the practical application of the writing process through revision, review, and editing. The final product that we were able to create was a direct result of this improved understanding of these outcomes.