Teachers comments to project builder – Good basic summaries, but remember to try to note key data such as the methodology used by the authors to come to their findings, and try to explain what consequences their findings could have – why is the research important? What impact could the findings have?

Introduction/Rationale:

In this project, you will be exploring how to read, analyze, and use the professional and scholarly genre of the peer-reviewed journal article. This project will provide you with experience that will help prepare you for writing and communicating within professional and scholarly discourse communities. This project builds off the work of Project 1 while at the same time preparing you for the more extensive research project you will conduct in future weeks.

Assignment Prompt:

Building on your work in Project 1, you will first select one peer-reviewed article that we have read or will read in class from the Writing Studies discourse community. You will compare that article with one peer-reviewed article published in a professional community that you are interested in entering (Human Resources) or learning more about. In class and with the assistance of library staff, you will identify representative peer-reviewed articles in the discourse community of your choice, choose one, and begin to perform an analysis of how the articles from the Writing Studies discourse community differ, overlap, and mirror the article you select from the discourse community of your choice. Your project will contain three major sections: Identification, Analysis, and Reflection. Below are some questions and suggestions that serve as possible prompts for writing each section, though it’s important to note that these are not the only questions available, and you will not have space to pursue them all.

Identification

In this section, identify the major conventions found in the peer-reviewed articles you have selected. What citation styles are used? What major sections are present and how are they identified and ordered? What sections are the most extensively written? What stylistic features are apparent (e.g., Does the writing utilize active or passive voice? What point of view is invoked?) Does the article include an abstract? Does the article include additional sections or features such as an acknowledgement or epigraph?

Analysis

In this section, analyze how these major conventions indicate the ways this genre supports the goals of the discourse community or demonstrates the values of the discourse community. What do the different citation styles suggest about the values, goals, or agenda of the discourse communities? What do you think the different (or lack of) sections, order of sections, or size of sections indicate about the discourse communities? What do the different stylistic features of the texts begin to indicate about the values, goals, or agenda of the discourse community? How do additional features of the article add to the writing, and why might they be included in some articles but not others?

Reflection

In this section, reflect on what you have learned through this analysis. What can you begin to say about discourse communities after having completed your analysis? How do genres (in this case the peer-reviewed article) help shape the values, goals, and agenda of discourse communities in general? Based on this limited sample size, what have you learned about discourse community and professional genres?

Learning Objectives:

Read

• Identify and describe common conventions of peer-reviewed articles within two different discourse communities.
• Analyze and discuss similarities and differences in peer-reviewed article conventions, structures, styles, and other features.

Reflect

• Reflect on how genre conventions, features and strategies help shape and reveal the values, goals, and agenda of discourse communities.

Write

• Work through careful revision and editing based on peer and teacher feedback and the student’s own review of and reflection on a draft.

Minimum Requirements:

• 4-5 pages (double spaced, standard, 12-point font, 1-inch margins)
• Identify, analyze, and reflect on two peer-reviewed journal articles as described in the assignment prompt
• MLA or APA Style

Evaluation: (Final Draft Rubric Template)

Your work will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

	Excellent	Acceptable	Emerging	Not Evident
Basic Content: Identifying significant conventions and structures apparent in texts from different discourse communities
Analysis: Analyzing and comparing genre conventions and rhetorical strategies between texts from different discourse communities
Application: Reflecting on the ways genre is shaped by the rhetorically situated community in which it resides
Organization & Design: Purposeful rhetorical choices for the processes of analysis, organization, and drafting are evident and adapted to communicate in a professional context
Clarity: Sentences exhibit clear meaning that is easy to read
Professionalism: Attention to timeliness, formatting requirements, and submission protocols