First Draft Due: April 5th
Second Draft Due: April 12th
Individual Conferences: April 12th-13th
Final Draft Due: April 19th
For this paper, you’ll need to rely upon the skills of rhetorical analysis and genre identification that you’ve honed throughout the semester. What does it mean to be a writer and communicator in and about the profession you are hoping to go pursue as a career? This project will require you to choose piece of mainstream media that displays misconceptions regarding an issue of concern for your major field of study. (This piece of media might come from a newspaper, a TV show, a popular website, a movie, music, a game, etc.) Using research from at least one academic journal article and at least one professional website in your field, explain not only how the mainstream source “gets the issue wrong,” but also the differences between how the topic at hand is discussed by the public and how it is discussed by experts in your field. You’ll need to describe the major themes, genres, modalities, etc., and rhetorically analyze the pieces in detail. Make sure that you carefully discuss the rhetorical choices of the authors. I encourage you to bring in multiple sources for comparison in your discussion.
Important Questions to Keep in Mind:
- How does the mainstream media piece differ from the scholarly piece in its approach to your discipline as a whole?
- What rhetorical moves are made in each piece you review?
- What common conversations can you see running through these pieces?
- How do these texts reflect discussions that are important to your field in different ways?
- How might these common issues be approached differently?
- Given the genres and modalities that you observe in these texts, as well as other rhetorical choices such as tone, style, etc., what can you say about communication and/or writing in your field?
Rhetorical Analysis and Genre Identification Guiding Questions:
Keep the following points/questions in mind as you analyze each piece (journal article, professional webpage, and mainstream/pop culture source).
- Briefly summarize the pieces.
- Your summary should point to the main idea of the pieces you’ve chosen, and should describe any key concepts introduced. In summarizing the professional online resource, you should mention its main function and any key information it points to.
- Do a close reading of the three pieces, focusing on rhetorical moves being made.
- How is the author or website editor conveying meaning? Be specific, going into detail and giving examples.
- What is the author/editor trying to do?
- Who is the intended audience for the text?
- What is the purpose of the text?
- What appeals are being made, and how?
- How is the article/webpage organized? Why?
- What is the intended effect of the piece?
- How do the rhetorical moves being made in the journal article and professional online resource differ from those in the mainstream/pop culture representation of your field?
- How is the meaning of your field’s work changed or twisted by the different rhetorical tactics used in the mainstream/pop culture representation?
- In your close readings of the pieces, think about their genre as well as their places in the field of study they take part in.
- What patterns do you notice throughout the article? What patterns do you notice throughout the website? In the mainstream representation?
- How do those patterns remind you of other pieces of writing or writing assignments you have encountered regarding that field of study? (As you think about this, keep in mind the vocabulary, visualizations, organizational structures, etc. that you observe.)
- How do the professional resources (the article and the professional webpage) communicate differently in addressing your field of study when compared to the mainstream/popular webpage?
- How does the mainstream/pop culture source misrepresent your field? How might professionals in your field use communication/writing to change that?
- Why are these pieces good examples of texts related to your major field of study?
- Place the three pieces in conversation with one another.
- Through looking at them, what common patterns of writing, communication, and knowledge-making in your field have you been able to identify?
Since you are working with sources beyond your own observations or primary research, you should be including in-text citations and full citations on a reference page for all of your materials in either MLA or APA format.
Need an example? Take a look at this past student paper. Or this one. Or this one! Please remember that none of sample papers I link to (here, or in other assignment guidelines) are perfect. They should be seen as examples of other students’ writing for the assignment, not as exact templates.
Categories: Assignment Guidelines
Tags: assignment #3, assignment guidelines, wid project, writing in the disciplines
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