Running head: GENRE ANALYSIS

Natalia G. Mendoza
Genre Analysis
The University of Texas at El Paso

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Introduction
A genre can be defined as a category for a particular topic. For example, in writing there
are different genres like, fiction and nonfiction. In order to identify a style of writing, first there
should be an identified genre. Genres can also be best described for being important sources of
information, since genres can be really broad, most of the time some genres are more helpful
than others in different areas of discourse.
For the purposes of this assignment, these two genres were selected in order to identify
which one works best in a scholarly environment. The first genre , International Students A
Vulnerable Student Population (2010) by Sherry, M., Thomas P., Chui, W.H. its an article that
discusses different areas in where international students might feel discouraged by studying
abroad, it takes a deeper look in why international students are experimenting these situations,
and comes up with different solutions that can be applied in the educational system in order to
change these stereotypes that society tends to have for international students.
The second genre, a documentary called Migrant Stories (2005) by Teachers TV/UK,
from the Department of Education. The purpose for this genre analysis, is to compare and
contrast two different genres, with the objective of discerning which genre is better for academic
purposes. For the purposes of this class, scholarly journals are better to work with than any other
genre.

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Audience
For the first genre, A vulnerable student population by Sherry M. Thomas P., Chui, W. H.
published by the Academic Journal, Higher Education(2010) The purpose of this article, its to
make an argument about several conditions that make international students have either a good
experience, or a bad experience in a different place from where international students were
born. The expected audience to whom this article is written for, could be best identified towards
international students. This is because, the article by itself is addressing most of the time, this
selected group of students. Not only International Students are addressed in this article, but also
teachers, students, faculty and staff. Basically the intended audience for this article can be any
subjects that are usually find in College, this is because the article examines the whole student
experience, by making a study looking at all the factors that contribute to international students
to have either a good or a bad experience. The factor that the authors found out to be the most
stressing for international students where among: language issues, adapting to new cultural
norms, cultural misunderstandings, financial problems, friends and social support, inclusion in
the local and university community, not only there where bad factors that contributed to the
experiences that build up the criteria for international students, but also good situations such as
the opportunities that where being presented for these students, cultural development and growth,
learning a second language, and the advantages that international students tend to get once they
go back to their homeland.
While for the second genre a documentary called Migrant Stories filmed in 2005, the
intended audience are immigrants from different parts of the world that can identify themselves
with the story of the protagonist of the documentary. Another identified audience, can be the
families that are affected by different situations in their countries, teachers, and faculty can also

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be an intended audience due to the personal experiences that are being presented in the
documentary, the purpose of this is to demonstrate how difficult it is sometimes to certain
students, to adapt to the changes that moving to a different homeland could result. Lastly, regular
students and regular people are the intended audience. The purposes of this is to create
conscience in the minds of all those audiences, to identify the problems that are coming from
different points of view, personal accounts, from immigrants. Some of these personal accounts,
include their own story, such as leaving their homeland because it was too dangerous for them to
keep leaving in there so they had to move to a safer place. This story for example demonstrates
that most of the time immigrants do not have the option to travel to a different country because
they want to, but because it is no longer safe for them and for their families.
Rhetorical Issues
In both genres the authors appeal to rhetorical issues in order to persuade, or to get the
attention of the audience. In both genres, there are multiple issues that can be found in the
journal article and in the video, with the difference that the rhetorical issues can be expressed in
different ways.
Ethos
In the first genre, Sherry, Thomas and Chui, use analytical information in order to
support their claims. The claim that the authors are arguing for are the experiences that students
get when they are studying in the United States. In the article, the reader can easily identify, the
data and the research that was being done. For example, in the article the authors, made an
electronic survey to all the international students that go to the University of Toledo in order to
get responses that would identify their experiences from a different country. This research also

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identifies different areas in where, students would identify or vote in this case, different areas of
interest, in their own school. The way this article uses the rhetorical device ethos, is by
supporting evidence that was realized in this study. In this article, the areas that were researched
on the survey were: financial support, friends and social support, inclusion in the local
community and the university community.
For the second genre, in the documentary Migrant Stories the authors claim is to
expose different situations from immigrants in order to the share to the world, that most of the
time immigrants do not feel received in other countries. The author provides as evidence the
testimony from different people that appears at the documental. For the purposes of the
documentary, the director of the documentary just provides the audience with the story of the
people that appears in the documentary. There is not that much of analytical information or
evidence that can provide in the documentary other than their own experiences.
Pathos
In the first genre, the Sherry, M., Thomas P., Chui, W.H. provide emotional appeal by
giving each area of research a different approach. For example, in the survey there is an area of
research called friends and social support gives the reader the impression that the emotional
life of international students is being analyzed. This can be contributed to the idea that some of
them do not feel comfortable with their friends or social environments due to the lack of sharing
that some of these students have. In the article, Sherry, M., Thomas P., Chui, W.H. expose one of
the responses from one of the international students describing her experience towards her
classmates and the university. The emotional appeal that Sherry, M., Thomas P., Chui, W.H. are
trying to transmit is the difficulties that an international student goes through by not feeling
received from the university community.

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In the second genre, there is no other emotional appeal rather than the one of the stories
that are being shared. It is really important to the documentary to expose different images of the
situations that different families where going through. For example, there is one story in the
documental in where the main character, Saranda a 13-year-old, who is Albanian by birth, tells
her story in how she and her family had to move to the United Kingdom because they were being
persecuted in their homeland. The documentary also provides, the audience with all the
experiences that Sarandas family had to overcome. One of the hardest was language. This is one
of the ways that the documentary appeals in an emotional way, by making empathy toward
different immigrants.
Logos
In the first genre the journal article, the way the argument was used in order to convince
the audience was to present legitimate evidence, by presenting different arguments from different
students. The way this is presented, is by showing the different perspectives from different areas
of focus, from each selection that the students were assigned to answer. In this section the
authors used excerpts from the responses of different students in order to appeal to the rational
sense of the audience, not only the emotional side of reading the situation that some international
students have towards studying in another place. Therefore, the different evidence that was
presented such as the results from the poll make the journal article more appealing to the
audience, since its coming from international students and their own situations. While in the
video, the author does not show enough evidence to appeal to the logical side of the audience,
instead it appeals more for their emotions by showing the hard situations that different
immigrants had to overcome, then the audience gets to identify if the stories that are being told
can be verified or not.

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For the second genre, the way the evidence was presented, was in essence by showing
visual evidence, in the documentary, because the author would rather have the audience to feel
empathy towards the different situations that are being presented in the documentary, such as
language, religion, culture and social acceptance. It appeals in a logical way, because it provides
a lot of examples that can provide intellectual evidence, but at the same time going back to the
journal article, the audience does not receive the same type of information like in the first genre.
In this case, the audience has to follow the different stories that are being presented during the
documentary, which lacks of proof and evidence. This claim, only supports that scholarly articles
for the purposes of this class, are best to use for.
Conclusion
In conclusion, for the purposes of this class, the type of genres that best convey to use are
scholarly articles. This is because scholarly articles drive the audience in to a more detailed,
specified and trustable source that can be verified. For the purposes of this class, is best to used
scholarly articles since, the audience needs to be sure that the claim that is being transmitted
doesnt get to be only a belief, but to be knowledge. In order for scholars to build up knowledge,
there is a necessity of having sources that can support certain claims, this is why in this type of
situations scholars need to go beyond sources and start gathering real information outside
classrooms in order to build knowledge.
Scholarly Articles, provide a better idea for the audience, this way the audiences that
scholarly articles are intended to can be best identified for scholar purposes. In a rhetorical issue,
rhetorical analysis can help better in a scholar article. Each genre demonstrates different points
of view and perspectives. While in the video, the audience can only use those sources as opinions
and as emotional devices to pursue other audiences to have empathy towards other audiences.

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This does not mean, that the information that is being shared has more credibility than in the
journal article, but the sources that can be identified from the journal article can make a better
undersading of what the author claims refers to or is trying to be transmitted.
Overall, both discuss the same issue, which both can help to go over a revised article, it is
true that one possess better attributes than the other one, but both can take the audience to a more
deeply sense of what being an international student or an immigrant means.

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References
Migrant Stories (2005). Teachers TV/UK Department of Education. Retrieved from
http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/1781235
Sherry, M., Thomas, P., & Chui, W. H. (2010). International students: A vulnerable student
population. Higher Education, 60(1), 33-46. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40784044