Genre Analysis Journal Chosen: 8.28 | Articles: 9.2 | Final Due: 9.

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[Description]: In this assignment you will create a hypertext analysis of a professional
genre that is common in the field of your major. By asking a professor or TA, you will locate
three examples of articles from a professional journal in your field and perform a rhetorical genre
analysis of the standards of those articles. You will also examine the journal at large, considering
who publishes in this journal, what are the submission guidelines the journal requires, etc.
Importantly, the goal of the analysis/argument section is to actually make an argument about the
politics/power dynamics/collective memory of your field. You are not simply describing but
making an argument.

[Questions to Consider in Creating an Argument]:
How do things like they layout, argument, and citation standards of your area of study
produce a certain type of author, constrain or enhance the subject matter being written about,
and reflect the values of your field?
What counts as correct and incorrect in terms of writing in these articles? Why?
How do ethos, pathos, and logos play into this? Do authors show passion or restrain it? How
so? How do authors develop credibility through language, images, statistic, etc.
What are the writing and learning values that this genre reinforces? Which ones do they
discourage? Whom do such guidelines welcome to write for the journal and whom do they
not?
How could these articles and journals be improved? Could they reach a larger audience?
Include more images, tables, and infographics? Include videos and other multimedia?
By what criteria are speakers/writers selected?
What are the beliefs, attitudes, values, and prejudices of the addressed audience?
What topics of issues does the forum consider? What are allowable subjects? What topics are
valued?
What constitutes validity, evidence, and proof in the forum (e.g., personal
experience/observation, testing and measurement, theoretical or statistical analysis)?
What are this communitys god memories? Where are they located?
How do members of this forum argue and critique one another? Is it civil? Indirect? How do
they make room for their research and point out gaps and errors in the research of others?

[Requirements]:
1. Background description
Identify the forum by name and organizational affiliation.
Is there an expressed belief, editorial policy, philosophy? What purpose does the forum
serve? Why does it exist?
What is the disciplinary orientation?
How large is the forum? Who are its members? Its leaders? Its readership?
In what manner does the forum assemble? How frequently
What is the origin of the forum? Why did it come into existence? What is its history? Its
political background? Its traditions?

2. Analysis/Argument:
Who writes?
Who is granted status as a writer? Who decides who gets to write? By what criteria are
writers selected?
What kind of people write in this forum? Credentials? Disciplinary orientation? Academic or
professional background?
Who are the most important figures in this forum? Whose work or experience is most
frequently cited?
What are the important sources in the forum? What key works, events, experiences is it
assumed members of the forum know?
To whom do they write?
Who is addressed in the forum? What are the characteristics of the assumed audience?
What are the audiences needs assumed to be? To what use(s) is the audience expected to put
the information?
What is the audiences background assumed to be? Level of proficiency, experience, and
knowledge of subject matter? Credentials?
What are the beliefs, attitudes, values, prejudices of the addressed audience?
What do they write about?
What topics or issues does the forum consider? What are allowable subjects? What topics are
valued?
What methodology or methodologies are accepted? Which theoretical approaches are
preferred: deduction (theoretical argumentation) or induction (evidence)?
What constitutes validity, evidence, and proof in the forum (e.g., personal
experience/observation, testing and measurement, theoretical or statistical analysis?)
How do they write it?
What types of discourse does the forum admit? How long?
What are the dominant modes of organization? Sections?
What formatting conventions are present: headings, tables and graphs, illustrations,
abstracts?
What is the tone? Is there specialized language/jargon?

3. Citation description
Write a brief introduction to the citation style used in your articles (MLA, APA, Chicago
Manual, etc.) then give examples of how a book, a multi-authored book, an article, a chapter
in a collection, and a website are formatted in this style.

4. Conclusions and Expansions
Conclude with a brief overview of your argument and a description of things the journal does
well and could do better in the future.


Assignment 1: Genre Analysis
____ Background description (15 points)

____ Analysis/Argument (30 points)

____ Citation description (10 points)

____ Conclusions and Expansions (10 points)

____ Web Design (25 points)

____Writing Quality (10 points)

______Total (100 points)