discourse community rhetorical analysis essay

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Objective 2: Analyze a rhetorical situation within a discourse community

This course objective focuses on understanding that writing is always situated in a particular context–there is always an author, audience, purpose, and constraints that must be considered–and that language choices that suit particular communities are important.

English 1102 OER Resources Copyright © 2023 by Jillian Grauman and Mary Childers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, discourse community – community of practice.

• © 2023 by Joseph M. Moxley - University of South Florida

A discourse community refers to groups of people who share interests, problems, goals, or fields of study.

What is a Discourse Community?

A discourse community refers to a group of people who are in conversation with one another.

Members of a discourse community share interests, goals, or fields of study. They share language practices, employing jargon , genres , rhetorical appeals , rhetorical moves , and discourse conventions . For instance, the field of medicine serves as a discourse community where members share a common language imbued with medical terminologies and methods, adhering to standardized practices and protocols during medical research, discussions, and treatments.

Members of a discourse community dialog with one another using shared language practices, including

• Members employ a particular style of writing that may be distinguished by its tone , voice , persona , structure , research methodologies , and level of formality. Depending on the community, certain genres of writing or communication might be preferred. For instance, an academic community might favor peer-reviewed articles, while a community of fiction writers might lean towards narrative prose.
• Each community often has its own jargon and specialized vocabulary
• The archive encompasses all the texts created by community members, serving as a repository of the collective knowledge and discourse over time. It’s a living record that grows and changes as new contributions are made by community members.
• The canon , on the other hand, consists of key texts and documents deemed foundational or authoritative by the community. For instance, the Constitution of the United States of America is a foundational text within the U.S. legal and political discourse community. The canon sets a standard and provides a reference point for discourse within the community, yet it too can evolve as new understandings or interpretations emerge.
• Members of a discourse community share expectations regarding how documents should be composed and structured. Members of a discourse community often adhere to recognized patterns when presenting arguments, narrating stories, or engaging in discussions. These patterns are not arbitrary but are shaped by the community’s accepted practices and expectations. For instance, in a legal discourse community, arguments are often structured in a specific way: stating the legal issue at hand, presenting relevant laws and precedents, analyzing the facts, and then drawing a conclusion. Similarly, in a scientific discourse community, research findings are typically presented in a structured format that includes an introduction, methodology, results, and conclusion. These established patterns ensure clarity, coherence, and a shared understanding among community members, enabling effective communication and engagement within the community.
• Discourse communities may rely on particular media or channels for communication, be it academic journals, online forums, or regular meetings and conferences.
• Members of a discourse community typically approach texts, issues, or subjects in alignment with the community’s established interpretive and research methods. These methods are fundamentally informed by shared epistemological assumptions about the nature of knowledge and reality. For instance, a scientific discourse community grounded in positivism might employ quantitative research methods like experiments and surveys to gather objective, measurable data. On the other hand, a discourse community in anthropology or sociology might lean towards constructivist epistemology, employing qualitative research methods like interviews, observations, or content analysis to explore subjective experiences and social constructions. The distinct research and interpretive methods reflect and reinforce the underlying epistemological positions held within each discourse community, enabling coherent inquiry and dialogue among its members.
• Within academic discourse communities, there is often an agreed-upon citation style, like APA, MLA, or Chicago, which members use consistently for scholarly work.

“The term “Discourse Community” is fairly synonymous to “Community of Practice.” Both concepts are concerned with how communities form around shared interests, goals, and practices.

However, the term “discourse community” may be reserved for more formal communities, such as academic communities (areas of study like biology, philosophy, or literature) or professional fields (sectors like engineering, law, or medicine). These discourse communities tend to have structured communication practices and are often tied to academic or professional advancement.

In contrast, Communities of Practice tend to be less structured, more organic scope of interaction, emphasizing shared learning and problem-solving across both formal and informal settings. Communities of Practice foster a collaborative learning environment where members can collectively address common problems or enhance their skills in a more informal or organic manner.

For instance, Reddit , a platform known for its myriad discussion boards, hosts numerous Communities of Practice. Individuals might visit a subreddit—specific discussion boards on Reddit—related to a particular hobby, professional field, or area of interest, such as a programming subreddit. In such a community, members share coding resources, discuss different programming languages, solve coding challenges together, and provide feedback on each other’s projects. They collectively engage in problem-solving and knowledge sharing, adhering to the common goal of improving their programming skills and understanding. The informal, collaborative environment of a subreddit allows for organic interactions and shared learning experiences, embodying the essence of a Community of Practice. Through engaging in discussions, sharing resources, and collectively addressing problems, members of this Reddit community are able to enhance their skills and knowledge in a more informal or organic manner, showcasing the less structured, more collaborative nature of Communities of Practice compared to the more formalized interactions often found in Discourse Communities.

Related Concepts:  Audience – Audience Analysis ; Discourse ; Thesis ;  Rhetorical Analysis ; Writing Styles

Why is the Concept of Discourse Communities Important to Writers?

• For example, a writer crafting a piece for a medical journal needs to understand the discourse community of medical professionals. This understanding would guide the use of specific medical terminologies and the level of complexity in the discussion.
• When a lawyer drafts a legal document, adhering to the legal discourse community’s conventions ensures that the document is clear, precise, and adheres to the accepted legal formats, making the communication effective.
• A new researcher looking to publish in a reputable scientific journal needs to adhere to the discourse conventions of the scientific community. This adherence not only aids in effective communication but also in building credibility among peers.
• A political writer aiming to persuade readers about a particular policy would need to understand the discourse community of the political arena, using accepted rhetorical strategies to engage and persuade readers effectively.
• A junior academic looking to advance in their career would need to publish in academic journals, adhering to the discourse conventions of the academic community, which is essential for professional growth and recognition.
• For instance, a business writer transitioning to writing about environmental issues might learn new discourse conventions, adapting their writing style to engage effectively with the environmental discourse community.
• Being an active member in a professional online forum, for example, allows writers to network with others in the same discourse community, opening doors for collaborative projects and knowledge sharing.

What are the Three Major Types of Discourse Communities?

John Swales (2017, n.p.) proposes there are three major types of discourse communities:

• “These are groupings of people who all work at the same place (as in a factory or a university department), or at the same occupation in the same area (all the bakers in a town). These DCs [Discourse Communities] have acquired many abbreviations and acronyms as well as some special words and phrases that are needed in order to get their jobs done more quickly and more efficiently—terminologies that are not used, nor even often understood, by the general public” (Swales 2017, n.p.)
• “Focal Communities . . . typically associations of some kind that reach across a region, a nation, and internationally. They may be informal groupings or more formal ones with rules, elections and paid memberships” (Swales 2017, n.p.). Examples: The Modern Language Association; The National Council of Teachers of English
• “Hybrid communities . . . have a double—and sometimes split—allegiance, as they are confronted by internal and external challenges and pressures.”

What are the six defining characteristics of a discourse community?

Swales theorizes that six characteristics guide community formation and evolution:

• Members of a discourse community have shared objectives or purposes.
• The community has one or more mechanisms for communicating among its members.
• There are mechanisms in place for members to provide feedback or information.
• Discourse communities use and recognize specific genres that are of relevance to their communication needs.
• Each discourse community has its own specific vocabulary or jargon.
• There are members with varying levels of expertise, from novices to experts.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991).  Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation . Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J. M. (1990).  Genre Analysis: English in academic and research settings . Cambridge University Press.

Brevity - Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence - How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity - Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style - The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Other Topics:

Citation - Definition - Introduction to Citation in Academic & Professional Writing

• Joseph M. Moxley

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Genre may reference a type of writing, art, or musical composition; socially-agreed upon expectations about how writers and speakers should respond to particular rhetorical situations; the cultural values; the epistemological assumptions...

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Information Literacy - Discerning Quality Information from Noise

Information Literacy refers to the competencies associated with locating, evaluating, using, and archiving information. In order to thrive, much less survive in a global information economy — an economy where information functions as a...

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Chapter 3: The Writing Process, Composing, and Revising

3.2 Knowing Your Audience

Melanie Gagich

What is Audience?

Knowing and addressing an audience is one of the components of the rhetorical situation (the author, the setting, the purpose, the text, and the audience). For more information about the rhetorical situation, see section 6.2

Although addressing an audience seems simple enough, it can be difficult for writers to ascertain exactly who they are writing to. This is exacerbated by the proliferation of writing assignments that ask students to “write to an academic audience.” Although not all audience members are academic, according to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), students in a writing classroom may write to “specific audiences designed into a writing assignment, their colleagues in a peer review exercise, [or] a teacher who provides final assessment.”  The NCTE also point out that “In a rhetorical context, the audience typically is a public one, whether real or imagined. In a composition context, the audience can be an audience of the self, an audience of an implied reader, and/or an audience of people the author knows.”

Think about the last time you wrote a paper; who were you writing to? It is likely that you assumed you were writing to the teacher, so you may have focused on writing “correctly” rather than exploring who you were really trying to address and how that should affect your style, language, tone, evidence, etc.

Now, think about the last time you posted on Facebook or crafted a Tweet. It is likely that you were hyperaware of your audience and how what you posted or shared might affect your audience. Knowing that you already have experience(s) with audience expectations when posting or creating social media texts should help you understand how important knowing your audience is when writing in the college composition classroom.

Types of Audience

Writing to an imagined audience.

When writing, especially in college classes, you might be asked to write an “imagined” audience, which can be difficult for any writer, but specifically for emerging writers. As stated by Melanie Gagich below:

Invoking an audience requires students to imagine and construct their audience, and can be difficult for emerging or even practiced writers.  Even when writing instructors do provide students with a specific audience within a writing assignment, it is probable that this “audience” will likely be conceptualized by the student as his or her teacher. This “writing to the teacher” frame of mind often results in students guessing how to address their audience, which hinders their ability to write academically.

Thinking of audience as someone or a group beyond the teacher will help you see various ways you can use language, evidence, style, etc. to support your message and to help you build credibility as the writer/creator.

Writing to a Real Audience

You may also be called upon to address a real and interactive audience. For instance, if your instructor asks you to write an entry for Wikipedia, create a multimodal text, or present your work to your peers; then, the audience is not imagined but concrete and able to “talk back.” Writing for real audience members can be difficult, especially online audiences, because “we can’t always know in advance who they are” (NCTE), yet writing to these audience members can also be a helpful experience because they can respond to your work and offer feedback that goes beyond a teacher’s evaluative responses. Composing in 21st century spaces makes interacting with, talking back to, and learning from audience members much easier.

Addressing an interactive audience also gives you the opportunity to embrace diversity through the act of sharing your work digitally and to explore what it means to be rhetorically aware. Being rhetorically aware means that you understand how the integration of various language(s), cultural references/experiences, linguistic text, images, sounds, documentation style, etc. can help you form a cohesive and logical message that is carefully shared with an interactive audience in an appropriate online space.

What are  Discourse Communities?

Knowing the type of audience you’re being asked to address is the first step to becoming aware of your audience. The second step is to determine whether the audience you’re addressing are members of a discourse community. According to NCTE, a discourse community is “a group of people, members of a community, who share a common interest and who use the same language, or discourse, as they talk and write about that interest.” Though you may not address a discourse community every time you write, when you are asked to address an academic audience you are addressing a discourse community .

Generally, everyone is a member of a discourse community. For example, members of movie trivia sites, video gamers, Cleveland Cavaliers fans, etc. are all examples of discourse community membership. Members can often distinguish each other based on their use (or misuse) of language, jargon, slang, symbols, media, clothing, and more. In academia, discourse communities are connected to academic disciplines. For instance, a literature professor’s interests may be very different from a social science professor’s. Differences will also be evident in their use of documentation styles, manuscript formatting, the language they use, and the journals they submit their work to.

You may wonder why it matters? Why not just write in MLA all the time and use the same word choices and tone every time you write? Well, it comes back to illustrating your credibility and awareness of the conventions and communication genres of a discourse community. NCTE explains that “When we write it is useful to think in terms of the discourse community we are participating in and whose members we are addressing: what do they assume, what kinds of questions do they ask, and what counts as evidence?”  You earn credibility when discussing a basketball team’s performance when you know all the names of the team member. In a different context, you also demonstrate credibility when you know to use APA rather than MLA in various academic contexts.

• For more information pertaining to audience please visit the NCTE “Audience” Poster or the Wikipedia “Audience” page.
• For more information pertaining to discourse communities please visit the NCTE “Discourse Community” Poster or Dan Melzer’s “Understanding Discourse Communities. “

A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing by Melanie Gagich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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1b. Discourse Communities

Overview + objectives.

Image Attribution: Saying hello in different languages by 1940162 Hari chandana C is licenced under a CC BY 4.0 licence , via Wikimedia Commons

The first major concept we discuss that will be the foundation of your reading and writing in Writing 121 is discourse community . Considering your discourse community can give your writing its audience, context, and purpose, which are crucial for motivating your writing. In this chapter, we will:

• Define discourse community
• Identify the various discourse communities of which you are a part
• Understand how a discourse community shapes your writing
• Consider ways to craft a unique voice within a discourse community
• Reflect on how knowledge of discourse community can improve your writing

What is a discourse community?

To define this concept, let’s break it down into its separate parts:  discourse  and  community . We’ll start with the simpler word,  community . A community is simply a group of people who are joined together by something they have in common. It could be a shared interest, such as a gaming community, a set of beliefs, such as a religious community, a similar geographical location, such as a local community, or a profession, such as the academic community. A family is a type of community. Your friends also form a community. Take a moment and think of the various communities to which you belong. What binds individuals together in these communities? Do members of these communities engage with each other virtually or in real life?

Next let’s look at the other word in this term,  discourse . The word in its original usage meant reasoned argument or thought. However, in contemporary usage we sometimes think of it generally as any written or spoken communication, a conversation. We more often use it to refer to written or spoken communication related to a particular intellectual or social activity, such as scientific discourse or political discourse. In this sense, a synonym for discourse might be  language . A discourse is defined by its unique language, vocabulary, themes, ideas, values, and beliefs. Think about your major. What are the unique characteristics of the discourse in your disciplinary or professional field?

Now let’s put our two words together,  discourse community . Any guesses on what it means? If you are thinking that it is a group of people—real, imaginary, virtual, or otherwise—with shared interests, goals, language, and ways of communicating, then, yes, you’ve got it!

Image Attribution: Your WR 121 discourse community Discussion icons created by Freepik – Flaticon .

What does a discourse community look like?

Let’s work through a few examples. The following are five lists of words. Do you recognize any of the groups of words and what they have in common?

• CPA, general ledger, liabilities, return on investment, owner’s equity, net income, expenses (fixed, variable, accrued, operation)
• ISO, aperture, depth of field, autofocus, exposure, shutter speed
• gracias, de nada, salud, buen provecho, estadounidense, te quiero
• iron throne, direwolf, Khaleesi, the Wall, Valyrian steel, Night Walkers
• once a Duck always a Duck, show your “O,” Carson, EMU, it never rains in Autzen Stadium, Arts and Letters, Social Science, and Science groups

If you are a business major and have taken an accounting class, you’ve likely learned about the set of words in #1. If you are a photographer, you probably know the terminology in #2. If you speak Spanish, then you understand the words in #3. If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, then you recognize the words in #4. And if you are a UO student, then the words in #5 should seem familiar to you. Sco Ducks!

So you can see that discourse, or language, is one way that a community is bound together. It shapes it, strengthens it, and even defines it. The members of the community generally agree on what the terms mean; however, that is not always the case, as we will explore later in the course.

But what if you didn’t know a group of words? Let’s say you are in a conversation with a group of people using the technical terms in #2, but your only camera is your iPhone. Or perhaps you are reading an article that is in Spanish, but you don’t know that language. How would you feel? You would probably feel confused, frustrated, and excluded.

Because language and modes of communication differ among various groups, a discourse community can exclude others as much as it brings people together. Think about one of the communities to which you belong. What is the discourse of that group? What is the shared language and terminology? What are the primary ways of communicating between members of the community? How do members communicate their ideas or activities with those outside of the community?

What is a discourse community to which you belong and. . .

• What are the unique characteristics of communicating within this community?
• How has it shaped the way you think and write?
• Is it possible to assert your unique voice within that community? How so or why not?

Images (above, from left to right):

• Balance sheet:  RODNAE Productions from  Pexels  
• Photography:  Pxhere  
• Dany: Creative Commons
• Puddles the Duck by Brian licensed under a CC BY SA 4.0 license via  Wikimedia Commons

How does the discourse community shape your writing?

Image Attribution: Workshop by fauxels via Pexe l.

In his book on academic writing,  The Shape of Reason , John Gage defines a  discourse community  as “any kind of community in which the members attempt to achieve cooperation and assert their individuality through the use of language. We are all members of discourse communities, each of which uses language in different ways” (2).

What keywords can you pull out of this definition? I identify the following keywords:  cooperation ,  individuality , and  language . A community generally assumes members who  cooperate  with each other. The group has a common goal or set of goals and its members want to work or live together to achieve those goals. They use  a common language and mode of communication  to maintain and strengthen the community. For an individual to thrive within this community, understanding and being able to use that common language and mode of communication are essential. When we as individuals have thoughts, ideas, or actions we would like to share with others in the community, we want to convey those thoughts, ideas, or actions in a way that others can understand and engage with them. No one likes to feel misunderstood. In this way, a discourse community influences how we communicate our  individuality  to the group.

We can illustrate how discourse community shapes your writing with a few examples. It is probably easy and fun for you to write and send texts to your friends. What kind of language do you use when texting? If your friend’s primary language is English, then you’ll probably use English in your texts. You’ll probably also use textspeak abbreviations like “lol” and “idk.” You might even use some visual language, such as emoji or gifs. If your friend does not speak English, does not know what the abbreviations stand for, or is unfamiliar with emoji, then they will not understand your message. Now, let’s say you are sending an email to your professor. Would you use the same discourse that you use when texting your friend? Probably not. In other words: an awareness of discourse community probably already shapes how you communicate your ideas.

This is all well and good when you feel confident about your membership in a community. But what about when you are new to a community? How do you learn that community’s discourse? Or what if you struggle to feel like you truly belong in a community? How do these things affect how you communicate and interact with the group? As you become more familiar with a community’s discourse, your written communication with the group will also improve. However, do you think it is possible to assert  your unique voice and identity  within the limits of a community’s discourse?

Let’s consider the university as a discourse community. The university comprises intellectuals (including you!) in various academic disciplines. Each academic discipline has its own discourse, but for the most part all academic disciplines communicate and share knowledge, as well as debate theories and ideas, through discussion and writing. What characterizes  academic discourse ? What is  academic writing ? Who gets to speak and write in this community?

Once you have read the sections on discourse community and thought about the various communities of which you are a part and the discourses used in these communities, you’re ready to get to know your WR 121 discourse community. What can you learn about your peers and instructor? What languages do they speak? What common goals do you all share? Do you agree on what effective writing looks like? What support will you offer each other as you work on your writing this term?

Acknowledgment:

Gage, John.  The Shape of Reason , 4th Edition. New York: Pearson, 2006: 2.

Writing as Inquiry Copyright © 2021 by Kara Clevinger and Stephen Rust is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Discourse Community Knowledge

Learning Objectives

  In How Writing Works , you were introduced to the concept of discourse communities, groups of people who come together with common goals and purposes, and share a specialized discourse, or ways of communicating. You may have even written a discourse community analysis, studying a specific discourse community to understand how its members communicate with other members, or perhaps with those outside the discourse community. Thinking Rhetorically: Writing for Professional and Public Audiences aims to deepen your understanding of how discourse communities operate, looking not only at the idea of community-specific discourse, but also at how different kinds of discourse communities engage in research, select evidence, and document sources.

Understanding some of the discourse community theories and concepts presented here will be especially important as you write in new contexts beyond the classroom. You will learn how to apply your knowledge of academic discourse communities to writing for audiences from professional and public discourse communities. The chapters that follow will help you adapt research practices for finding and evaluating different kinds of sources, integrating those sources into your own writing, and citing or attributing those sources according to the standards and expectations of different discourse communities. As you know, meeting the expectations of the discourse community to which you are writing—whether or not you are yourself a member of the discourse community—is essential to achieving your goals for a given project or text.

The chapters in this section provide new perspectives on discourse community knowledge:

“ Discourse and Discourse Community ” explains the concepts of discourse and discourse communities to show how discourse is shaped within a community. It provides an overview of how discourse communities coalesce around shared goals and a common language, or discourse. It also highlights the sometimes adversarial nature of the communicative style embraced by discourse communities and demonstrates the potential conflict that might arise through one’s membership in multiple professional and public discourse communities.

“Linguistic Diversity, Linguistic Justice” critiques the notion of a “standard English,” offering instead a more comprehensive understanding of the benefits of linguistic diversity. Understanding languages as living things that change over time, and that such changes contribute to the diversity, abundance, and overall health and life-sustaining capabilities of dynamic cultures is vital to writing for academic, professional and public audiences.

“ Research and Finding Credible Sources ” shows you how moving through the inquiry and research processes involves a range of methods from primary to secondary research, library databases, and digital search engines. The choice of method is determined by the problem you are interrogating, as well as your purpose and intended audience. In college, research for academic writing is typically understood as searching for “new” information.  In professional and public  contexts, however, research is understood differently: as a rhetorical strategy, to support what is already known or believed, and to do so in ways rhetorically acceptable to a given discourse community. To be persuasive, lawyers, for example, will research and cite earlier cases, not to find new information but to find “old” information, that is, cases where courts have already decided in agreement with the lawyer’s argument.  This is accepted as persuasive because one convention of this discourse community is that judges must rely on precedent. This essay will help you think about locating and evaluating evidence, expanding your understanding of what it means to say a given piece of evidence is “credible” within a given discourse community.

“ Citations and Attributions ” highlights the process of citing sources not just to avoid charges of plagiarism, but also to ethically and responsively engage others’ words, images, and ideas. The chapter emphasizes understanding citation practices as guidelines rather than rules: guidelines that evolve over time, in accordance with new technologies and discourse communities’ changing needs. Additionally, this essay emphasizes the similarities and differences between citation and attribution, as they are variously used by writers integrating multimodal sources in writing for academic, professional, or public audiences.

Thinking Rhetorically: Writing for Professional and Public Audiences Copyright © 2020 by Roger Williams University Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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ENG 120: Visual Rhetorical Analysis and Ethnography Research

About this guide, essay #2: visual cultural rhetorical analysis, essay #3: digital observations and ethnography.

• Visual Cultural Rhetorical Analysis
• Ethnography & Secondary Research
• Citing Your Sources

Welcome to the English 120 Course Research Guide!

The purpose of this guide is to provide information and resources for navigating the assignments in the ENG 120 course at the Pleasantville Campus : Essay #2:  Visual Cultural Rhetorical Analysis  and Essay #3: Digital Observations and Writing the Ethnography . Descriptions of the assignments are below.

In the Rhetorical Analysis of a Cultural Artifact assignment, each student will look back at their select discourse community and conduct a rhetorical analysis of a cultural artifact relevant to that group, organization, or association. A cultural artifact is defined as any object made, modified, or used by people.

Some examples of cultural artifacts are:

• sports jersey
• toys/action figures
• gaming mouse

In conducting this work, students will again engage with their community in order to determine values but also function as tools that shape how students see and understand themselves, how they interact and engage with communities, and why they have elected to build relationships with specific groups of people.

Research Goals:

• Select a discourse community with which you are a member or interact.
• Select a cultural artifact relevant to discourse community.
• Review the artifact through three distinct lenses: culturally, visually, and symbolically.

In the Digital Observations and Writing the Ethnography assignment, students are asked not only to write about their community but to also interact with and critically observe it. This assignment serves as an introduction to qualitative research and is designed to help students effectively integrate primary and secondary research into their writing. Through this work, students will learn to trust themselves as thinkers, writers and not researchers. Rather than defer to what has already been said on a topic, students will explore in order to understand research as extending from their interests and the world around new rather than perpetuating the misguided position that research is a passive act.

• Select a professor-approved cultural community to observe in digital spaces.
• Conduct various site visits focused on observations of behavior.
• Complete field notes focused on identifying behavior patterns, with clear use of evidence (observations), and analysis.
• Organize your essay with a nuanced thesis, subtopics incorporating observational evidence, and secondary sources in conversation with your claims.
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12 Dan Melzer’s “Understanding Discourse Communities”

Writing Spaces Volume 3

When you complete a writing assignment, deciphering the goals and expectations of that assignment is one the most important and difficult steps in that writing process. One way to better understand what an assignment, a class, or even a job is asking from is to examine the assignment in the context of its “discourse community.” In this chapter, Dan Melzer not only describes what a discourse community is but also how understanding that concept can aid us as writers and beyond.

“You can write in a journal alone in your room, just like you can play guitar for yourself along in your room . But most writers, like musicians, learn their craft from studying experts and becoming part of a community. And most writers, like most musicians, want to be a part of community and communicate with other people who share their goals and interests. ”

MLA Citation Examples

Works Cited

Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 3 , edited by Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vetter, Parlor Press, 2020, pp. 100-115.

In-text citation

“You can write in a journal alone in your room, just like you can play guitar just for yourself alone in your room. But most writers, like most musicians, learn their craft from studying experts and becoming part of a community. And most writers, like most musicians, want to be a part of community and communicate with other people who share their goals and interests” (102).

APA Citation Examples

Melzer, D. (2020). Understanding discourse communities. In Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vetter (Eds.), Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 3 (pp. 100-115). New York: Parlor Press.

“You can write in a journal alone in your room, just like you can play guitar just for yourself alone in your room. But most writers, like most musicians, learn their craft from studying experts and becoming part of a community. And most writers, like most musicians, want to be a part of community and communicate with other people who share their goals and interests” (p. 102).

Chicago Citation Examples

Bibliography

Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities,” in Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing Volume 3 , ed. Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vetter, (New York: Parlor Press, 2020), 100-115.

“You can write in a journal alone in your room, just like you can play guitar just for yourself alone in your room. But most writers, like most musicians, learn their craft from studying experts and becoming part of a community. And most writers, like most musicians, want to be a part of community and communicate with other people who share their goals and interests” (Melzer, 2020, 102).

About the Author

name: Writing Spaces Volume 3

institution: Parlor Press and WAC Clearinghouse

website: https://writingspaces.org/

Released in 2020, the third issue of Writing Spaces was edited by Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vetter. In addition to the Writing Spaces Website, volume 3 can be accessed through WAC Clearinghouse, as well as Parlor Press.

From  Parlor Press

Volume 3 continues the tradition of previous volumes with topics such as voice and style in writing, rhetorical appeals, discourse communities, multimodal composing, visual rhetoric, credibility, exigency, working with personal experience in academic writing, globalized writing and rhetoric, constructing scholarly ethos, imitation and style, and rhetorical punctuation.

From  WAC Clearinghouse

Dana Driscoll is Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania , where she teaches in the Composition and Applied Linguistics graduate program and directs the Jones White Writing Center. Her scholarly interests include composition pedagogy, writing centers, writing transfer and writerly development, research methodologies, writing across the curriculum, and assessment.

Mary Stewart is Assistant Professor and the Assessment Coordinator for the English Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania . Her research, which is primarily qualitative, focuses on collaborative and interactive learning, blended and online writing instruction, composition pedagogy, and teaching with technology.

Matthew Vetter is Assistant Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and affiliate faculty in the Composition and Applied Linguistics Doctoral Program. A scholar in writing, rhetoric, and digital humanities, his research explores how technologies shape writing and writing pedagogy.

Writing Spaces at Oklahoma State University Copyright © 2023 by Writing Spaces Volume 3 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Nathan Alford

Discourse Community Analysis – Rough Draft

Engineering a Discourse Community

In the large and complex world of discourse communities, one community in particular stands out as the most interesting and vital to the world in a variety of ways: the discourse community of Engineering and Technology.  Many schools, including the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (a.k.a. Virginia Tech) located in Blacksburg, Virginia, play huge roles in this community by preparing a new generation of members year after year.  In Virginia Tech’s department of Mechanical Engineering website, participants assert their membership in the discourse community of engineering and technology through its two major roles as an institution of higher learning: recruiting prospective students and training and beginning the transition from novices to experts in their field so that they may later serve as members of the discourse community.  The VT Dept. of Mechanical Engineering exists to further the knowledge of students at the undergraduate level and prepare these students for either graduate school or a career as an engineer in the private sector.

The Mission Statement of the Virginia Tech Department of Engineering program states: “The Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Department serves its students, alumni, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the nation through a variety of academic research and service activities.” (Virginia Tech).  The key word here is “service.”  A common theme in the discourse community of engineering and technology is to design and develop projects that are beneficial to the general public, not just the community itself.  These projects may include developing cheaper clean energy resources, designing safer automobiles, standardizing the safety measures of public transportation, waste reduction and management, and environmental protection.  As previously stated, strong infrastructure is the backbone of any stable society.  Considering its explosive population, America’s infrastructure becomes more and more obsolete every single day – thus exists the need for revolutionary new engineering projects and systems to keep daily life running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  With its involvement in numerous research organizations including the Center for Vehicle Systems and Safety (CVeSS), the Center for Energy Systems Research, the Center for Injury Biomechanics and the Railway Technologies Laboratory – just to name a few – the VT Department of Mechanical Engineering clearly keeps public service projects as one of its first priorities. (Virginia Tech).

The secrets of science, technology and engineering are not confined to one single nationality, research organization, or college.  Engineering is a global effort; sometimes different organizations need to communicate from thousands of miles away (and sometimes from outside of the planet!) just to complete a simple task.  This collaboration requires instant communication; thus making the most valuable resource to this discourse community the internet.  It is almost a requirement for any engineering organization – big or small – to have an up-to-date, well-maintained website complete with links to various collaborative organizations, news on current research projects and events, and contact information.  All of these can be found on the VT Department of Mechanical Engineering’s website, thus ensuring that the department keeps its members and associates “in the loop” with the rapidly changing characteristics of the engineering world. (Virginia Tech).  Their website also contains links to various social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so that it provides a method of feedback for both members and nonmembers. (Virginia Tech).  This not only keeps readers informed to the activities of VPI, but also allows them to engage and ask questions.  This is especially important for admissions applicants, as they may one day become the experts who are leading this essential discourse community.

Just as important as communication methods are the genres that the discourse community uses. (Swales 221-222).  Given the role engineers play in real-world applications, it is no surprise that the VT Department of Mechanical Engineering makes extensive use of the nonfiction genre.  Information on the direction of their programs, guest speakers, upcoming events, and collaborative research projects are true events and fit perfectly into this genre.  The department also makes use of diagrams and pictures, especially when discussing their nuclear program. (Virginia Tech).

One stereotype of the engineering community is the use of highly technical – and sometime unpronounceable – language.  A specific use of language, or “lexis,” is very important in a discourse community.  Swales’ fifth criteria for identifying a discourse community is its use of a specific lexis or word choice that most outsiders will not understand. (Swales 222).  More specifically, “This specialization may involve using lexical items known to the wider speech communities in special and technical ways, as in information technology discourse communities, or using highly technical terminology as in medical communities.” (Swales 222).  Some of the highly technical terminology included in the VT Department of Mechanical Engineering’s website include “Nanoelectromechanical systems” and “Subsonic Civil Transport Aircraft.” (Virginia Tech).  These terms are obviously not in the vocabulary of the general population, and the use of them among outsiders of the discourse community will leave most scratching their heads.  Swales also notes the necessity of the use of abbreviations in discourse communities: “The use of these…is, of course, driven by the requirements for efficient communication exchange between experts.” (Swales 222).  Abbreviations are commonplace in the discourse community of engineering and technology, especially used as a form of shorthand to identify groups and organizations that are members.  Some of Virginia Tech’s more prevalent abbreviations are “CVeSS,” which is shorthand for “The Center for Vehicle Systems and Safety;” and “CREATE,” which is used to identify the “Capstone Realization of Engineering and Technology.” (Virginia Tech).  Both of these are organizations that an ordinary person would not be able to identify without any background knowledge, but nonetheless are critically important to the general public.

The final requirement to become a member of a discourse community is to have and maintain a threshold level of membership. (Swales 222).  This level must allow an acceptable ratio of novices to experts to exist. (Swales 222).  Virginia Tech’s student-teacher ratio is large compared to other organizations involved with the discourse community, but this is acceptable because universities typically have a large student body and a comparatively small faculty.  VT maintains this ratio through its natural progression of matriculation and graduation; students enter, and for most, have graduated within four years, thus allowing room for the next incoming class.  This keeps a relatively stable number of students within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at VPI, and ensures that a constant number of new engineers are supplied to the discourse community.

Using John Swales’ concepts of what makes up a discourse community, there is no doubt that the Virginia Tech Department of Mechanical Engineering is a part of the extremely complex discourse community of engineering and technology.  VPI fills an essential role of the discourse community: producing engineers that are educated on the recent advances in science, technology, and engineering.  It is apparent through this analysis of its goals, methods, and programs that this discourse community in particular is one that has and will continue to greatly benefit the United States and the world.

Works Cited

Swales, John.  “The Concept of Discourse Community.”  Writing About Writing, Second Edition, Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.

Virginia Tech College of Engineering: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2016.  http://www.me.vt.edu/ .  Accessed 8 September 2016.

Help Received:

9/19/16 – Gwyn Parson helped with brainstorming ideas of what this website can tell me about this discourse community

9/23/16 – counseling with Maj. Garriot; we discussed ensuring my thesis answered all parts of the prompt

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• How to write a rhetorical analysis | Key concepts & examples

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis | Key Concepts & Examples

Published on August 28, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A rhetorical analysis is a type of essay  that looks at a text in terms of rhetoric. This means it is less concerned with what the author is saying than with how they say it: their goals, techniques, and appeals to the audience.

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Table of contents

Key concepts in rhetoric, analyzing the text, introducing your rhetorical analysis, the body: doing the analysis, concluding a rhetorical analysis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about rhetorical analysis.

Rhetoric, the art of effective speaking and writing, is a subject that trains you to look at texts, arguments and speeches in terms of how they are designed to persuade the audience. This section introduces a few of the key concepts of this field.

Appeals: Logos, ethos, pathos

Appeals are how the author convinces their audience. Three central appeals are discussed in rhetoric, established by the philosopher Aristotle and sometimes called the rhetorical triangle: logos, ethos, and pathos.

Logos , or the logical appeal, refers to the use of reasoned argument to persuade. This is the dominant approach in academic writing , where arguments are built up using reasoning and evidence.

Ethos , or the ethical appeal, involves the author presenting themselves as an authority on their subject. For example, someone making a moral argument might highlight their own morally admirable behavior; someone speaking about a technical subject might present themselves as an expert by mentioning their qualifications.

Pathos , or the pathetic appeal, evokes the audience’s emotions. This might involve speaking in a passionate way, employing vivid imagery, or trying to provoke anger, sympathy, or any other emotional response in the audience.

These three appeals are all treated as integral parts of rhetoric, and a given author may combine all three of them to convince their audience.

Text and context

In rhetoric, a text is not necessarily a piece of writing (though it may be this). A text is whatever piece of communication you are analyzing. This could be, for example, a speech, an advertisement, or a satirical image.

In these cases, your analysis would focus on more than just language—you might look at visual or sonic elements of the text too.

The context is everything surrounding the text: Who is the author (or speaker, designer, etc.)? Who is their (intended or actual) audience? When and where was the text produced, and for what purpose?

Looking at the context can help to inform your rhetorical analysis. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech has universal power, but the context of the civil rights movement is an important part of understanding why.

Claims, supports, and warrants

A piece of rhetoric is always making some sort of argument, whether it’s a very clearly defined and logical one (e.g. in a philosophy essay) or one that the reader has to infer (e.g. in a satirical article). These arguments are built up with claims, supports, and warrants.

A claim is the fact or idea the author wants to convince the reader of. An argument might center on a single claim, or be built up out of many. Claims are usually explicitly stated, but they may also just be implied in some kinds of text.

The author uses supports to back up each claim they make. These might range from hard evidence to emotional appeals—anything that is used to convince the reader to accept a claim.

The warrant is the logic or assumption that connects a support with a claim. Outside of quite formal argumentation, the warrant is often unstated—the author assumes their audience will understand the connection without it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still explore the implicit warrant in these cases.

For example, look at the following statement:

We can see a claim and a support here, but the warrant is implicit. Here, the warrant is the assumption that more likeable candidates would have inspired greater turnout. We might be more or less convinced by the argument depending on whether we think this is a fair assumption.

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Rhetorical analysis isn’t a matter of choosing concepts in advance and applying them to a text. Instead, it starts with looking at the text in detail and asking the appropriate questions about how it works:

• What is the author’s purpose?
• Do they focus closely on their key claims, or do they discuss various topics?
• What tone do they take—angry or sympathetic? Personal or authoritative? Formal or informal?
• Who seems to be the intended audience? Is this audience likely to be successfully reached and convinced?
• What kinds of evidence are presented?

By asking these questions, you’ll discover the various rhetorical devices the text uses. Don’t feel that you have to cram in every rhetorical term you know—focus on those that are most important to the text.

The following sections show how to write the different parts of a rhetorical analysis.

Like all essays, a rhetorical analysis begins with an introduction . The introduction tells readers what text you’ll be discussing, provides relevant background information, and presents your thesis statement .

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how an introduction works.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is widely regarded as one of the most important pieces of oratory in American history. Delivered in 1963 to thousands of civil rights activists outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech has come to symbolize the spirit of the civil rights movement and even to function as a major part of the American national myth. This rhetorical analysis argues that King’s assumption of the prophetic voice, amplified by the historic size of his audience, creates a powerful sense of ethos that has retained its inspirational power over the years.

The body of your rhetorical analysis is where you’ll tackle the text directly. It’s often divided into three paragraphs, although it may be more in a longer essay.

Each paragraph should focus on a different element of the text, and they should all contribute to your overall argument for your thesis statement.

Hover over the example to explore how a typical body paragraph is constructed.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

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The conclusion of a rhetorical analysis wraps up the essay by restating the main argument and showing how it has been developed by your analysis. It may also try to link the text, and your analysis of it, with broader concerns.

Explore the example below to get a sense of the conclusion.

It is clear from this analysis that the effectiveness of King’s rhetoric stems less from the pathetic appeal of his utopian “dream” than it does from the ethos he carefully constructs to give force to his statements. By framing contemporary upheavals as part of a prophecy whose fulfillment will result in the better future he imagines, King ensures not only the effectiveness of his words in the moment but their continuing resonance today. Even if we have not yet achieved King’s dream, we cannot deny the role his words played in setting us on the path toward it.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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The goal of a rhetorical analysis is to explain the effect a piece of writing or oratory has on its audience, how successful it is, and the devices and appeals it uses to achieve its goals.

Unlike a standard argumentative essay , it’s less about taking a position on the arguments presented, and more about exploring how they are constructed.

The term “text” in a rhetorical analysis essay refers to whatever object you’re analyzing. It’s frequently a piece of writing or a speech, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you could also treat an advertisement or political cartoon as a text.

Logos appeals to the audience’s reason, building up logical arguments . Ethos appeals to the speaker’s status or authority, making the audience more likely to trust them. Pathos appeals to the emotions, trying to make the audience feel angry or sympathetic, for example.

Collectively, these three appeals are sometimes called the rhetorical triangle . They are central to rhetorical analysis , though a piece of rhetoric might not necessarily use all of them.

In rhetorical analysis , a claim is something the author wants the audience to believe. A support is the evidence or appeal they use to convince the reader to believe the claim. A warrant is the (often implicit) assumption that links the support with the claim.

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“Intertextuality and the Discourse Community” Analysis Essay

In his article, Porter suggests an overview of intertextuality in connection with the discourse community (34). The scholar remarks that there is one perspective provided by intertextuality to the rhetoric that has been underestimated for a long time. He notes that composition pedagogies are wrong when they view the writer as a “free, uninhibited spirit” and “creative genius” (Porter 34). Thus, the scholar explains the importance of the interconnection between intertextuality and the discourse community.

As Porter mentions, such scholars as Foucault, Kristeva, Riffaterre, Barthes, and others relate intertextuality both to structuralism and poststructuralism (35). The core argument made by these critics is that text is not an autonomous object but a collection of connections with other texts (Porter 35). Porter remarks that these scholars are interested not in text as the autonomous entity but in the “unaccountable collections” (35). Porter identifies two types of intertextuality: presupposition and iterability (35). Presupposition involves the assumptions made by in-text about its referent. Iterability is defined as the “repeatability” of particular fragments of the text (Porter 35). Porter relates such phenomena to the ability of discourse to contain pieces of other texts which help to establish its meaning (35).

To illustrate his opinion of the intertext, Porter analyzes three sample texts: the Declaration of Independence, a Pepsi commercial, and a headline article from The New York Times (36-38). The author remarks that each of these texts incorporates images or phrases common to its audience. Another feature of the texts is that they presume some points of view from the reader. Thus, Porter concludes that the intertext utilizes its impact partially in the representation of readers’ attitudes (38).

When defining discourse community, Porter mentions that it is a group of people connected by a common interest who interact through approved routes and whose discourse is being supervised (38-39). A person may be a part of several public, professional, or personal discourse communities. The approved routes are “forums” (Porter 39). Each of these forums has a specific history and sets the requirements that should be adhered to by its members. A discourse community may share opinions on what objects are suitable for the analysis and discussion, what roles are played by these objects, and what creates validity and evidence (Porter 39). Also, it is noted that a discourse community may have a well-grounded ethos. Some communities are well-established, such as the justice system or the scientific community. To be able to talk in these groups, one has to be well-educated and aware of the community’s peculiarities.

In his analysis of the pedagogy of intertextuality, Porter remarks that this concept is related to Eliot’s definition of tradition (41). Intertextuality is regarded as a crucial notion and constitutes a “prevailing composition pedagogy” that favors the writers’ romantic image and suggests creative essayists as role models (Porter 41). The author notes that although such a romantic image may satisfy one’s need for “intellectual heroes,” it may have an anti-rhetorical view in its basis (Porter 41). This view argues that writers are not made but born and that writing is “individual, isolated, and internal” (Porter 41). Porter mentions that the best way to understand the community is to perform a critical reading of its discourse (43). Porter suggests significant opinions on intertextuality and discourse community employing a variety of examples to illustrate his views.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review , vol. 5, no. 1, 1986, pp. 34-47.

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IvyPanda. (2021, May 29). "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/intertextuality-and-the-discourse-community-analysis/

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Rhetorical Analysis Sample Essay

Harriet Clark

Ms. Rebecca Winter

13 Feb. 2015

Not Quite a Clean Sweep: Rhetorical Strategies in

Grose's "Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier”

A woman’s work is never done: many American women grow up with this saying and feel it to be true. 1 One such woman, author Jessica Grose, wrote “Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier,” published in 2013 in the New Republic, 2 and she argues that while the men recently started taking on more of the childcare and cooking, cleaning still falls unfairly on women. 3 Grose begins building her credibility with personal facts and reputable sources, citing convincing facts and statistics, and successfully employing emotional appeals; however, toward the end of the article, her attempts to appeal to readers’ emotions weaken her credibility and ultimately, her argument. 4

In her article, Grose first sets the stage by describing a specific scenario of house-cleaning with her husband after being shut in during Hurricane Sandy, and then she outlines the uneven distribution of cleaning work in her marriage and draws a comparison to the larger feminist issue of who does the cleaning in a relationship. Grose continues by discussing some of the reasons that men do not contribute to cleaning: the praise for a clean house goes to the woman; advertising and media praise men’s cooking and childcare, but not cleaning; and lastly, it is just not fun. Possible solutions to the problem, Grose suggests, include making a chart of who does which chores, dividing up tasks based on skill and ability, accepting a dirtier home, and making cleaning more fun with gadgets. 5

Throughout her piece, Grose uses many strong sources that strengthen her credibility and appeal to ethos, as well as build her argument. 6 These sources include, “sociologists Judith Treas and Tsui-o Tai,” “a 2008 study from the University of New Hampshire,” and “P&G North America Fabric Care Brand Manager, Matthew Krehbiel” (qtd. in Grose). 7 Citing these sources boosts Grose’s credibility by showing that she has done her homework and has provided facts and statistics, as well as expert opinions to support her claim. She also uses personal examples from her own home life to introduce and support the issue, which shows that she has a personal stake in and first-hand experience with the problem. 8

Adding to her ethos appeals, Grose uses strong appeals to logos, with many facts and statistics and logical progressions of ideas. 9 She points out facts about her marriage and the distribution of household chores: “My husband and I both work. We split midnight baby feedings ...but ... he will admit that he’s never cleaned the bathroom, that I do the dishes nine times out of ten, and that he barely knows how the washer and dryer work in the apartment we’ve lived in for over eight months.” 10 These facts introduce and support the idea that Grose does more household chores than her husband. Grose continues with many statistics:

[A]bout 55 percent of American mothers employed full time do some housework on an average day, while only 18 percent of employed fathers do. ... [W]orking women with children are still doing a week and a half more of “second shift” work each year than their male partners. ... Even in the famously gender-neutral Sweden, women do 45 minutes more housework a day than their male partners. 11

These statistics are a few of many that logically support her claim that it is a substantial and real problem that men do not do their fair share of the chores. The details and numbers build an appeal to logos and impress upon the reader that this is a problem worth discussing. 12

Along with strong logos appeals, Grose effectively makes appeals to pathos in the beginning and middle sections. 13 Her introduction is full of emotionally-charged words and phrases that create a sympathetic image; Grose notes that she “was eight months pregnant” and her husband found it difficult to “fight with a massively pregnant person.” 14 The image she evokes of the challenges and vulnerabilities of being so pregnant, as well as the high emotions a woman feels at that time effectively introduce the argument and its seriousness. Her goal is to make the reader feel sympathy for her. Adding to this idea are words and phrases such as, “insisted,” “argued,” “not fun,” “sucks” “headachey,” “be judged,” “be shunned” (Grose). All of these words evoke negative emotions about cleaning, which makes the reader sympathize with women who feel “judged” and shunned”—very negative feelings. Another feeling Grose reinforces with her word choice is the concept of fairness: “fair share,” “a week and a half more of ‘second shift’ work,” “more housework,” “more gendered and less frequent.” These words help establish the unfairness that exists when women do all of the cleaning, and they are an appeal to pathos, or the readers’ feelings of frustration and anger with injustice. 15

However, the end of the article lacks the same level of effectiveness in the appeals to ethos. 16 For example, Grose notes that when men do housework, they are considered to be “’enacting “small instances of gender heroism,” or ‘SIGH’s’—which, barf.” 17 The usage of the word “barf” is jarring to the reader; unprofessional and immature, it is a shift from the researched, intelligent voice she has established and the reader is less likely to take the author seriously. This damages the strength of her credibility and her argument. 18

Additionally, her last statement in the article refers to her husband in a way that weakens the argument. 19 While returning to the introduction’s hook in the conclusion is a frequently-used strategy, Grose chooses to return to her discussion of her husband in a humorous way: Grose discusses solutions, and says there is “a huge, untapped market ... for toilet-scrubbing iPods. I bet my husband would buy one.” 20 Returning to her own marriage and husband is an appeal to ethos or personal credibility, and while that works well in the introduction, in the conclusion, it lacks the strength and seriousness that the topic deserves and was given earlier in the article. 21

Though Grose begins the essay by effectively persuading her readers of the unfair distribution of home-maintenance cleaning labor, she loses her power in the end, where she most needs to drive home her argument. Readers can see the problem exists in both her marriage and throughout the world; however, her shift to humor and sarcasm makes the reader not take the problem as seriously in the end. 22 Grose could have more seriously driven home the point that a woman’s work could be done: by a man. 23

Works Cited

Grose, Jessica. “Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier.” New Republic. The New Republic, 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

• Article author's claim or purpose
• Summary of the article's main point in the second paragraph (could also be in the introduction)
• Third paragraph begins with a transition and topic sentence that reflects the first topic in the thesis
• Quotes illustrate how the author uses appeals to ethos
• Analysis explains how the quotes show the effective use of ethos as noted in the thesis
• Transition and topic sentence about the second point from the thesis
• Quote that illustrates appeals to logos
• Analysis explains how the quotes show the effective use of logos, as noted in the thesis
• Transition and topic sentence about the third point from the thesis
• Quotes that illustrate appeals to pathos
• Analysis explains how the quotes show the effective use of pathos, as noted in the thesis
• Transition and topic sentence about fourth point from the thesis
• Quote illustrates how the author uses appeal to ethos
• Analysis explains how quote supports thesis
• Transition and topic sentence about fourth point from thesis
• Conclusion returns to the ideas in the thesis and further develops them
• Last sentence returns to the hook in the introduction

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For me, the logos, pathos and ethos perspective of joining a discourse community I had been part of, taught me a lesson about interpersonal skills, organizational systems and professionalism. My aim of this paper is to share my experience of joining Chitwan Pharmacy Student Association (CPSA) via use of rhetorical skills that we have discussed in class of English 1301.

Rhetorical Analysis: Why Content Isn T King

I start this rhetorical analyses asking a simple question, is creative content everything? Netflix (on-demand internet streaming media service), an innovative service that allows people to watch movies, TV shows and cartoons in your TV at home or in your smartphone while you are in a bus or train for example, can quickly answer this question with a no. The article that bring these concerns and here in analysis is “Why Content Isn 't King: How Netflix became America 's biggest video service” written by Jonathan A. Knee. Addressing this issue the author brings up details on a topic that has affected directly good part of the population. My objective in this analysis is determine if the article influence and captive the attention of the

Individuality Vs Conformity The Healthy Middle Rhetorical Analysis

The persuasive yet informational article “Individuality vs. Conformity: The Healthy Middle?” explains, discusses, that people want to fit in and stand out. The writer supports her explanation by emphasizing that we all long to be different, however not to the point where we stand out too much. The writer’s purpose is to call attention to the issues of group conformity in order to bring light to what teenagers of modern day times go through. The author writes in an emotional style for young adults and others interested in the topic of conformity and individuality. Of Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals, the author of “Conformity vs. Individuality: A Healthy Middle?” uses pathos most effectively to get the reader to emotionally connect with

Rhetorical Analysis Of Individuality Vs Conformity

Of Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals,the author of ”Individuality vs conformity” uses pathos most effectively to get the reader to relate to her argument. the informational essay “Individuality vs Conformity” focuses on that fact that there is a healthy middle between individuality and conformity .The writer supports their focus by demonstrating that even though “we embrace this warm feeling of acceptance” humans have “This feeling is our need for individuality“ .The author’s purpose is to point out that there is a healthy middle between individuality and conformity in order to do that the author says “but that doesn’t mean we can’t try”. The author writes in a informal logical style for their audience teenagers and others interested in

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Arguments

1) Of the three primary units we have completed in this course, the most challenging unit for me was the argument (persuasion) unit. I was surprised at how much I struggled both in the pre-writing process and in the writing process. To begin with, because I love arguments, I had trouble choosing a topic. In the end, I decided to challenge myself with the policy that requires sex offender to be added to a public registry policy. Instead of going with my initial stance (opposition), I decided to flip the scrip and argue the opposite of what I believe (proposition).

Thrown Into A Discourse Community

Being Thrown into a Discourse Community As time passes, the human race goes through a process of automatically putting themselves into groups that we think may suit us best. Theres so called groups are portrayed as discourse communities. John Swales (1990), an analyst of written communication, claimed that “discourse communities [are] groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals”. This means that we generally go where we feel most comfortable, where others like us have the same goals and mindsets alike.

Deliberative Rhetoric Rhetoric Analysis

USE OF DELIBERATIVE AND EPIDEICTIC RHETORIC IN CRISIS RHETORIC In his article, Bonnie J Dow does well to describe the role of deliberative and epideictic rhetoric in speeches delivered by presidents (President Reagan in his case). According to Dow, the two types of rhetoric are dependent on the situation or type of crisis which is usually determined by what or who causes it- “In this essay I attempt to describe the different functions performed by instances of crisis rhetoric that are products of different situations.” While Dow’s article holds water for most of the speeches delivered through time, for this concept, I believe that in a crisis speech, both epideictic and deliberative rhetoric can be used in such a manner that they complement each other to deliver an effective speech at a troubling time. As such, this short article Presidents George Bush’s address to a joint session of congress on the 9/11 attacks that left Americans terrified to the marrow sparking a crisis.

Discourse Community Research Paper

Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher and author, once stated, “The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others” (“Recording of Society”). This quote represents the true meaning of a discourse community. A discourse community is a group of social individuals that work together to reach a common goal, understand the same basic values and assumptions, and use a unique kind of communication to reach their set goal or purpose. A good example of a discourse community is the organization

The American Scholar Rhetorical Analysis

Often known as the Father of American Literature to many educated individuals, Ralph Waldo Emerson in his oration “The American Scholar” brilliantly provides a sublime example of how Emerson earned his title through the appliance of diction, syntax, allusions, and many other rhetorical devices and strategies. Indicated towards his highly educated audience, the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Emerson introduces the idea that the common class and common concepts of everyday life are becoming the future of art and literature through purpose, credibility, and tone. As many great writers, Emerson does not simply tell about his idea, but instead uses rhetorical strategies to help show his central point, one such strategy being purpose. Being focused on informing his audience of the coming days, the use of purpose can be

John Swales Concept Of Discourse Community

In relation to discourse communities, intertextuality is important in assisting writers to conform to the social setting, enabling them to make reasonings that will not distance the individuals from the community, guide them to construct the logical decisions that are in comparison with the philosophy of the group, and become more aware of the peculiarities of a discourse community the more that they socialize. In addition, "acceptability is the key standard for analyzing a writing within a discourse community" (Porter 1986, p. 405). Therefore, a writer's achievement is estimated by their capacity to recognize what can be presupposed, and obtain the community's patterns adequately to make a text that adds to the support or conceivably of the community's

Example Of A Discourse Community Essay

An important discourse community that was a part of my life was my volleyball team during my four years of high school. I started playing my first year going into high school and continued until I graduated. Until now I wasn’t even aware that would even be considered a discourse community, but it fits all of the qualifications of Swales’ definition of a discourse community. Goals

Social Media Rhetorical Analysis

In her essay, “I Had a Nice Time with you Tonight, on the app,” Jenna Wortham believes that social media apps are a helpful way to connect. Wortham swears by apps and is grateful that she can communicate with her boyfriend who is three thousand miles away. Yet some may challenge the view that Social Media apps are a reliable and effective method of communicating, Sherry Turkle stresses people are substituting online communication for face-to-face interaction. Although Turkle may only seem of concern to only a small group of people, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about the negative effects social media can have on people. In her eyes, nothing can replace person-to-person communication.

Mike Rose In A Discourse Community

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in discourse communities. According to James Porter, "a discourse community is a group of people bound by a common interest who communicate through channels and discourse is regulated (Couzelis, Isip, Adkins 12 and Porter 38-39).  John Swales, however, states that a community can only be a true discourse community if they meet six requirements: they have to share clearly stated goals; they have to use a mechanism of communication; they offer feedback and information; utilize one or more genres of text, the group uses specific lexis; and they have old members with new ones (Couzelis, Isip, Adkins 12 and Swales 471-473). Under these guidelines, Mike Rose 's mother Rosie is in a discourse community because

My Discourse Community Essay

We communicate in many ways, either by email, telephone, text, face to face, social media or letters and the language we use allows us to get things done, nonetheless the language and communication method in which we chose to use can vary depending on the discourse community. Much like John Swales suggests a discourse community involves a group of people who share the same common public goals, such as shared interests, rules, structure, and vocabulary. When thinking about the several discourse communities I am evolved in, which include family, coaching football, college student, and a few friends. These discourse communities have influenced me, given me insight of where I come from and tell who I am as a person. I also believe much like Swales,

John Swales's Theory Of Discourse Communities

John Swales developed a theory that a discourse community has six distinct traits. Destiny has attributed a lot to the band. Destiny said “Band has helped me to develop new relationships at The University of Oklahoma and improve my soft skills.” The lessons learned in band can translate to other aspects of one’s life. The band becomes such a tight community due to the fact that it consumes a lot of time with group and individual practice.

The Importance Of Discourse Communities

“The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing About Writing, A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed.

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