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A Step-by-step Guide Plan: Choose a discourse community related to your

progra
A Step-by-step GuidePlan: Choose a discourse community related to your program of study.
This should be a community that you are already a part of (such as students in your
program area) or are going to be joining (such as professionals in your chosen
field).Research: Your research will be based on information gathered from secondary
sources, including course readings, and from job postings, job profiles or job descriptions
from organizational websites. You can also include information from primary research
conducted in the form of an interview with a discourse community expert. This could be a
professional in the field, an instructor in your program, or an upper-‐semester student.
However, please note that an interview isn’t mandatory. You are not required to complete
one for this assignment, but it is an option. Suggested questions you may ask:• What
activities do they engage in?• What means of intercommunication do they use?• How do
they share information and feedback?• What kind of things do they say, what kind of
specialized language do they use?• What kind of text/documents do they create?Analyze:
Take the data that you have collected through research and analyze your findings using
concepts learned in the course, specifically, Swales’ (1987) six characteristics of a discourse
community. You should apply 3-4 of Swales’ characteristics, focusing on those that relate to
communication (Swales’ characteristics 2-5).publish: Write a report of 750 words
(plus/minus 75 words). Remember, the audience for your report is a newcomer to the
community. Your report must include at least one direct quotation that is cited according to
APA–can be taken from any of the readings suggested in “Unit 1: Discourse Communities,”
or your own research. Your report must also include the section headings listed below:•
Introduction• Background• Research and Analysis• Conclusions and
RecommendationsRevise: Use instructor feedback to revise your publish.Submit: Upload
your final publish to the dropbox in D2L in the format requested by your professor (either
Word or PDF).What am I supposed to write under each section heading?
IntroductionPurpose (why are you writing this report? who is the audience?)Method (how
are you going about the task of writing the report? what sources have you
used?)BackgroundGeneral description of a discourse community including basic
dutiesEducation, training or certification requirementsDetails required for new a
community member to make sense of the reportResearch and AnalysisSummary of research
findings (from interview/secondary sources)At least one direct quotation and/or
paraphrase from each of your sourcesApplication of 3-‐4 of Swales’ 6 characteristics of
discourse communities to day-‐to-‐day job responsibilities involving communication (using
Swales’ characteristics 2-5)Conclusions and RecommendationsSummary of significant
characteristics of the discourse communityBulleted list of top three recommendations for
action–in other words, what are the most important three steps for a newcomer to become
a successful member of the discourse community?Note: publish #2 and the Final Version of
this assignment will be submitted to the Turnitin.com reference database for textual
similarity review when it is uploaded to the dropbox. More information on the use of
Turnitin.com can be found on the official course outline.

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