A University’s Writing Practices
Instead of adopting a genre-based approach whereby disciplines are assumed to have their own specific genres which belong to them and them alone, we adopted Michael Carter’s approach of meta-genres that transcend disciplines. For example, the report of empirical research is found throughout all the social and natural sciences; in fact, two quantitative studies in two disciplines might be more similar to one another than a qualitative and quantitative study within the same discipline. However, each report of empirical research will be, in Carter’s words, “inflected†by the conventions of the particular discipline. For example, a report of a study in chemistry is more likely to have equations than a report of a study in education.
We will take these six assignment task types one by one, give examples of assignments we saw across the disciplines that seemed to fit that type, and note the specific challenges they pose for writers.
I hadn’t ever thought of them this way. It makes me want to think more.
I reflect here on four observations I have made over the past few years—first, that despite critiques of genres, realism, transparency, essentialism, and social or cultural representation recognizable forms of writing persist; second, that those recognizable forms of writing exist across several intellectual generations, including those just entering the profession; third, that while some attention tends to be paid to those forms of writing in graduate programs of study in the U.S. much of what is learned is learned informally and often only partially; and, fourth, journal editors and manuscript reviewers tend to notice the structure of those forms of writing in manuscripts submitted to a scholarly journal, identifying the presence or absence of expected elements and passing judgment on a manuscript at least in part because of the familiarity of its structure.
The whole thing is very good and well worth reading.
These are both worth reading and they are related to a publishing opportunity. The journal in which they were published is new and is having calls for papers.