Perl page 197

“By taking specific observable behaviors that occur during composing and supplying labels for them, this system thus far provides a way of analyzing the process that is categorical and capable of replication. In order to view the frequency and the duration of composing behaviors and the relation between one particular behavior and the whole process, these behaviors need to be depicted graphically to show their duration and sequence.”

For major project number two I want to explore the question “How do I write?” This paragraph will help me when researching the question because how will I understand how I compose if I don’t observe myself in the process of that? I have no idea how this will play out becuase as I write I know I take a lot of breaks and all of a sudden think about random things. Honestly I try to think of ways to procrastinate and put off the writing assignment as long as possible because I dread writing.

Notes from MP #3 research

I went and observed in a doctors office for a little over 2 hours.

-Very professional atmosphere

-Very detailed/explanatory statements

-Tone is serious

-Communicate the most through comuters

-Medical terminology – lexis

-Everyone seems to try to get along with each other and have good relationships

-All very caring when communicating with patients

-Have meetings to communicate as a group

MP #2 Last Draft

Introduction

In today’s society communicating through what Sheelah M. Sweeny calls ICT’s or information and communication technologies is the norm.  What Sheelah is referring to when she says ICT’s are ways of communication such as texting, e-mailing, Tweeting, or using IM.  You can go just about anywhere today and see someone on their phone or laptop using one of these networks.  But are these networks corrupting our communicating and writing skill when it comes to academics?  Should using the networks even be considered writing?  I want to explore these ideas, specifically texting.  I would like to pose the question “what is the difference in composing a text and composing an academic writing?”

I think it is safe to say that any of these forms of communication can be considered writing.  Why?  Because you are composing your thoughts in to sentences and even paragraphs. Even though you may not be writing about history or philosophy for school, you are writing.  Many people don’t consider texting writing; I know I didn’t until I was exploring the thought with my professor one day.  I didn’t realize how much I actually write on a day to day basis considering I hate writing.  But I constantly have my phone with me and I’m just about always texting someone, as most people today are.  But is texting and writing for school really that different?  Yes and no, there are some differences and some similarities.  I came to this conclusion through research I did through the internet, library, and I also conducted some of my own primary research through a think a loud protocol.  After the think aloud protocol I also wrote out what was said and coded it according to a scheme I created.  I created this scheme after learning about them in class.  My teacher used a general scheme she made and I just spun mine off of that.  I know it wasn’t exactly the same but it was similar.

Methodology

For primary research I did about a forty-five minute think aloud protocol of myself texting my friend to see what I did and how I responded and such.  Designing a method for this research wasn’t too hard considering we were required to do a think aloud protocol, which I did texting my friend Jordan just having a general conversation.  We asked things like “what are you up to” and “how are you?”  We didn’t talk about anything specific just random things that came to mind.  While conducting my research I found that trying to say out loud what I was thinking was hard at first, I would forget to say what I was thinking and at times I was talking to the computer instead of thinking out loud, but eventually I got the hang of it.  I found that most of the time I will think a few minutes before I compose a text message.  I would also read over what I typed and as I typed what I was going to text.  I was pretty straight forward about what I was going to say back most of the time, but several times I had to think several minutes before I could decide what to reply.  I know that I also do this when I am writing for school.  After I type a good little bit, I’ll go back and read it out loud before I add another sentence.  And after I add the sentence I’ll read it again to make sure it makes sense.  I consider that editing or revising.  I edit a text message the same way I do a paper for one of my classes.  So through primary research I found that my individual processes to approaching composing a text or a paper are similar.

Discussion

Through secondary research I found mostly ways of composing texts or papers that are different.  The most popular difference I found had to do with grammar.  When people are trying to communicate quickly through one of the ICT’s you don’t think about whether you’re grammar is correct or not.  Many people will shorten their message any way they can.  Some common examples are “u” for “you,” “lol” for “laugh out loud,” and “4” for “for.”  I myself cannot stand when people type like that it drives me crazy; I prefer to take the time to type everything out.  But if you’re on the go and trying to send a message fast I can see why you would do this.  On the other hand, some of the younger generation does this just because they can and also because in reality they don’t know how to correctly spell the word that they’re trying to type.  So they just do the best they can.  The problem with this is that the texting language people use can begin to spill over into their academic writing.

Many teachers despise that student’s texting language spills over into their work.  But some are embracing it and even allowing students to use their laptops and mobile devices in class.  I’ll use my own English class for example.  We take and use our laptops in class every day.  We do almost all of our work on our blogs or in a type of chat website and our teacher doesn’t mind us using text talk.  I think this helps me stay interested in what we are doing and learning about.  But it is a college level course so we are expected to know the difference in being able to write a paper and freely being able to text and type however we feel like it.  Also during this research I also found some teachers have found ways to incorporate cell phones and texting in to the learning in their classrooms.  Colleen Gillard talks a little about research she has done with this in her blog.  She describes a few ways teachers have found to incorporate using your smart phone in class.  One teacher had her student’s text in their thoughts on Romeo and Juliet to a sort of message forum she displayed on a projector in front of the room.  There is another tool where students can respond via text message to multiple choice and free response questions a well.  At ECU we used something similar in orientation.  We were asked survey type questions and asked to text in our answers and the findings would show up on the projector screen in the auditorium.  I think this is a great idea to keep students engaged in learning, I know it would keep me a little more interested in class.

Another difference in composing a text message and composing a paper for academics is that when you’re texting someone it’s very casual, and usually you text someone for a certain reason.  When you are trying to right a paper for class its stressful and your words don’t just flow out; at least mine don’t.  You are also writing for a specific purpose that you usually don’t get to decide when writing a paper.  A paper is something you have to write if it’s assigned.  You can send a text whenever you feel like it.  Text messages involve only a little bit of thought, if any at all; whereas when you are composing a paper you have to think for a while about what you are going to write about and how you’re are going to approach writing about it.  Most likely you are also going to have to do research for the paper you are writing.  You don’t have to do research for a text message.  This would be the biggest difference I see in composing a text and composing an article or paper for school.  There is a whole lot less thought put into text messages.

Conclusion

In conclusion I’m not sure if I think that writing a text and writing a paper are more alike or different.  For myself the processes are similar, texting is just on a smaller scale.  I thought that after this research I would feel like they are more similar, but when I think about the effort being put into each of them, it takes a lot less to text.  I do however feel like texting is writing and sooner or later, whether we like it or not, we will start using smart phones more in the classroom.  Eventually using mobile devices for learning will be the norm.

Draft #2

In today’s society communicating through what Sheelah M. Sweeny calls ICT’s or information and communication technologies is the norm.  What Sheelah is referring to when she says ICT’s are ways of communication such as texting, e-mailing, Tweeting, or using IM.  You can go just about anywhere today and see someone on their phone or laptop using one of these networks.  But are these networks corrupting our communicating and writing skill when it comes to academics?  Should using the networks even be considered writing?  I want to explore these ideas, specifically texting.  I would like to pose the question “what is the difference in composing a text and composing an academic writing?”

I think it is safe to say that any of these forms of communication can be considered writing.  Why?  Because you are composing your thoughts in to sentences and even paragraphs. Even though you may not be writing about history or philosophy for school you are writing.  Many people don’t consider texting writing; I know I didn’t until I was exploring the thought with my professor one day.  I didn’t realize how much I actually write on a day to day basis considering I hate writing.  But I constantly have my phone with me and I’m just about always texting someone, as most people today are.  But is texting and writing for school really that different?  Yes and no, there are some differences and some similarities.  I came to this conclusion through research I did research through the internet, library, and I also conducted some of my own primary research through a think a loud protocol.

For primary research I did about a forty-five minute think aloud protocol of myself texting a friend to see what I did and how I responded and such.  Trying to say out loud what I was thinking was hard at first, I would forget to say what I was thinking and at times I was talking to the computer instead of thinking out loud, but eventually I got the hang of it.  I found that most of the time I will think a few minutes before I compose a text message.  I would also read over what I typed and as I typed what I was going to text.  I was pretty straight forward about what I was going to say back most of the times, but several times I had to think several minutes before I could decide what to type back.  I know that I also do this when I am writing for school.  After I type a good little bit, I’ll go back and read it out loud before I add another sentence.  And after I add the sentence I’ll read it again to make sure it makes sense.  I consider that editing or revising.  I edit a text message the same way I do a paper for one of my classes.  So through my primary research I mostly found that my individual processes to approaching composing a text or a paper are similar.

Through secondary research I found mostly ways that they are different.  The most popular difference I found had to do with grammar.  When people are trying to communicate quickly through one of the ICT’s you don’t think about whether you’re grammar is correct or not.  Many people will shorten their message any way they can.  Some common examples are “u” for “you,” “lol” for “laugh out loud,” and “4” for “for.”  I myself cannot stand when people type like that it drives me crazy; I prefer to take the time to type everything out.  But if you’re on the go and trying to send a message fast I can see why you would do this.  On the other hand, some of the younger generation do it just because they can and also because in reality they don’t know how to correctly spell the word that they’re trying to type.  So they just do the best they can.  The problem with this is that the texting language people use can begin to spill over into their academic writing.

Many teachers despise that students texting language spills over into their work.  But some are embracing it and even allowing students to use their laptops and mobile devices in class.  I’ll use my own English class for example.  We take and use our laptops in class every day.  We do almost all of our work on our blogs or in a type of chat website and our teacher doesn’t mind us using text talk.  I think this helps me stay interested in what we are doing and learning about.  But it is a college level course so we are expected to know the difference in being able to write a paper and freely being able to text and type however we feel like it.  Also during this research I also found some teachers have found ways to incorporate cell phones and texting in to the learning in their classrooms.  Colleen Gillard talks a little about research she has done with this in her blog.  She describes a few ways teachers have found to incorporate using your smart phone in class.  One teacher had her student’s text in their thoughts on Romeo and Juliet to a sort of message forum she displayed on a projector in front of the room.  There is another tool where students can respond via text message to multiple choice and free response questions a well.  At ECU we used something similar in orientation.  We were asked survey type questions and asked to text in our answers and the findings would show up on the projector screen in the auditorium.  I think this is a great idea to keep students engaged in learning, I know it would keep me a little more interested in class.

Another difference in composing a text message and composing a paper for academics is that when you’re texting someone it’s very casual, and usually you text someone for a certain reason.  When you are trying to right a paper for class its stressful and your words don’t just flow out; at least mine don’t.  You are also writing for a specific purpose that you usually don’t get to decide when writing a paper.  A paper is something you have to write if it’s assigned.  You can send a text whenever you feel like it.  Text messages involve only a little bit of thought, if any at all; whereas when you are composing a paper you have to think for a while about what you are going to write about and how you’re are going to approach writing about it.  Most likely you are also going to have to do research for the paper you are writing.  You don’t have to do research for a text message.  This would be the biggest difference I see in composing a text and composing an article or paper for school.  There is a whole lot less thought put into text messages.

In conclusion I’m not sure if I think that writing a text and writing a paper are more alike or different.  For myself the processes are similar, texting is just on a smaller scale.  I thought that after this research I would feel like they are similar, but when I think about the effort being put into each of them, it takes a lot less to text.  I do however feel like texting is writing and sooner or later, whether we like it or not, we will start using smart phones more in the classroom.  Eventually using mobile devices for learning will be the norm.

QEP Council Final Draft

Dear QEP council,

I am a student at East Carolina University and I am currently in an English 1200 writing class.  We are discussing things that we see as problems in writing and English today.  I am writing to you to bring up one of the biggest issues that I see.  That issue is the use of rubrics and whether or not they are really helpful to students when it comes to writing.  This topic has not received very much attention at all and some people don’t even realize that for some individuals rubrics are not beneficial.  People just assume that they are necessary for grading and also to use as guidelines.  I disagree with this claim and I’m going to tell you why.

I want to start by saying that there are some advantages to rubrics and that cannot be ignored.  Just to be clear a rubric is an assessment tool used to evaluate students work and it is also to be used as a guideline for the students to know what is expected in their writing.  Rubrics make it easier for teachers to grade papers quickly and more consistently, they help teachers clarify their expectations of you in your writing, and help them point out to us our strengths and weaknesses.  But there are also disadvantages to rubrics that tend to get overlooked.  Rubrics are not usually very detailed, they can be intimidating, some teachers use rubrics as their only response to student’s writings, and rubrics can also make students feel like their own opinions and ideas about an assignment are restricted.   I’d like to elaborate on the disadvantages of teachers giving students rubrics for you.

My first point is that rubrics are not detailed guidelines.  If you look at a standard rubric it only really states things like that you are to make your topic clear when writing and that your information should flow well together you should have proper use of grammar.  How is that helpful?  Those things are common sense when it comes to writing a paper.  If you are not clear about your topic then of course you are not going to have a good paper.  A lot of teachers think that they can just hand you a rubric and you’re supposed to know what to write and how to write it.  I don’t believe this is true for anyone, there has to be more instruction on how you are supposed to construct your paper.  Teachers should discuss what your goal should be for an assignment.  “Students need to be able to ask questions, they need to see examples, and they also need constructive criticism” says Heidi Andrade.  In this article that I found on JSTOR Heidi discusses what she thinks is the good about rubrics, the bad about rubrics, and the ugly about rubrics.  She has opinions that go along with both sides of the argument on rubrics.  For the good Heidi says that rubrics help her clarify expectations and focus her instruction.  Heidi says that she like most teachers use a rubric “before, during, and after instruction.”  The bad according to Heidi is what I quoted first from Andrade’s article.  And what she considers the ugly is the actual reliability of rubrics.  She talks a little about whether rubrics are fair and valid for grading assignments.  When using rubrics are teachers being consistent with their judging?  Heidi Andrade’s article Teaching with Rubrics, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly helped me to understand this problem more and she did a great job elaborating on her reasoning.

When first handed a rubric, they can be intimidating.  I know this is how I feel when I receive one.  They are written by someone who usually makes them sound more complicated than they have to be.  Writing shouldn’t be complicated by guidelines and so called rules we are given on a sheet of paper.  It only makes the assignment seem harder than it is, especially for people like me who don’t like writing in the first place.  I don’t like writing because I don’t feel like I’m very good at it, and I know I’m not the only person in the world that feels this way.  So I stress as soon as I get a writing assignment, before I even get a rubric if the teacher gives them.

While I have been researching this topic one of my favorite articles is one by Maja Wilson called Why I won’t be Using Rubrics to Respond to Students’ Writing.  I think the point she makes is the biggest reason why we should not have to use a rubric when writing a paper.  In this article she compares using rubrics as a grading tool to calling and having to talk to an automated computer message system.  Maja had an experience where her luggage got lost and she needed to talk to someone at the airport who could help her figure out how to locate it and have it returned.  When she called the airport none of the options on the automated system had anything to do with luggage and talking to a human was also not an option.  So how was she supposed to get help with this problem?  While agonizing over listening to the computer list the unaccommodating options she had a thought; just like the computer was not responsive to her specific need, rubrics are not responsive to student’s writing.  Teachers use them to grade and all they do is circle how they think you did.  How does that help the student know what they need to try to fix or how they can express themselves in their writing differently?  It doesn’t; it only makes students feel more frustrated and overwhelmed because they are not sure what they did wrong.

The last point I want to make is that many students, including myself, feel like rubrics constrict your thoughts and the ideas you have for what you are about to write.  It’s like rubrics are writing jail, they set guidelines and if you’re like me you’re not sure how to go about using them if you can.  Some students feel limited by the rubrics they are given.  In my English class last semester we actually sat down and co-created a rubric with the teacher, which still seemed to make the project difficult.  But there was a specific way our paper had to be written and I found that aggravating because I had my own way of wanting to write about the topic.  And even though I feel like I did a good job on the paper I wrote, I was given a C because it wasn’t exactly how the teacher wanted it to be.  So if I can’t write the way I want to, how am I supposed to express my individuality or be original?  You can’t and that’s frustrating when you feel like you’re way of constructing a paper makes the content look better than it would the way you are sometimes made to write it.

So I would like for you all to consider these things now when you think about rubrics or if you are asked about them.  As I said before there are some advantages to rubrics, but they can also be hindering as well and this problem is overlooked.  I know this because I had a tough time trying to find the resources to use while writing this letter.  I assure you that this topic deserves attention because I know I am not the only person who sees this as a problem.  Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Kristen Worthington

MP #3

As John Swales describes it a discourse community is a community that has six defining characteristics.  These are: “a broadly agreed set of common public goals, has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, has acquired some specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.”  Each community will have its own unique set of these characteristics.  I want to explore a discourse community of nurses in a specific family practice doctor’s office.

I’m sure that, like in every doctor’s office, the group of nurses in each all have the same agreed upon common goals.  The common main goal for the nurses in the doctor’s office I observed in was putting patient care first and foremost.  This is their job, and also their passion.  They want to provide the best care possible for their patients.  The nurses try to do this as quickly as they can while being efficient at the same time.  This is how they keep things running smoothly on a daily basis. When going into a doctor’s office, this is the kind of care one would expect to receive.  This is the care nurses must give to keep a good reputation or their office.  The doctors and physician assistants that the nurses work under also expect them to work to their best ability, so that a patient is receiving optimum care from the whole team.  If the best care possible isn’t given a patient’s health could at risk and possibly even their life.

The mechanism for intercommunication used most in the doctor’s office among nurses was the computer.  I would have never thought this would be the case.  Considering the technological advances of today I should have known this would be the mechanism of choice being that the office I chose to observe in is a larger one. Through a computer system is how nurses communicate patient information the quickest.  It’s also how the nurses keep up with their tasks and what has or has not been done.  Not only is this how the nurses effectively communicate, but the whole office uses this system.  This is how they communicate with their other specialty offices and with the hospital.  Another form of intercommunication obviously would be talking to each other.  Sometimes communicating through words rather than the computer makes the message being sent easier to understand.  If a nurse checks the system and doesn’t fully understand a task or what the doctor’s orders are, then going and actually talking to the person who assigned it would help them to better understand.  This is because they could get a more in depth explanation from the person and also be able to ask them questions.

In the office I observed in the participatory methods I talked about in the last paragraph all provide feedback.  The computers provide feedback to everyone including doctor’s nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and all of the other faculty on patient appointments, what their illness or health problems are, and how they want to treat them.  Talking with each other provides even better feedback.  And the other method I wanted to talk about is having meetings.  All of the nurses come together in this doctor’s office and discuss ways they can improve their services and also if anyone sees any issues amongst each other they can be worked out as a group.  This way they can talk and work things out together and all be on the same page/level with each other.

In the nursing community, I think what would be considered genres are the different levels of degrees.  I observed  ADN’s, BSN’s, and MSN’s.  These differ in the amount of schooling each has.  ADN’s have 2 year associate degrees, this is the lowest level of schooling you have to receive to become a registered nurse.  You would get this degree from a community college or vocational school.  A BSN would be the bachelor’s degree of Science in nursing.  This is a four year degree that you would obtain from a university.  And then there is the Master’s of Science in nursing.  You would earn this degree at a university after receiving a bachelor’s degree first.  This degree requires two additional years of college after the initial four.  The difference I saw in between each of these is obviously the amount of education they received, their knowledge, and the amount of authority each held.

Every discourse community has its own lexis, or in other words its own special way of communicating.  The first lexis of course would be the terminology used by nurses.  If you were listening to a pair of nurse’s talk about a patient’s condition, you would probably hear some words that you didn’t know the meaning of.  Just for example, if you had no previous knowledge of any part of the medical field you wouldn’t know the myocardial infarction is a fancy word for a heart attack.  You also wouldn’t know what it entailed if someone said that a baby was born with a deformation in their aortic arch.  In the case I heard about, from what I understood it was a little over my head as well, two of the veins connecting into the arch were grown together and needed to be separated for the heart to function properly.  This baby also had a hole in his heart that needed to be repaired as well, otherwise the heart couldn’t function properly and neither would the rest of the body.  There is also medical terminology, which are acronyms used not only by nurses but by the whole medical field.  An example of one of these would be B.I.D. which stands for twice a day or H.S. means before bedtime.  These acronyms make it quicker and easier for orders to be given.

And lastly the discourse community has different levels of members.  There are nurses coming and going all the time due to different reasons, rather it be that they don’t like the office or because they are moving or for any other reason.  You have your newer nurses coming in who are learning the ropes of how things are done in that particular office.  These nurses would be what you call the novices of the discourse community.  And then you have your nurses who have been there for a while and know all of the ropes on how things are done around their office with the other nurses.  They know what works and what doesn’t, so they would considered an expert in the community.

Every discourse community is unique in its own way.  They all have the same general characteristics, but they all vary when you look at the specific characteristics Swales describes discourse community having.  This discourse community of nurses seemed to be a great one, and I can’t wait to be a part of my own in the future.

Rough Draft #2

As John Swales describes it a discourse community is a community that has six defining characteristics.  These are: “a broadly agreed set of common public goals, has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, has acquired some specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.”  And each community will have its own unique set of these characteristics. I want to explore a community of nurses in a specific family practice doctor’s office.

I’m sure that, like in every doctor’s office, the group of nurses in each all have the same agreed upon common goals.  The common main goal for the nurses in the doctor’s office I observed in was putting patient care first and foremost.  This is their job, and also their passion.  They want to provide the best care possible for their patients.  The nurses try to do this as quickly as they can while being efficient at the same time.  This is how they keep things running smoothly on a daily basis. When going into a doctor’s office, this is the kind of care one would expect to receive.  This is the care nurses must give to have a good reputation as an office.  The doctors and physician assistants that the nurses work under also expect them to work to their best ability, so that a patient is receiving optimum care from the whole team.  If the best care possible isn’t given a patient’s health could at risk and possibly even their life.

The mechanism for intercommunication used most in the doctor’s office among nurses was the computer.  I would have never thought this would be the case.  Considering the technological advances of today I should have known this would be the mechanism of choice being that the office I chose to observe in is a larger one. This is how nurses communicate patient information the quickest.  It’s also how the nurses keep up with their tasks and what has or hasn’t been done.  Not only is this how the nurses effectively communicate, but the whole office uses this system.  This is how they communicate with their other offices and with the hospital.  Another form of intercommunication obviously would be talking to each other.  Sometimes communicating through words rather than the computer makes the message being sent easier to understand.  If a nurse checks the system and doesn’t fully understand a task or what the doctor’s orders are, then going and actually talking to the person who assigned it would help them to better understand.  This is because they could get a more in depth explanation from the person and also be able to ask questions.

In the office I observed the participatory methods I talked about in the last paragraph all provide feedback.  The computers provide feedback to everyone including doctor’s nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and all of the other faculty on patient appointments, what their illness or health problems are, and how they want to treat them.  Talking with each other provides even better feedback.  And the other method I wanted to talk about is having meetings.  All of the nurses come together in this doctor’s office and discuss ways they can improve their services and also if anyone sees any issues amongst each other they can be worked out as a group.  This way they can talk and work things out together and they are all on the same page/level with each other.

In the nursing community, I think what would be considered genres are the different levels of degrees.  I observed  ADN’s, BSN’s, and MSN’s.  These differ in the amount of schooling each has.  ADN’s have 2 year associate degrees, this is the lowest level of schooling you have to receive to become a registered nurse.  You would get this degree from a community college or vocational school.  A BSN would be the bachelor’s degree of Science in nursing.  This is a four year degree that you would obtain from a university.  And then there’s the Master’s of Science in nursing.  You would earn this degree at a university after receiving a bachelor’s degree first.  And it requires two additional years of college after the initial four.  The difference I saw in between each of these is obviously the amount of education they received, their knowledge, and the amount of authority each held.

Every discourse community has its own lexis, or in other words its own special way of communicating.  The first lexis of course would be the terminology used by nurses.  If you were listening to a pair of nurse’s talk about a patient’s condition, you would probably hear some words that you didn’t know the meaning of.  Just for example, if you had no previous knowledge of any part of the medical field you wouldn’t know the myocardial infarction is a fancy word for a heart attack.  You also wouldn’t know what it entailed if someone said that a baby was born with a deformation in their aortic arch.  In the case I heard about, from what I understood it was a little over my head as well, two of the veins connecting into the arch were grown together and needed to be separated for the heart to function properly.  This baby also had a hole in his heart that needed to be repaired as well, otherwise the heart couldn’t function properly and neither would the rest of the body.  There is also medical terminology, which are acronyms used not only by nurses but by the whole medical field.  An example of one of these would be B.I.D. which stands for twice a day or H.S. means before bedtime.  These acronyms make it quicker and easier for orders to be given.

And lastly the discourse community has different levels of members.  There are nurses coming and going all the time due to different reasons, rather it be that they don’t like the office or because they are moving or for any other reason.  You have your newer nurses coming in who are learning the ropes of how things are done in that particular office.  These nurses would be what you call the novices of the discourse community.  And then you have your nurses who have been there for a while and know all of the ropes on how things are done around their office with the other nurses.  They know what works and what, doesn’t so they would considered an expert in the community.

Every discourse community is unique in its own way.  They all have the same general characteristics, but they are very different when you look at the specific characteristics of a discourse community.  The nursing discourse community is an interesting one to observe and I can’t wait to be a part of one myself.

Rough Draft for MP #3

As John Swales describes it a discourse community is a community that has six defining characteristics.  These are: “a broadly agreed set of common public goals, has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, has acquired some specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.”  And each community will have its own unique set of these characteristics. I want to explore a community of nurses in a specific family practice doctor’s office.

I’m sure that, like in every doctor’s office, the group of nurses in each all have the same agreed upon common goals.  The first common goal for the nurses in the doctor’s office I observed in was putting patient care first and foremost.  This is their job, and also their passion.  They want to provide the best care possible for their patients.  Another goal is that the nurses try to do this as quickly as they can while being efficient.  This is how they keep things running so smoothly on a daily basis.

The mechanism for intercommunication used most in the doctor’s office among nurses was the computer.  I would have never thought this would be the case.  Considering the technological advances of today I should have known this would be the mechanism of choice being that the office I chose to observe in is a larger one.  Another form of intercommunication obviously would be talking to each other.  Sometimes communicating through words rather than the computer makes the message being sent easier to understand.  The nurses in this office also have meetings.  Their meetings consist of all of them getting together and voicing their opinions on topics such as what they think some issues may be among the nurses in the office or how can they improve communication or the service to their patients.

In the office I observed in the participatory methods I talked about in the last paragraph all provide feedback.  The computers provide feedback to everyone including doctor’s nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and all of the other faculty on patient appointments, what their illness or health problems are, and how they want to treat them.

In the nursing community, I think what would be considered genres are the different levels of degrees.  I observed  ADN’s, BSN’s, and MSN’s.  These differ in the amount of schooling each has.  ADN’s have 2 year associate degrees, this is the lowest level of schooling you have to receive to become a registered nurse.  You would get this degree from a community college or vocational school.  A BSN would be the bachelor’s degree of Science in nursing.  This is a four year degree that you would obtain from a university.  And then there’s the Master’s of Science in nursing.  You would earn this degree at a university after receiving a bachelor’s degree first.  And it requires two additional years of college after the initial four.  I think the biggest difference I saw in between each of these is the amount of authority each had.

Every discourse community has its own lexis, or in other words its own special way of communicating.  The first lexis of course would be the terminology used by nurses.  If you were listening to a pair of nurse’s talk about a patient’s condition, you would probably hear some words that you didn’t know the meaning of.  Just for example, if you had no previous knowledge of any part of the medical field you wouldn’t know the myocardial infarction is a fancy word for a heart attack.  You also wouldn’t know what it entailed if someone said that a baby was born with a malfunction in their aortic arch.   There is also medical terminology, which are acronyms used not only by nurses but by the whole medical field.  An example of one of these would be B.I.D. which stands for twice a day or H.S. means before bedtime.  These acronyms make it quicker and easier for orders to be written down.

And lastly the discourse community has different levels of members.  There are nurses coming and going all the time due to different reasons, rather it be that they don’t like the office or because they are moving or for any other reason.  You have your newer nurses coming in who are learning the ropes of how things are done in that particular office.  And then you have your nurses who have been there for a while and know all of the ropes on how things are done around their office.  They know what works and what doesn’t.

Every discourse community is unique in its own way.  They all have the same general characteristics, but they are very different when you look at the specific characteristics of a discourse community.  The nursing discourse community is an interesting one to observe and I can’t wait to be a part of one.

Mushfaking

When? Every tuesday and thursday I have a philosophy class, which I happen to find quite boring.

Why? I have no interest in peoples morals/virtues from 100 years ago.

How? So everyday I go and I pretend like I’m listening and I’m interested but I’m really not and I usually either get on my phone, laptop, or doodle on the paper I pretend to be writing notes on.

Research Proposal

What I want to explore for my third major project is how the nurses in a specific environment communicate with each other and work together.  Each discourse community has its own way of doing these things differently and I want to observe one in a specific doctor’s office.

So my question is “How do the nurses in a specific doctor’s office communicate and get along effectively?”  This is significant to me because I want to become a nurse and I may want to work in a doctor’s office myself.  It interests me to see how this community works efficiently.

I am not very far along in research however I want to observe a community in a doctor’s office and make some notes.  I expect to discover that they have their own unique way of communicating and keeping their office running smoothly.

Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics.” 1989. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 481-95. Print

In this article Gee explains discourse communities a little more in depth with several good examples.  He explains primary and secondary discourse communities and also explains how he thinks that you can’t really embody a discourse community, you have to be recognized by others of it.  This article will help me understand discourse communities more in depth and may help me form some arguments in my paper.

Mirabelli, Tony. “Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers.” 2004. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 538-54. Print.

Mirabelli talks about that discourse community of blue collar works in this article.  He also introduces the concept of multiliteracies; he argues that the workers in a restaurant not only read texts but also people and situations.  I think this article will help me understand even broader horizons of discourse communities.  It will also give me an example of a discourse community and how it works.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” 1990. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 466-80. Print.

The goal of this article is to help us better understand discourse communities. In this article Swales discusses discourse communities and how they work.  He lays out the six characteristics of a discourse community; this will be helpful to me because it helps me easily understand what a discourse community is and also how it works.