Anatomy of a genre: The elements of academic discourse

What is a “good” scholarly argument? What are the qualities of an effective academic text? What values and attitudes do supervisors, editors, and other critical readers adopt when they read manuscripts? Getting useful feedback on your writing can be difficult, because most readers are not able to articulate the standards they employ while reading. They know what they like, but they can’t explain why it’s good or how to do it. Even well-published supervisors may struggle to describe the knowledge that allows them to write effective papers. This three-day course will draw on writing theory and research to consider the qualities of an effective academic paper. We will consider a number of genres—journal articles, research proposals, book chapters—but we will focus primarily on the article in order to develop a critical perspective and vocabulary that will help us understand the positive and negative qualities of academic discourse. The course is designed to help doctoral students become better judges of their own texts and better able to discuss their texts with their supervisors and others.

Instructor: Anthony Paré, University of British Columbia

Dates: November 29th-December 1st, 2016; 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Place/Venue: 27.0.47 (Building 27, Ground floor, room 47)

Course practice: The course will be run as a workshop. All required texts (will be distributed before course start) should be read in advance, and students should take notes on the readings and be prepared to discuss them. In addition, students are asked to conduct a close analysis of Hyland (2011a) and Paré (2014) (see upcoming reading list) by answering the following questions:

1. What does the introductory section of the article do? Does it describe a specific problem or knowledge gap? Does it announce the author’s purpose or goal? Does it give an overview of the paper?

2. Is there a review of literature? What is the purpose of the review? Is the review organized in a particular pattern?

3. Is there a methods section? What does the writer seem to be doing in that section? Is it just descriptive, or is it persuasive as well?

4. Are findings reported? What claims does the author make based on the data? How strong are the claims? Are the claims related back to the problem or knowledge gap reported at the beginning?

5. If the article isn’t a research report—that is, doesn’t present analyzed data—on what expertise or authority does the author base the argument? That is, what does the author offer to gain our trust and confidence?

6. Does the author refer to himself? Does he use “I” or “we”?

7. What about the paper seems characteristic of academic writing? Is there a typical tone, or style, or structure? How does it differ from other kinds of texts?

Our analysis will proceed on the basis of rhetorical genre theory (RGT), which takes a sociocultural approach to the study of discourse. RGT asks us to consider the place and purpose of the text in its situation or context: to what need does the text respond? It raises questions about the impact of the text within its discourse community: how does the text position writers and readers in relation to each other, and in relation to other members of the community? RGT also focuses our attention on the consequences of the text: what work does it perform in the community it serves?

During the three days, we will move back and forth between discussion of the readings and writing activities that will provide immediate experience with aspects of academic writing. Students will be asked to share their writing and to critique their colleagues’ work.

One follow-up assignment will be required: Students will be asked to prepare a brief review of their favourite journal article using the analysis developed in the course.

Max. number of participants: 25.

Registration: Please sign up for the course via the link in the box on the right before October 24th, 2016.