Ethnographic Essay

In this stage, youll combine your observation with your artifacts and/or interviews to compose the first
draft of your ethnography. To do this, target an audience and think about what your desired response
from that audience is.
Are you trying to explain an aspect of the discourse community to outsiders?
Do you want to convince outsiders of the discourse communitys value?
Would you like members of the discourse community to examine something about themselves?
Are you trying to show that this community does or does not fit the 6 characteristics of a
discourse community?
Are you focusing more on the human-side: interactions and identity?
In this final stage, youll be explaining what youve uncovered, and sharing that knowledge with an
academic audience.
Remember, our example text showed us that ethnographies
Are descriptive and analytical
Are based mostly on the data we collect via observing or analyzing their language
May or may not make an argument
Includes language from the community, lots of quotes
Includes a discussion about what you, as a researcher, did to understand this community and
what you think about what you saw
Requirements
At least 4 full double-spaced pages long. This is the minimum; you should not limit your content
if you have more than this.
MLA format
Works cited page for interview and/or artifact
Inclusion of the theory you are working from (Swales or Gee), a methods section, and analysis of
your research.