Swales Criteria

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of

common public goals.

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members.

3. A discourse community uses its participatory

mechanisms primarily to provide information and
feedback.

How Your Community Fits/Doesnt Fit the Criteria

The dealership discourse communitys goals are fairly clear cut.
The primary goal of a dealership is to make money. However,
within the different departments, they each have their own goal.
1. My department (detail/lot attendant): Keep the lot in order,
detail sold cars (new or used)
2. Sales department: Push customers to buy used/news cars
(this includes the hierarchy of product specialist (prod) ,
sales specialist, sales manager and owner.
3. Service Dept: Attempt to sell customers on services they
provide
4. Parts Dept: Same as service; orders parts, Assume look
for lowest priced parts
5. Body shop: Charge high rates of labor/ open to all makes
and models
6. BDC (Business Development Center): Attempt to create
business by calling potential customers to get them inside
the dealership
1. The dealership uses several means of
intercommunication. This includes Inter-departmental
emails and bulletins that get passed out or posted in
various places within the dealership.
2. A PA system is also used to call various members of
certain departments to provide information or to order
them to a certain location
3. Also have phones with extensions that dial certain dept.s
1. There are surveys and reviews that are offered to recent
transactions. These are applicable to Sales of cars, Body
shop, Service Department, Finance and Detail.
2. Planned and impromptu meetings are also held for the
managers to provide feedback to their employees on their
quality of work, changes in the system or anything else
they need to know about.

3. Supervisor talks to employees one on one to ascertain the

state of things and communicate expectations

Genres Specific to community:

1. Scripts that sales people use to call customers/attempt to
sell them a car
2. Doing commercials once a month with special prices
3. Internet prices to sell cars
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses
4. Keeping lot cars clean, organized into different colors,
one or more genres in the communicative furtherance
parked in an orderly fashion
of its aims.
5. Sales Process : Customer> Prod> Sales Specialist>
Manager> Sales Specialist> Customer
6. Emails and calls to promote business
7. Complimentary washes/details for friends of the
dealerships
8. Upgrading buildings and refinishing areas to increase
attraction
1. Tower ( Glass section in the main showroom where sales
managers sit higher than prods stand)
2. Lot: Car lot where cars are parked
3. Bull Pen: Back lot enclosed by a fence where Lease Turn
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse
ins , trade ins , etc. go
community has acquired a specific lexis.
4. Speedway/ Auction: Groups that come in and take away
cars that are having trouble selling to auction them off
5. Superior Interiors/Dent Wizard/Auto Uplink: Vendors
that repair and showcase cars for increased sales
6. Interdepartmental Lexis: Brake R, Solvent, Cherry Wax.
Swirl Be Gone, AP; Many chemical names

1. Only so many employees can be hired.

2. Prods on a rotation; after a few months new prods are
hired, trained, fired, and the process starts again.
3. High turnover rate in Detail Dept, Sales Dept, BDC Dept
(Mainly due to incompetent employees being hired, poor
communication and training are also culprits.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of
members with a suitable degree of relevant content
and discoursal expertise