Emely Lopez

Writing 2
1/28/19
Cover Letter? Formatted: Left

Functionality of Genre within a Discourse Community

Picture this: it’s your school’s winter play production and you’re behind a wall, onstage.

It’s dark and you’re waiting for your cue to go switch the potted plant in the corner of the set

you’ve built and put a stool in its place, all in under a few seconds. You hear the other stagehand

behind you frantically say “Someone left a prop on stage, stage right downstage, someone go get

it,” into their headset. You know if it’s left onstage it will be directly in the way of another

stagehand on the other side. Faintly, you see a disembodied hand shoot out and grab whatever

prop was left, but it was so quick and that you only noticed because you were looking. The light

dims onstage; that’s your cue, so you walk out, quickly replace the plant with the stool, and half-

run back backstage as quietly and quickly as possible. This is the life of a theater technician. Commented [MOU1]: A great hook! Nice job, Emely.
What I liked about it is that you were able to create a
suspense: will this technician put away that plant or
We were prompted to choose and analyze a non-academic discourse community that we not? Great.

are, or are planning to be, a part of here at school. While I am currently not participating in any

non-academic discourse communities, I have been interested in joining the technical theater

discourse community here at UCSB. I was a part of the technical theater community back in

high school and have been speaking to the people in charge of the UCSB program for a while to Commented [MOU2]: I would move this sentence up
and make it a topic sentence because it would connect
these paragraphs nicely.
see if I can join the one here. The two primary textual genres that this community uses in order

to function are scripts in order to get things done, and emails in order to communicate. Commented [MOU3]: This is a good start but this
statement needs a bit more work. It needs to be
connected to the previous sentence.
What exactly is a discourse community? One of the first things that Swales makes a

point of stressing is that not every community is a discourse community, hence the six criteria he

developed to identify one as such: 1) A common set of public goals that every member

shares/works towards realizing, 2) A method of intercommunication between members, anything

Emely Lopez
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from pamphlets to emails, 3) Members must be active and participating in order to be considered

a part of the discourse community, 4) The community must utilize different genres in order to get

more exposure, 5) The community must have special jargon that only active members

understand, and 6) Within the community, there must be a “reasonable ratio between novices and

experts” (Swales, p.25-27). If the community meets all six criteria, or the majority of, it can be

considered a discourse community.

With regard to Swales’s criteria, tThe UCSB technical theater community meets all six

criteria in that 1) the common goal for all members is to ensure that the productions are well-

managed and enjoyable for the audience, 2) members are able to communicate with each other

via email, 3) you can’t not participate if you are involved because every member has a vital role

in the production of a play, 4) the community itself has a website that you can visit, and regularly

goes out to recruit new members and gain more exposure for itself, 5) during a play, members

use jargon in order to communicate- while the jargon is not necessarily kept a secret from the

world, most people don’t bother to learn what it means, and 6) the more a member works, the

more experience they gain and the more qualified they end up being in order to “mentor” a new

member.

A script is the physical text that describes how a play is meant to be produced. It Commented [MOU4]: transition

provides not only dialogue and stage directions for the actors, but also for the crew and directors.

In this community, a script is used as a way to determine what kind of props will be needed,

what kind of sets must be built, what sound effects we should use (if any), what the lighting
Commented [MOU5]: because you’ve already used “a
script” several times, it might be more effective to
should look like, etc., during a production. A script is vital for the production of a play, for both replace it with a synonym/different word. For instance,
“this text” or something like that.
cast and crew. The target audience for this genre, therefore, is only the cast and the crew. The Commented [MOU6]: To develop this paragraph, you
can add information about the organization of the
script. Or provide a specific example of instructions that
audience is meant to be enjoying the end result of the script, and it is the job of everyone are given in the script.
Commented [MOU7]: This is a new idea.
Emely Lopez
Writing 2
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working on the production to ensure that the script is followed and the end result is enjoyable.

While sometimes a script may not be followed exactly; an actor may forget a line and ad-lib, or

the crew’s budget isn’t enough for an expensive prop therefore another thing is used in its place,

the genre of a script is generally very effective in getting a basic idea across for the actors and

the crew to interpret and make their own. While the concept of a script is widely known and

understood, the actual function of a script is only deeply understood by those who interact with

it. Commented [MOU8]: More specific examples.

Another genre often used by the technical theater community is email. Email is located

in cyberspace and is a well-understood concept by the majority of the world: it is used as a quick

way to communicate between people. For the most part, the technical theater community uses Commented [MOU9]: You can include this information
but today almost everybody knows what it is.
emailing as one of the primary methods of communication. Usually, the people who participate

in this genre are the person in charge and the members of the program; generally, it’s the person

in charge answering a question that someone had for him. As an example of the way that

emailing is used in this community, I will use an email chain between myself and the person in

charge of running the program. We began to email because I had expressed interest in the

program as soon as I heard about it and had signed myself up in order to get more information.

We sent a total of eight8 emails, and every email exchanged between us included more and more

information about both the program and ourselves (so that we could determine when we were

available for a proper meeting). The person in charge told me that he’s usually very busy and

because of that he usually only used email as a way to quickly communicate with members and

potential members; he also said that when the members of the community are not having a face-

to-face meeting, usually important information is exchanged via email. Below is an excerpt

taken directly from our email exchange:

Emely Lopez
Writing 2
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“I understand you've expressed your interest in learning more and or helping me out.

Thank you so much for your interest!

I am not presently hiring new employees but I do hire new employees regularly based on

department needs. If you have relevant experience please feel free to send me your resume or

just tell me about your experience via email.” Commented [MOU10]: This is a good description of
what your email exchange was about. Now let’s
analyze these emails. How were they organized? How
Email as a genre is unique in that both the author and the audience can swap places: you become did you address this person? How did he address you?
Did he use formal language? Terminology? What about
an author as soon as you reply to the email sent to you. Therefore the relationship with the you? Etc.

audience depends on the relationship between the two participants. Email as a genre is generally

effective in getting its point across; people tend to be well aware of who they are conversing with

and adjust their type of writing to fit the context (first order vs. second order) (Bunn, How to

Read Like a Writer). Email in this community plays a vital role in keeping it alive.

The two textual genres mainly used in this community, scripts and email, at first seem

drastically different in that they both have different locations, both have different purposes

within the community, and both are written in very different styles. Respectively, one is a

physical paper used by the community as a guideline to produce a play and ensure that it’s good,

written using dialogue and stage directions, full of terminology and employing the usage of

italics and bolding; the other is located in cyberspace and is used by the community to

communicate important information and make sure that every member is kept up-to-date on the

information they need, written by anyone who has a question or pertinent information to share

with the community and shared between anyone who has access to the email addresses and is

included. One thing that these two genres share in common, however, is that they are both vital

for the community to survive and continue to operate the way that it has been operating for years.

As mentioned before, part of Swales’ criteria for a community to be considered a “discourse

Emely Lopez
Writing 2
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community” is that the community actively use different genres for different purposes: for more

exposure, for efficient communication, etc. The functionality of these genres are what make the

discourse community fail or thrive.

Works cited?

Name: Emely Lopez Grade: 8/10

Criteria Needs more work Strong
Opening: the paper is introduced appropriately for the assignment
so that the reader is clear about the writer’s intention.

Appropriate context is provided.

The writer has encouraged a reader’s interest.

The thesis is clear and appropriate for the assignment.

Readability—organization, clarity, cohesion, and flow: the

ideas are organized and structured in a manner appropriate for
the assignment

The student shows skill and knowledge of transitions and bridge

building to help the reader follow the flow of ideas.

Paragraphs are unified around one idea and one point.

Sentences are constructed and arranged effectively to show

variety, clarity, and concision.

Word choice is precise, clear, effective, appropriate, and

interesting.
Development: the ideas and points are clearly and appropriately
developed with sufficient details so as to show depth of thought
and ability to link generalizations and main points with specific
support.

Development goes beyond restating others’ words and work and

includes the writer’s own analysis and explanation/reasoning.

Outside sources are accurately and honestly introduced,

quoted, paraphrased, summarized, integrated, and
documented.
Closing: the piece of writing is concluded in a way that is
appropriate for the purpose and audience (closing statement)
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Writing 2
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The conclusion provides coherence with the intention noted in
the introduction and the support provided in the development of
the piece of writing.

Writing conventions—compassion and consideration for the

reader: shows care in revising, editing, and proofreading so as to
eliminate most problems with standard English usage, syntax,
punctuation, spelling, and grammar. Although the reader might
encounter an occasional error, there should be no pattern of errors;
shows precise and consistent adherence to documentation
conventions when outside sources are used.