In Dan Melzer's "Understanding Discourse Communities," the concept of discourse

communities is explained. Melzer begins the article with a personal example about joining a
guitar jam group in Sacramento, California that he met through the Meetup.com site. This
example is used throughout the article to elaborate on what a discourse community is. Melzer
states that writing teachers and scholars have defined a discourse community as, "a community
of people who share the same goals, the same methods of communicating, the same genres, and
the same lexis (specialized language)" (Melzer 102). The six different features of discourse
communities are unfolded throughout the article in more detail using the guitar jam group
example. In addition, Melzer elucidates why the idea of discourse communities is important in
college writing. The courses taken for the various academic disciplines are each their own
discourse community. The teacher or professor acts as a frontman for the discourse community
of their particular subject matter. Melzer shows discourse communities from the standpoint of an
undergraduate student at a university that, "[he] was a new member of their discourse
communities, and they were introducing [him] to the genres and conventions of their disciplines"
(Melzer 106). The prompt of a document-based question is presented to show another example
of discourse communities, but, through the lens of a historian. As well as, a course description
that includes what students are meant to get out of the course and how they will achieve it. As an
undergraduate student, the main elements within discourse communities provide the structure for
writing such as, "which genres are most important, what counts as evidence, how arguments are
constructed, and what style is most appropriate and effective." (Melzer 109). Understanding the
discourse community in a particular field will not always come naturally and can take some
getting used to.
The main idea of this article is to get students, especially undergraduate students, to understand
the concept of discourse communities and its importance, and how it affects college writing,
specifically in English and history, but, also how it can be seen in everyday life.
Questions:
1. In what ways do we see discourse communities overlap?
2. Are there challenges or benefits associated with navigating multiple discourse communities? If
so, what are they?
Works Cited:
Melzer, Dan. “Writing Spaces.” Writing Spaces, writingspaces.org/past-volumes/grammar-
rhetoric-and-style/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2023.