Questions for Discussion and Journaling
Read “Disciplinary Discourses” and answer the following questions.
1.
Hyland’s work is meaningful only if you remember and understand that all written practices are rhetorical and constructed (ideas discussed in detail in the Introduction to this book and Chapter 3). In one or two paragraphs, explain what this means.
2.
If written practices are rhetorical and constructed, they demonstrate values and conventions of a Discourse (James Gee’s term), discourse community (John Swales’s term), or activity system (Kain and Wardle’s term) as outlined in Chapter 2. Explain how written practices can demonstrate a community’s values or conventions, and give several examples from your own experiences.
3.
Hyland argues that, in their research articles, scholars try to be persuasive by making rhetorical moves such as “making a suitable level of claim” or acknowledging previous research conducted by other scholars. How do these persuasive rhetorical moves differ from what you are used to thinking of as “persuasive” writing? Do you agree with Hyland that citing previous research can be considered an attempt to be persuasive? Find an example of some of these persuasive moves in articles in this textbook, and explain how they are persuasive even if they don’t immediately appear intended to persuade.
4.
Because every piece of researched data can be interpreted differently, academic researchers make some common rhetorical moves in their writing in order to try to persuade other scholars that their interpretation is the most effective one. Explain what a few of these rhetorical moves are, and try to find some examples of them in articles you have read in this textbook.