February 2021

This research essay should inform you more about the discourse community I have chosen to look further into and how communication is important to the unity of a community. I feel like the readers would be those looking further into a group like this, and are interested in joining.

I planned out a loose timeline with room to change up how long something might take me and I planned out a loose outline of what details I was going to use, then I gathered my information and shifted it around as I went to make it make sense.

I first went through finding websites and quotes from my secondary sources, then put them in my running details list. Then, I put everything into a text that flowed into coherent text and then into sections. I faced decisions on how I needed to set up my paper having never written an essay like this so I had to go and see the student papers to try and improve it.

Comments from my peers were helpful, I caught some more random grammar and spelling issues, and got to add a few more details I should’ve had and didn’t, and having your comments reassured me I was really doing things right.

For my draft, I tried to include information that was at its core the most relevant to the group I was talking about. I left out some information that did not matter that much to things like the core of the history of the group. I made these decisions by continually relating every new piece of information I found back to the assignment on hand.

Some steps I took to research in this draft were to first decide who I was going to write about, then compile several informational sites and quotes from my secondary texts and put it into a doc to later transfer into my longer writing. Then I arranged and rearranged the bits of research into flowing text.

I assumed this group would be pretty easy to research considering what a following their cause has around the world. In reality, it was a little confusing to gather substantial sounding evidence. I feel I did not have many biases about the cause itself having not thought much about a group like this before.

I had to make sure all my sources were legitimate, and not just any random website I found off of google. By using previously learned source vetting techniques, this was not hard. Making claims and supporting them with my evidence proves easy if you have well-backed-up sources.

I am still looking for an interview to continue my research. My chosen group has not reached back out to me, so I may have to switch directions.

You Better Think Before You Spit is done very well. The paper goes into detail about the community without being too long, it seems well researched and keeps information concise, and says what is important without the reader becoming overwhelmed with information. I like the way the paper is formatted into clear chunks of information with headers attached.

The Puerto Rican Student Association: A Community Identity Analysis is also done very well. Unlike Spit, it is formatted more like an essay with less bold headers and longer paragraphs. I would prefer the blocks of text to be split up more, but I do not think it takes away from the quality of this writing. I like that there are photos about how information is given to members. The language is a little less formal, but I like it, it seems to be easier to understand, which is important when the reader is probably not a part of the organization.

You Better Think Before You Spit Sources:

Johns, Ann M. “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict,
and Diversity.” Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies, 1997, pp. 498-
510.

Glatch, Sean. Personal interview.

Spit “About” page on Facebook

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing, vol.1, 2010, pp. 249-
262.

The Puerto Rican Student Association: A Community Identity Analysis Sources

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.”

Johns, Ann M. “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict,
and Diversity.”

Puerto Rican Student Association. “Constitution of Puerto Rican Student Association.” PRSA at UCF

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.”

As a writer, I don’t consider myself an expert, but I think I am fairly knowledgeable about writing. However, I definitely have so much to learn. Skills like writing are that kind of thing that you never truly stop learning how to be good at.

I felt successful as a writer last semester when I turned in my last papers and received good grades on them. I felt so scared that my previous teachers were just being nice to me and giving me good grades, and then when I got to college I would absolutely tank every one I wrote. I was so happy when I did everything correctly all semester.

This semester I would like to improve my research skills, and my abilities to write different kinds of essays.

I’m not really sure what I’d like help on. Maybe just being more coherent?

I usually like to have clear written instructions and deadlines, but luckily there already is that, so I don’t really have anything else to detail. 🙂