Introducing GenreEnglish 112: Tuesday Jan. 16th 2007

Dr. Erika Paterson

taking things for granted • lectures and readings make

assumptions !• prof.s take for granted ways of

reasoning not familiar to you ?#&8!?• what is assumed in one discipline

differs from the next, what each prof. wants in an essay is totally different !? *%$!

• not a very inviting environment : (

The rich resources of academic culture:

• habits of reasoning• styles of writing• ways of asking & addressing questions• habits of attending to the voices

of others

• taking part in the work that research communities do

Giltrow’s Welcome to ......

• no more problems with plagiarism

• no more problem with your ‘own opinion’

• no more problem figuring out what you are suppose to write

• scholarly exchange

• Attention to voices

• scholarly conversation

• orchestrating voices

• Your reading is your writing

o

Giltrow’s Promises ....

Your Reading IS your writing

“As a research author, you will represent your reading, and thereby yourself as a scholar” (Giltrow, Academic Writing, 2005. p x.)

Confused?

Exercise 1 (p.3) : Name the cultural situation

Hearing Voices

Chapter One: Introducing Genre

Hearing Genres

“when we hear different voices we also hear the setting in which they operate (Giltrow 4).

Situation + form = genre“Or, to put it another way, the situation writers find themselves in give rise to genres” (Giltrow

5).Different routines of social behaviour -- habits of acting in the world -- create

different genres of speech and writing” (Giltrow 5).

Knowledge is not universal but culturalGenre suits the cultural

situation

High School Writing

vs Academic Writing “... the school room essay -- in its style -- serves its

situation (Giltrow 8).

The larger functions of the classroom situation according to Giltrow :

•socializing youth•controlling the time of young people•accrediting some, discrediting others•scheduling some students for further education and well paid jobs and others for poorly paid jobs.

So, what is the situation of the university

classroom?• located in research institutions

• the knowledge you are learning is derived from research practice: the routines, habits, and values which motivate scholars to do the work they do.

• “The style of the information students encounter (...) is shaped by the research situations that produced it” (Giltrow 9 emphasis mine).

Chapter 2: Citation & Summary

Initial skepticism over the impact of neighborhood conditions and neighborhood contexts on the behavior of adolescents and young adults (Jencks and Mayer 1990) has spurned considerable research purportedly documenting such effects (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996; Billy, Brewster, and Grady 1994; Corcoran et al. 1992; Elliot et al. 1996; Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson 1994; cf. Evens, Oates, and Swab 1992).Scott J. South and Kyle D. Crowder 1999 “Neighborhood effects on family formation:concentrated poverty and beyond.” American Sociological Review 64: 113 - 32, 113 - 14.

Most of the literature on European and North American intellectual history at the turn of the century emphasizes the problematic and disorienting effects of (as Everdell puts it), “the impossibility of knowing even the simplest things that the nineteenth century took for granted.”11 In fact, the characterization of the period from 1890 to 1914 as an era of pessimism, alienation, and anxiety has become a cliche of intellectual history. In German political thought, Frizt Stern describes a mood of ‘cultural despair”;2 for the social sciences writes Lawrence Scaff, “the central problem appears to be the same in every case; a sense that unified experience lies beyond the grasp of the modern self and that malaise and self-conscious guilt have become inextricably entwined with culture.” 3.

Notes1 William R. Everdell, The First Moderns: Profiles on theOrigins of Twentieth Century Thought (Chicago,1997), 10 - 11.

2 Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of German Ideology (1961; rpt. edn., New York, 1965).

3 Lawrence A. Scaff, Fleeting the Iron Cage: culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Webber (Berkeley, Calf., 1989), 80.

Why is citation so common?

because conveying this knowledge as coming from a particular source gives us a chance to take a position in relation to other people’s positions in the world” (Giltrow 16).

“ ... because much of what we know about the world we learn only from what others have said, and

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci said American officials were given the direct impression that Canada was going to participate in the U.S.-led ballistic missile-defense plan. (Exercise 3 p.19 AW)

Canada was going to participate in the U.S.-led ballistic missile-defense plan.

What happens when you remove reporting expressions ?

Initial skepticism over the impact of neighborhood conditions and neighborhood contexts on the behavior of adolescents and young adults (Jencks and Mayer 1990) has spurned considerable research purportedly documenting such effects (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996; Billy, Brewster, and Grady 1994; Corcoran et al. 1992; Elliot et al. 1996; Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson 1994; cf. Evens, Oates, and Swab 1992)..

Why do Scholars use Citation? (AW:Page: 21)

A stance of uncertainty(AW Page 22)

While a general consensus appears to be emerging that, net of individual and family attributes, at least some neighbourhood characteristics influence these and other life-course events, thus far these studies have generated inconsistent findings regarding the existence, strength, and functional form of neighbourhood effects on marriage and nonmarital childbearing.

While appears

at least

inconsistent findings

Teenagenage parenthood has been a significant social problem in the U.S. since the late 1960’s.The issue is one of individual choice regarding the decision to engage in sexual behavior and to use contraceptive devices. Teenage mothers drop out of school prematurely, are not employed, and become dependent on the government subsidies. Dropping out affects the likelihood of a girl becoming pregnant.

Homework: AW p.37 # 1.Please complete on your journal page for Monday

Have a good weekend!