Coaches Can Read Too

Establishing the Territory-
When establishing a territory for a discourse community discussion, it's important to give a brief introduction into the background of how the discourse community operates. For Sean Branick, his discourse community is within himself and other football coaches.  He states that the coaches he works with come from everyday guys to "legends".  For me, when I introduce my topic of executive councils within a sorority, there isn't much background I can discuss other than just some basic terms and regulations on how we operate.

Establishing a Niche-
I looked back on what Swales described this section as and it's when an author "makes a claim or says their purpose".  To me this means what they are trying to convey as far as a message goes regarding their discourse community.  In this case, it's Branick and other football coaches.  He states that there is a lot of behind the scenes things that coaches go through in order to make them sucessful and it is often overlooked.  Going into my ethnography, the main topic of discussion is authority. It's totally overlooked how strict a sorority operates and being the voice of authority over women the same age as you is extremely stressful.  It also leads into the stereotypical discussion of how many may think a sorority is only about partying, when I know first hand, a social event cannot happen without careful revision and planning form myself and advisors.

Occupying a Niche-
Here in this section, is where the research question is to be explained and drawn out with a claim.  Branick does this by talking about attributes necessary to be a good football coach.  All this takes place in the last paragraph of the introduction.

Learning to Serve

Through reading Tony Mirabelli's article surrounding the topic of restaurant management, his main research question is defined through the quote "what is a menu and what does it mean to have a literate understanding of one."  Reading a menu in a restaurant is different for the customers than it is actual staff.  There is more to it because it's a literate function within that discourse community.  It's the major form of textual interaction through restaurant employees and customers they are serving.  He wants to understand the source it seems like.

He went about collecting his data through being an actual waiter at the restaurant so he could have first hand experiences with interaction and behaviors between customers and staff.  Through the data he collected, he measured customer participation, interaction dates, he had field notes he took between serving and also interviewed individual customers. The data he did collect helps to explain that a menu is more than just a means by which you order food.  It's it's own genre.  A lot goes into making a menu and if its difficult to read, it ruins the whole aspect of a restaurant and the customer's satisfaction. The conversation a customer has with the staff is the whole point of how a restaurant is suppose to function.  It's hugely important and without it, communication fails and lacks.

Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Work Places

In the article, "Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Work Places", Elizabeth Wardle talks about three techniques people use to join new communities to have a sense of belonging.  She describes these new members as "newcomers" and the three ways they try to belong to a community are by engagement, imagination and alignment.  Engagement is probably the most important out of the three, where a newcomer becomes familiar with their new discourse community by engaging with older members of the community.  It is a sense of respect and it also makes the newcomers come out of their shells and force them to prove themselves to the community.  An example of this for me might be, new members of my sorority coming to the house and getting to know the in-house women.  The sophomores act as their big sisses so they get to know them very well, but they never have a chance to really bond with us, the juniors so we always welcome them if they want to stop by and talk.  It shows us they're in our sorority for the right reasons and that they're also friendly girls.

The second way newcomers become accepted into a discourse community is through imagination.  Wardle explains that imagination expands experiences you partake in and also the way you conduct yourself as a person.  It makes for a well-rounded person and you also create new images of the world around you.  Without imagination the world might be very close-minded so the members of the discourse community look for someone creative.  If you aren't imaginative, I don't think you would even think about joining a new one. An example I can think of with this, was when I first went out of my executive board position of event planning.  It is the most demanding for being creative and having an imagination.  It was scary thinking I would be taking the shoes of another member, but with my hard work and determination, I used imagination to help me make decisions and make events much more fun.  I got a lot of praise and no longer felt that I wasn't going to be a good predecesor.

And lastly, Wardle says the third way to become accepted by a discourse community is through alignment.  Alignment is sort of like becoming knowledgable about how the community works and accepting that.  It's like following the rules almost.  When a member first joins a discourse community, the must align their old ways with the new ways of how the group works.  The best example of this for me was when I was a new member.  I had no idea a sorority did so many things and operated so intensely.  I changed a lot about my work ethic (in a positive way) and point of view of everything.  I did all this so I could have a smooth transition of being initiated and I also wanted all my new sisters to like me.

Any discourse community faces these three ways newcomers come about.  Everyone is a newcomer at some point.  Some never make it because they don't approach a community the correct way, and some do and flourish and become the next leaders.  It all depends on whether or not they were meant to be apart of it or not.