The most significant or interesting genres that I learned about from my interviewees had to be the (1)lectures that both of them have to create for their classes but also the (2)grant proposals that Dr. Pettygrove has to complete, and the (3)publications on autism that Dr. Pettygrove also helps complete.
2. How do these genres differ from one another? Think about things like genre convention, content, purpose, audience, message, and context as you describe these differences.
These three genres are very different from one another. The lecture is completely different than the grant proposals or the experiments and case studies that Dr. Pettygrove helps to complete. The lectures include information about topics that pertain to the major that the students are looking to pursue. The information contains things that are basic and refer to different things throughout the field of public health. The audience of the lectures compared to the audience of the grant proposals and case studies on autism are also completely different. For the lectures, the audience includes students of all different ages, different levels of education, different levels of interest, and different ideas towards the topic. The audiences of the case study and the grant proposals are completely professional and specific with as to what they are looking for. The students for the lecture know the basis of the information that they will be given, but the professionals that read the grant proposals or go over the case studies know exactly what they are looking for in the publications. They have the same interests and mostly the same education levels on the topic.
The messages of the three different genres are also all different. The message of the lecture is to make sure to plant a solid base of information related to public health subjects in the students' heads. The message of the grant proposals is that the certain researches want to get money from the grant research fund so that something important can be analyzed and experimented on. The message of the case studies is that something was researched and there is information in this publication that explains how it was done and why it is important.
The contexts of these genres are all pretty different as well. Although the overall broad topic of things discussed is the same-public health- the specificity of each genre is completely different and will vary with each time that certain publication is created.
3. Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is challenging and/or difficult about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?
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| Swift, Jonathan. "A Modest Proposal 1729" via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain License. |
The most challenging or difficult thing about writing these genres that I learned about from the two interviewees is the understanding of their audiences. That is what they both seemed to come across the most often. While Dr. Pettygrove deals with very picky people who decide whether or not her colleagues deserve a grant funding. She mentioned that it is hard to include everything necessary for the understanding of the research that would be done and used wisely with the grant money if they got it. However, if she doesn't follow the instructions and page limit and word limit exactly as the grant funders want it, then her grant proposal is thrown away and never looked at.
The most challenging thing that Yvonne Bueno discussed with me about her professional writing was the papers that she has to write up each time she is with a client. The paper has to include everything that she and the patient did in that session and make sure that everything is clear to the parents but also that she includes everything that is necessary for the insurance to cover. If she doesn't make the information clear enough for the parents, then the parents won't know how to help their children at home or know if they are improving in their OT sessions at all. If Bueno doesn't include the correct terminology for the insurance companies to understand, then the patients might be charged for things that they shouldn't have been or something else could happen that would be inconvenient to either the patient or the insurance company (or both).
4. Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is exciting and/or rewarding about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?
Based on the information that I gathered in my interviews, I learned that the most exciting this and rewarding writing that is done within these writing genres is the feeling of being published, and the feeling of knowing that the patient has improved.
In Dr. Pettygrove's case, the feeling of finishing a case study or a grant proposal or a giant research project, knowing that the final project has been published is her biggest accomplishment. After working so hard throughout the year with so many colleagues, she has something great to prove that all of that work finally paid off. All of the night spent editing and the days that she travelled all the way to Phoenix in order to complete the research that could only be done in Maricopa County was her rewarding part of the professional writing side of her career at the University of Arizona.
For Yvonne Bueno, the most rewarding thing about professional writing in her career is seeing how her patients have improved over time after working with her. Since she has to write everything that was done between her and her patient and how her patient reacted or did something, she gets to see their improvements, and how happy and proud they are of themselves when they know they finally did something right. The feeling of accomplishment through her writing to explain to the parents of the patient what their child did that was so amazing is her reward of writing.
5. Where in mass media - popular, academic, and/or social - can examples of this genre be found? If genre examples cannot be found within mass media easily, where can genre examples be found/located?
Lectures can be found wherever on the internet I would assume if you are a student and have access to the professor's webpage. Or, there are TED talks that are pretty much lectures that cover all sorts of subjects. Those can be found on YouTube. Otherwise, lectures are usually attended by people in person. It is usually found in school or in offices.
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| Boekentoren Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent. "20100830_igelu_100". 08/30/10 via Flicker. Creative Commons Generic License. |
Grant proposals would not necessarily be found on the internet. However, I am sure that they could be found on certain scientific websites. There are plenty of examples that are accessible if you simply type in "grant proposals". However, I obviously was not given an example or a copy of a grant proposal. Since they are so professional, I think that the proposals only go to the people who work at the company that supplies the researchers the grant fundings.
Case studies on autism can be found in libraries, on journals, e-journals, the internet, anywhere! As long as the audience knows what exactly he/she wants to learn about, the case studies are most always applicable for the public eye to see once the research essay has been published.
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