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Marissa Morlock
ENC 1101
Professor Leslie Wolcott
12 November 2014
Discourse Communities
The book Writing about Writing is composed of professors sharing how they have
researched other writers, which will eventually help college students in their futures. This book is
a discourse community itself, and its purpose is to attempt to bring college students into its
discourse community by helping them understand their Discourse. This textbook has succeeded
in introducing me to its discourse community. After reading about many of the writers studies, I
found an improvement in my writing in just a short time. In addition to improvements in my
writing, I can think of some ways that learning about people studying writing can help me with
my future career of nursing. With all of the writers in this textbook being part of a single
discourse community, they have effectively taught me various ways that discourse communities
can be beneficial to ones writing and career. Studying this text and applying it to my major has
helped me have a better understanding on the concept of discourse communitites.
Discourse communities can always be debated on whether they are actually qualified as a
discourse community or not. People who study writing in the book Writing about Writing,
have many qualifications as to why they are in fact a discourse community. James Gee, a linguist
at the Southern University of California, explored the concept of Discourse in his work in social
linguistics. Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate
words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body
positions, and clothes (Gee 6-7). The professors who write in the book, Writing about
Writing, acquire each of these characteristics similarly as a whole. These writers have their own

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language, values, beliefs, etc., and they are different from someone who is not part of their
discourse community. In Gees writing, he explains the concept of Discourse which is different
from a discourse community. They are related in a sense that to be in a discourse community,
you must master the Discourse. To become part of a discourse community, you cannot just
simply learn the material from a lecture, but you must practice along with those who are part of
the discourse community. I believe this is true in the case of this book because becoming one of
these writers would take a lot more than sitting in a classroom setting. Although I am not part of
their discourse community, I have been introduced to it and have learned a lot about it
throughout this course. I did not do this by just learning in a classroom alone, but I also
conducted my own research on writing about my own writing, and did my own rhetorical
analysis. This proves that one must practice along with those of a discourse community in order
to enter it.
John Swales, a professor of linguistics, received his PhD from Cambridge University and
possesses a career in linguistics. According to Swales six criteria of a discourse community, all
discourse communities have an agreed set of common public goals (Swales 220). The professors
in this book all have a common public goal of researching how people write in order to help
college students benefit from their studies in some way. Another one of Swales criteria states
that a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant
content and discoursal expertise (Swales 222). In order to enter the discourse community of
professional writers and researchers, the threshold level is held at an extremely high level. These
people who have been put in this book to teach college students must have some type of
credibility. Their credibility is built by their high level of expertise and education on the subjects
of researching and writing.

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Students not only benefit from this book by improving their writing, but it can also be
beneficial to many students including myself in life after they graduate college. By studying how
writers research other writers, students can better learn all of the components of what makes a
good writer. Students are able to see what writers do wrong, and how to improve these mistakes.
Knowledge of discourse communities allows writers to know the correct language style to use in
their writings. For example, what one might write in a tweet to their friends would be drastically
different from what they will send in an email to a professor. The understanding of a discourse
community is more than just knowing who the audience is for a paper. With this knowledge the
writer will know which specific words to use, and what the audience will already know.
The understanding of the concept of discourse communities will help me throughout my
career of nursing. Nurses are all part of a discourse community. Each discourse community has
their own preference of linguistics and writing styles. Being aware of these customs in the
nursing discourse community will allow me to fit in and succeed in my career. For example, their
specific lexis will include many anatomical terms that I will be expected to know. Just by
knowing how a discourse community works will give me an advantage because I will know how
to work effectively in one. All nurses share a common public goal of trying to nurse the patients
back to health. The textbook has helped me understand that the only way to become a successful
nurse by joining their discourse community is to physically practice being a nurse. For example,
this will encourage me to acquire an internship in this field.
Although discourse communities can be very controversial, I have proven with several
points that the compositionists included in Writing about Writing are in fact a discourse
community. The writers that make up this textbook have introduced me, along with many other
college writers, to their discourse community. These writers had a goal of helping college

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students improve their writing by teaching them how they have researched other writers. Just
after I read the first excerpt from this book, Shitty First Drafts, I had noticed that what I
learned from Anne Lamott had already assisted me in transforming into a better writer. The
concept of learning how professionals research writers to become a better writer may sound
insignificant and challenging, but it is most definitely rewarding to ones writing abilities. After
learning about discourse communities and their importance, I have learned of many ways that
this concept can help me in my writing and career of nursing.

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Works Cited
Gee, James. Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction. Writing About Writing: A
College Reader. Ed. John E. Sullivan III. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 481-495.
Print.

Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." 1990. Writing About Writing. By
Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Warldle and Downs, 2014. 215-29.
Print.