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Savannah Sandstrum

Professor Pierson

ENC 1101

1 December 2017

Application of ENC 1101 Concepts to a PSY 2012 Writing Assignment

The purpose of this paper is to apply ENC 1101 course concepts to another classs

writing assignment. General Psychology at UCF has a research requirement for students that

require them to participate in numerous psychological studies done by graduate students or

professors. A student has to earn ten credits (ten hours of research) in order to get credit in the

class for the overall psychology course. Sometimes these studies fill up due to limited research

participant spaces and students are not able to participate; therefore, there is another option for

students to receive research credit, the psychology article summaries.

Community

This type of community is an academic secondary Discourse community in the field of

psychology. The members of this community are the Psychology class members and the

Psychology Department. This is a secondary Discourse community because it fits Gees (1989)

definition of a Discourse, the identity kit a student has after already having a primary Discourse

(pp. 280). Some values of this community are the use of fact-based research to make opinions,

the use of scientific evidence in an argument, as well as the study of an individuals behavior.

These are the values of the course because the syllabus has a list of what to expect from the

professor and class. The language habits of the class are all based on academics and facts from
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the lecture and the textbook that the professor wrote for the class. The class is expected to talk

and write in an academic tone in order to be perceived as being scholarly. The way this

community communicates is mainly through Webcourses or asking questions during the lecture.

These questions mainly pertain to the subject of the course, psychology.

Audience

There are two separate audiences for the writing assignment, the intended audience and

the actual audience. The intended audience for this assignment is researchers or students who are

looking for a summary of a research article. This academic audience expects a concise and

detailed summary of the academic article. This is known by looking at the actual content of the

paper: a summary and a brief opinion. The actual audience, however, is a grader in the

psychology department, not my actual professor, and has different expectations than the intended

audience. According to the rubric, the graders expect a summary and opinion of the article that is

provided in a list, a title page, and 800-1000 words with 75% of the word count a summary and

25% of the word count your own opinion. The rubric is specifically broken down into sections

such as Title Page Requirements, Journal Requirements, Content Requirements. This allows the

student to know what the graders are looking for in order to receive two full credits for the

research requirement. If a student meets all the requirements in the paper, they receive two

credit points. If they do not meet the requirements, then they receive partial credit.

Exigence

Exigencies differ based on different audiences, the intended and the actual. The intended

audiences (researchers and students) exigence, as defined by Grant-Davie (1997) as the

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audience that the writer seems to have in mind, is to find a nonbiased, concise summary of a

psychology article (pp. 497). The actual audiences (the grader in the psychology department)

exigence is to force the student to analyze a psychology article and to make them summarize and

come up with their own opinion of the research. According to the rubric, this assignment also

assesses students ability to examine their ability to explain the content of a journal article.

The exigence of the writing assignment in the students point of view is to fulfill a

research requirement that makes up ten percent of the students General Psychology grade.

Exigencies vary because one piece of writing can be used in diverse ways to fulfill

whatever the audience is looking for in the paper.

Rhetorical Strategies

Rhetorical moves help the writer achieve the exigence of the paper. The rhetorical

strategies used in the article summaries are making separate paragraphs to organize the actual

summary and opinion sections and restating the researchers thesis into your own words. Since

75% of the summary is actual summarization and 25% opinion, it is imperative to have a

conclusion at the end of the students summary that is the only opinion in the entire paper. The

graders are very strict about having exactly 75% summary and 25% opinion. They even calculate

the percentages based on your total amount of summary and opinion; therefore, it is wise to have

750 words of summary and 250 words of opinion to make it easier for them to see how much of

each section you have written. There is no introduction, but your opinion at the end can be

considered a conclusion because you are giving your input on the research that was presented to

you. Another rhetorical move is using Ethos (trust and authority) in the summary by

paraphrasing the article rather than directly quoting. A student is not allowed to directly quote
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because quotes can become lengthy and make up most of the 750 words of summary. Using

Pathos (emotion and beliefs) is another rhetorical move because a student has to use 250 words

to come up with their own opinion. Doug Downs (2017) argues that it is important to not just get

the audience to think about your opinion but how do they feel about it (pp. 472). Logos (logic

and reasoning) is also used in the paper because, in order to persuade the audience of your

opinion about the research article, you have to use logic and reasoning. It is important the ethos,

pathos, logos, is used when writing because the paper is being written to an academic audience.

Lexis

The lexis that is used when writing or talking in this academic secondary Discourse is

mainly scientific terms relating to psychology. While summarizing a research article, a student

might use the terms REM sleep deprivation (when a person lacks REM sleep) or paradoxical

sleep (another term used for REM sleep). This Discourse knows what these two terms mean

after having a basic understanding of general psychology, while other people outside of this

Discourse might not know what the terms mean. Two terms that we also use regularly is

stimulus and response. A stimulus evokes a physiological response in a cell, a tissue,

or an organism. These terms are regularly used because psychology is the study of the

human mind and its functions. A stimulus and a response are how psychologist determine

what is biologically causing a behavior. Deductive reasoning from tables and charts is also

another skill that is mainly used in this Discourse. Being able to interpret psychological data and

make predictions can be difficult if a person does not possess the basic statistical knowledge and

basic psychological terms and events, then it would be hard for them to interpret any data that is
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given in the article. Being able to handle psychological lexis allows the community to

communicate without having to explain to each other what the members are talking about.
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Works Cited

Downs, D. (2017). Rhetoric: Making sense of human interaction and meaning-making. E.

Wardle and D. Downs (Eds.) Writing about writing: A college reader. (pp. 457-483).

Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Gee, J.P. (1989). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics. E. Wardle and D. Downs (Eds.) Writing

about writing: A college reader. (pp. 274-297). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

Grant-Davie, K. (1997). Rhetorical situations and their constituents. E. Wardle and D. Downs

(Eds.) Writing about writing: A college reader. (pp. 487-507). Boston: Bedford/St.

Martins.