English 215 Duerden Spring 2005
http://www.public.asu.edu/~atsjd
English 215
Assignment Two: Comparing and Contrasting the Disciplines
Composing Schedule
First Draft: Fri Mar. 4th
Second Draft: Mon Mar. 7th
Polished Draft Due: Fri Mar. 11th
The Assignment
Problem
Many students at ASU do not understand that in academia, how and what we write depends on
the discipline our major belongs to. As you can imagine, this causes students a number of
problems. For example, they do not understand why an article for their behavioral psychology
class looks more like a lab report from the sciences. Likewise, when it comes to writing their
own papers, they are confused because they cannot write their lab reports in the same style and
format that they use to write papers in their English literature classes. They fail to realize that
each discipline is a discourse community, a community that has its own way of researching and
writing that differs from other discourse communities. As noted rhetorician James Porter
explains:
A "discourse community" is a group of individuals bound by a common interest
who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is
regulated...[The community] shares assumptions about what objects are
appropriate for examination and discussion, what operating functions are
performed on those objects, what constitutes "evidence" and "validity," and what
formal conventions are followed. (38-39)
Porter, James E. "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community." Rhetoric Review 5.1 (1986):
34-47.
Solution
The Writing Center at ASU has asked you to write an article that they could give to incoming
students who make use of their services. The article should give students an overview of the
three broad disciplines in the university: the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and the
sciences. It will explain
 what each discipline is,
 what majors make up that discipline,
 what people in that discipline study, how they make knowledge in that discipline (that is
what kinds of questions they ask—methods of inquiry, what types of research they
conduct, how previous scholarship affects what they research and so on
 the interpretive features of that discipline (how they interpret the research and what
constitutes evidence)
 the types or genres of papers typically written in the discipline
 the style manual (MLA, APA, CBC and so on) that members of the discipline use
 and the typical stylistic features of the writing that is done in that discipline.
Therefore, you will discuss the three disciplines and to illustrate those differences and
similarities, you will draw on three discipline-specific texts to provide examples in your paper.
Your Writing Task:
Therefore, for this assignment, you will write a synthesis essay of five to seven pages that
compares the similarities and differences you've discovered about how these disciplines work
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English 215 Duerden Spring 2005
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with and write about the issue of gender difference. To write this essay, you will need to
consider the following questions: What perspectives do professionals in these disciplines take
when examining this issue? How do they go about researching the issue? How do they present
their findings to other professionals and/or to the public? Remember that a clear, succinct and
nicely detailed paper is your goal
Your Readers:
Your readers are ASU students who are taking classes in the various disciplines at ASU and
who need an overview to understand the three disciplines. Since your audience is new students
who have gone for help in the Writing Center, they will know very little about the disciplines. So
be sure to explain yourself carefully and define terms you think they may not know. They will
also need a brief introduction to the subject of the articles you use as illustrations in your
discussion.
Goals:
1. First, you will learn how and what professionals in various academic disciplines research
and write about a particular issue or concern.
2. You will engage the steps of creating a researched essay, this time using articles from
various academic journals as sources.
3. You will develop your skills of writing an informative argument and working in groups
4. You will learn to synthesize multiple texts
5. You will learn what makes a text discipline-specific
6. You will be able to draw some conclusions about the different disciplines
Your response to the assignment should, at minimum:
 Define the three disciplines and discuss what majors make up that discipline
 Compare the three texts in terms of methods of inquiry
 Compare the three texts in terms of interpretive conventions
 Compare the three texts in terms of writing and stylistic conventions
 Use concrete examples from the texts to illustrate what you say
 Have a clear thesis and organizational pattern
 Have a reference page—this time we will use APA as our style manual. See Owl
Purdue’s online handout on APA:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_apa.html
Organization
This is a comparison contrast synthesis, so you will need to think carefully about how you
organize your material. You are comparing and contrasting the three disciplines, the sciences,
the social sciences, and the humanities. The easiest way to organize this is probably by criteria.
See page 233-242 of A Sequence for Academic Writing for more discussion of how this kind of
organization works. You will need the following:

an introduction that clearly addresses the audience, students new to the university,
which briefly explains that knowledge/majors at the university are organized into the
three disciplines and that each of these disciplines is its own discourse community.

A paragraph explaining that because each discipline is its own discourse community, it
will approach a common topic such as gender differences in very different ways. In the
social sciences, scholars will do x, in the sciences scholars will do y, and in the
humanities scholars will do z. Then introduce the three articles you are going to draw
from to illustrate the similarities and differences. In other words, briefly describe what
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English 215 Duerden Spring 2005
http://www.public.asu.edu/~atsjd
the articles are about, give the titles and authors, say where they were published and so
on.

Now you will need criteria (for example overall subjects of each discipline, types of
research they conduct, how they use prior scholarship and so on). For each criterion,
you should compare/contrast the three disciplines and use the articles to illustrate what
you mean.

Do bring your paper to a close with some kind of conclusion that addresses your reader.
Articles for Assignment Two
Use these three articles in your assignment to illustrate the different disciplines.
1. The Social Sciences Article from Academic Search Premier (EBSCO)
http://0search.epnet.com.library.lib.asu.edu:80/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=14229900
Colley, Ann, Todd Zazie, Michael Holmes, Nuzibun Khanom, and Hannah Pike. “Style and
Content in E-Mails and Letters of Male and Female Friends.” Journal of Language and
Social Psychology 23:3 (2004): 369-379.
This study examined gender differences in the style and content of e-mails and letters sent
to friends on the topic of how time had been spent in the previous summer Gender
differences were found in both style and content supporting previous findings that female
communication is more relational and expressive than that of males and focuses more upon
personal and domestic topics. Women used the less formal stylistic conventions of e-mails
to signal excitability in different ways to their male and female friends, whereas men ended
their communications in a more relational way to their female than their male friends, and
the nature of this difference varied according to the type of communication used.
[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
2. The Science Article from Elsevier Science Direct
doi:10.1016/S1053-8119(03)00313-6
Dubb, Abraham, Ruben Gur, Brian Avants, & James Gee. “Characterization of Sexual
Dimorphism in the Human Corpus Callosum.” NeuroImage 20.1(2003): 512-519.
Abstract
Despite decades of research, there is still no agreement over the presence of genderbased morphologic differences in the human corpus callosum. We approached the
problem using a highly precise computational technique for shape comparison. Starting
with a prospectively acquired sample of cranial MRIs of healthy volunteers (age ranges
18–84), the variations of individual callosa are quantified with respect to a reference
callosum shape in the form of Jacobian determinant maps derived from the geometric
transformations that map the reference callosum into anatomic alignment with the
subject callosa. Voxelwise t tests performed over the determinant values demonstrated
that females had a larger splenium than males (P < 0.001 uncorrected for multiple
comparisons) while males possessed a larger genu (P < 0.001). In addition, pointwise
Pearson plots using age as a correlate showed a different pattern of age-related
changes in male and female callosa, with female splenia tending to expand more with
age, while the male genu tended to contract. Our results demonstrate significant
morphologic differences in the corpus callosum between genders and a possible sex
difference in the neuro-developmental cycle.
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English 215 Duerden Spring 2005
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3. This Arts and Humanities Article from the Literature Resource Center
http://0www.galenet.com.library.lib.asu.edu/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&locID=asuniv&srchtp=kywrd&c=1
&stab=2048&ste=43&tbst=ksrch&tab=2&KA=Authenticity%2C+convention%2C+and+%27Br
idget+Jones%27s+Diary%27&n=10&docNum=A75833109&bConts=2050
Case, Alison. “Authenticity, Convention, and Bridget Jones's Diary.” Narrative 9 .2: (2001):
176-181.
Abstract
In this paper, I would like to explore the relationships among three things: 1. the narrative
technique of the recent popular novel, Bridget Jones's Diary; 2. that novel's claim to
"authenticity" as the voice of women of a particular generation and situation and 3. the
convention of "feminine narration" I have argued operated in the eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury British novel. I will suggest, in short, that 1 and 2 are linked by 3: that is, that the
novel's "authenticity-effect" is in part produced by its adherence to a venerable novelistic
convention of narrative femininity.
Heuristics
1. Write a list of conventions and features you find in the social sciences and use the article
from your textbook, “Coyote Food Habits” to illustrate those conventions and features.
2. Write a list of conventions and features you find in the humanities and use the article
from your textbook “Masters of Desire” to help you illustrate those conventions and
features.
3. First complete the chart “Comparing the Disciplines” which we looked at in class using
the work we have done so far on each discipline. Then add relevant examples and
quotations from each of the three articles to the chart and document them in the APA
style. In this way, you will have a visual map that will help you plan your paper. Then
write up your APA reference page.
4. Before you try to form a thesis, draft an introduction. Look back at the assignment sheet
to see what should be in the introduction and make a list of things you need to include.
At the end of your introduction, you should add your thesis. Based on your chart, you
should be able to formulate a thesis about the three disciplines and how they operate.
Of course the three disciplines are very different, but there are some similarities. Before
you formulate your thesis, reread the chart on p. 117. Try to formulate a thesis that
indicates in what ways the disciplines differ and where they are similar. Make sure that
I see your introduction and thesis in class or in my office hours on Wed March 2nd.
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