Running head: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER GOES HERE
Title of Your Paper Goes Here
Your Name Goes Here
19 November 2012
English 1301
Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi
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TITLE OF YOUR PAPER GOES HERE
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Title of Your Paper Goes Here
Welcome to your Project 3: Ethnography of a Discourse Community sample paper. Begin
typing your introduction here. Remember that your introduction needs to follow John Swales’
CARs Model (pp. 6-8 in WAW) or in the handout from class. You need to establish the territory
you will discuss (discourse community/ethnography – cite scholars here), establish your niche
(the discourse community you have focused on through your own ethnographic research), and
occupy your niche (construct a thesis statement that answers the question: What are the goals and
characteristics of this discourse community?).
Methods
Don’t freak out – that bold heading up there is a nifty thing in APA called headings.
There are multiple levels of headings that you can use to organize your paper. For this paper, you
will most likely only get to level two – but I have also included a level three in case you need it.
Think of these headings as levels within an outline – the I, II, III, then points 1, 2, 3; those points
might have a, b, c, etc. You can also create multiple paragraphs within a heading, sub-heading;
just be sure to indent.
You could use a level two heading in the Methods section to differentiate between
observation, interview(s), survey(s), and/or data collection. If you chose to do this, you would
use this paragraph (the one I am typing in currently) to discuss your overall approach to this
research – for instance, that it is ethnographic. You can cite the PowerPoint from the CASA
Writing Center on your References page if needed. CASA Writing Center would be your author,
the date is included on your handout, and the title would be the title of the presentation. You can
cite in text (CASA, 2012). You can also research outside sources to supplement your paper
(using your expert research skills!)
TITLE OF YOUR PAPER GOES HERE
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Observation
This is a level 2 heading – a sub-point of the Methods section. This is commonly how
scientific research reports are formatted. You have probably done something similar in a lab
report. You will use the Methods section to discuss how you did these methods of your research.
You will elaborate on your findings in the Results and Findings section.
Interviews
You can use as many or as few headings as needed for your paper. If you needed you to
discuss a topic within a sub-topic, you would use a level three heading, as seen below. I would
recommend that you refer to your interview questions in an Appendix (see Appendix). You
would then put your interview questions into an Appendix at the end of your paper (after your
References page). This way, your reader can see what you used to conduct your research.
Interview one. This is a level three heading – a sub-topics sub-topic. Are you confused
yet? Don’t be! As you can see, the headings allow a writer to organize their sections in effective
ways and they also allow a reader to navigate a document for efficiently,
Document Collection
As I mentioned, you don’t have to use headings if you don’t want to. But I wanted to
show you how that can be utilized to organize your paper and also to insure that you are
discussing all of the needed points in your paper.
Results and Findings
In this section, you will discuss the findings of your research and the results of your
analysis. You should select which elements from Steps 2 and 3 from the P3 assignment
description that you would like to focus on for your paper. The elements you choose to focus on
in your paper will depend on the focus of your research and what you have found in your
TITLE OF YOUR PAPER GOES HERE
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observations, interviews, and document analysis. You can use headings in this section to
organize your writing as well.
The section should be elaborated on and supported with quotes from your fieldnotes,
interviews, surveys, document collection, analysis, and your own personal observations.
Conclusion
In your conclusion, you should revisit your introduction. What territory have you
researched and analyzed? How does your research contribute to this field of knowledge? Why is
your research (or niche) significant or important – to you or to others?
TITLE OF YOUR PAPER GOES HERE
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References
Include any sources you will are using in your P3 paper on your References page. Be sure to cite
them in-text. Also, be sure to put them in alphabetical order on your References page and
create a hanging indent – as seen and formatted here – the first line is not indented, but all
subsequent lines are.
Swales, J. (1990). The concept of discourse community. In E. Wardle & D. Downs
(Eds.), Writing about Writing (466-580). Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
TITLE OF YOUR PAPER GOES HERE
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Appendix
This is where you could include your interview or survey questions, your interview transcripts,
documents you analyzed, or anything else you think it important for your reader to see. Your
appendix does not have to be formatted in any specific way – it only has to go at the very end of
your document, after your References page.