Phrase Sentence University Of Missouri Kansas C
Research Paper: Community
3,000 words; MLA; 6 credible sources (2 scholarly)
You are encouraged to use pictures/screenshots. Please caption them.
Prompt:
Investigate a Discourse community and compose a research paper that examines its relationship with
media, language, and the general Discourse (mainstream).
Investigate the platforms that your chosen community frequents or communicates on. Show how your
community uses technology to advance or maintain its network of relationships, knowledge, and culture.
Explore the explicit and hidden language of your chosen community. Look at what is written and spoken,
and consider what is left to be implied. Examine jargon, jokes, memes. Evaluate how the community
reacts and handles internal and external conflict with language. How does the community politic and
police with words and with organization.
Describe how the community outlines its identity and demarcates itself from other communities and
mainstream activity. Describe the need of the community—its motivations to keep existing—and consider
the community as a reflection of what is missing from (their) broader society. What is the thing(s) that the
community members want, need, or yearn for. Ultimately—what can be learned from the community;
what must we know about it; and are there aspects of the community that should be forgiven, understood,
or tolerated? End with some words about your experience investigating and writing about this community.
*
Brainstorming:
Some inquiries: What are the rules, and are they invisible? Who are the leaders, what are the idols, and
what are the characteristics of the community’s common, ideal denizen? How does the community
recognize membership? Does the community worship (secular or religious)? What are the dominant
literacies? The demographic? How does the community regard privacy of membership? Or is it readily
publicized? What are the gains and losses that come with membership? How does the community heal
each other? Is there a common hurt?
Some inviting words: escapism, inclusion, ideals, principles, prejudice, truth-telling, truth-making, art,
grammar, fashion, elitism, bubbles, ecosystem, caricatures, humor, psychology, health, estrangement,
meet-up, virtual, reality, family, friends, tradition, ritual, medicine, romance, infatuation, regulation,
stories, metaphors, symbols, insults, (its) museums, wisdom, respect, judgement, accessories, skills,
legends, morals, aphorisms (truth in slang), wealth, glamor, vehicles, hierarchy, classification, advocacy,
diet, channels, borders, hope, time…
Potential Outline:
NB: You don’t need to follow its exact order, but you should be mindful of the elements involved in each
successive building block: keyword or phrase sentence paragraph body essay; observation ↔
claim evidence/example co-evidence/co-example observation ↔ claim.
I. introduction
○ thesis statement ( )
○ introduce the situation
○ invite interest
II. body 1: the origin story
○ identify, characterize, or classify your community in prose; illustrate with pictures and
stories
○ describe the community’s discourse settings/platforms
III. body 2: media and technology
○ describe the behavior and interactions between your community and
technology/platforms
IV. body 3: language and culture
○ describe how language—text, image, and expression—is used
○ describe the community’s unique language: their metaphors, jokes, symbols, jargon,
memes, fashion, expression, gesture, artifacts, source material, literature
V. body 4: relationships with itself and the rest of the world
○ describe how they belong inside and outside the community gates
○ define/describe aforementioned community gates, and consider gatekeep(ers/ing)
VI. body 5: summary of investigation
VII. conclusion: wisdom, takeaways, reflection, expression ( )
Each patch of information (supporting point) you include should be detailed, qualified, and made
constructive for your overarching narrative. Make important few vital things and arrange them mindfully.
notes:
Though we have read and discussed conflicts between science and language, remember that
(inter)sectionality was given definition by us. The following are two quotes by Henri Poincaré to pocket
while you research and write:
– Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been
made?”
from The Value of Science
chase IDKs and follow curiosity; dead-ends are mappable!
– Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a
science than a heap of stones is a house.”
from Science and Hypothesis
“science” is interchangeable here with names of studiable things and crafts; the form of
an essay forms truth also; remember Postman’s second sample in AOTD chapter two.