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The Ethnographic Project was geared around gaining knowledge of the communication

practices in the professional field that I have hopes of entering, social work in hospice care. The
project involved conducting research, to include face-to-face interviews, participant observation,
and data collection of the staff while they worked in their element. The ethnographic research
served as a detail description of the roles and authority, means of communication, training, and
any specialized language used within that discourse community. Once completed, the project was
composed into an informative guide with a purpose of providing social workers who have an
interest to enter the field of hospice care, with knowledge of the function and communication
that takes place within this discourse community, when they have no knowledge of this practice
at all.
In preparation for all the major assignments in this course there were a number of
readings assigned throughout the duration of this semester; the readings educated the class on
how to effectively communicate, not just verbally, but in writing, and with different types of
genres, regardless what environment we find ourselves within. I will admit that all readings
werent pleasant, but I did gain knowledge from them all. One reading that I can say was difficult
for me was Bitzers The Rhetorical Situation. I was confused on the authors ideology but the
bigger problem was the terminology used throughout the article; I was not familiar with a lot of
the terms so looking in the dictionary took away from me grasping the depth and impact that the
author was trying to express. Bawarshis The Genre Function was an article that I learned a
great deal from; it was this article that I got a better understanding on genre, its function, the
importance in interpreting a reading, and that there is a certain mind set one needs to be in when
they engage in reading to be able to identify and understand the roles of symbols, characters, and
their actions. But Kahns Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context was more beneficial than
the other readings, for this assignment, although they all are interrelated and benefitted this
assignment. I would say the author was a subject matter expert in ethnography and provided the
readers with the importance, advantages, and disadvantages of ethnographic writing. He also
addressed how important it is for the writer to be credible and convincing so that readers can take
the findings from the ethnographic research seriously.
In completing my ethnographic research, what surprised me most about my data
collection methodologies was that there was nothing surprising about it at all. Gaining access
was easy because Im a current volunteer at the hospice agency and they included and invited me

to all meetings and functions so that I could use what I observed, as data for my project. The
agencys willingness to allow me to conduct my research with them was very helpful because it
left nothing off limits for me to ask in face-to-face interviews, as long as I was not asking direct
personal questions about specific patients; there was no reluctance in allowing me to accompany
social workers on patient visits, and I also got the opportunity to sit in on as many
interdisciplinary training meetings that I saw fit. Once all research was completed and my
ethnographic project draft was composed, with feedback from my peers and the instructor it was
brought to my attention that I didnt write my guide in a way that addressed social workers
entering the field of hospice on a global level; my draft was catered more towards social workers
wanting to enter CIMA Hospice specifically. So I had to reframe my introduction to better
address the purpose and audience of my guide and in doing that it made it easier to edit my
diction and rearrange information to make my guide more globally sound.
Im pretty satisfied with the direction that I went in with this project. It allowed me to get
first hand insight on the dedication and compassion involved in this field and how important
effective communication is to reach the goals of a discourse community and for that community
to be successful. I demonstrated pathos by projecting my passion for the field of social work,
ethos was established with my participation in my research, and after revisions I was able to
organize and present a project that would be beneficial to my projected audience. So in
conclusion I feel that I did a pretty decent job in accomplishing the purpose of this assignment. I
wrote a guide that gave a detailed description of how communication and genre was circulated
through the discourse community of a hospice team for social workers entering the field of
hospice care.

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