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Kevin Buscemi ENC 1102 Professor Wolcott September 11, 2013 Analyzing Genres in Dental Offices (Rough Draft) People all over the world have their own individual interests, however, many people share these same interests. Being a part of a discourse community means that you share a similar goal or other interests with the members of your community. Whether it be pursuing a similar medical career, working towards a certain health goal, or something as minor as a simple weekly study group; there are tons of discourse communities out there. Considering that I am pursuing a dental career, I am currently a member of the Pre-Dental American Student Dental Association (ASDA). This is a group of students here at the University of Central Florida who are pursuing some sort of dental career, and we definitely have all of the necessary characteristics of a discourse community. According to Swales, there are six essential characteristics of a discourse community, and one of them is a genre, as he states in his article The Concept of Discourse Community, A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims (Swales 472). Genre may be a very confusing topic to many and in her article Generalizing about Genre, Amy J. Devitt focuses mainly on describing the new conception of a genre versus the old and problematic conception. She explains how the older conception uses genre as a way of classification and states the negative implications of this view. Devitt describes how when

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someone uses genre as a way to classify certain forms of writing, they are separating form from meaning and how this conception of genre utilizes it more with reading as opposed to writing. Devitt feels that using genre in this outdated manner limits the meaning and true value of the concept. This old concept of the term genre doesnt fully utilize the term to its potential, and is only used in the case of categorizing books in a library, limiting the term to a static product rather than a dynamic product. Devitt further explains her argument when she begins to describe her newer and more complex conception of a genre, immediately focusing on the importance of rhetorical situations. She begins by using a quote to define the word genre as "typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations" (Miller 159). She states how the situation of the reading has a huge influence on the writer and what they will decide to write. Depending on the genre, the writing may vary, and the main point of this conception is how genre actually has an influence on writing and is not just used for classification purposes. Devitt describes a genre as some sort of specific document that is used within a certain discourse community. For my specific discourse community, I chose to use the medical paperwork of numerous dental offices. I received these documents by surfing the internet for local dentists near the city of Orlando and then downloading the required paperwork provided on their websites. It was a bit difficult to find these genres at first as not all of the local dentists provided their paperwork online. After analyzing these documents, I came to notice that they were all quite similar. All of the documents seemed to ask the patients very similar, if not the exact same questions. For example, all of the documents started off by asking the general questions such as the patients name, age, address, gender, and other basic information. The documents then started to ask the patients information that may be more valuable to the doctor,

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such as their medical history and any possible medical problems they have. I also discovered that all of these documents were set up extremely similar when it comes to the format and the way the questions are set up. The documents seem very patient friendly, easy to understand, and a great way to introduce the patients into your dental practice. Anyone who is looking to do business with these three local general dentists have the ability to participate with this text. The documents are designed for mature people with a sense of medical terminology, as it requires specific information relating to a patients medical history. Generally, most adults with a decent education would be able to fill out this paper work and the patient is being given the opportunity to speak about any specific medical issues that they may have experienced. The author of the documents would be the Doctor/Staff of the dental offices, and they are the same whom have authority. The documents typically follow the same format; a page requesting generic information followed by a few responses requested about the patients medical history, what kind of dental procedures have you had done in the past? (Appendix A, Pg. 2). All three of the documents share many of the same exact questions. They all ask for generic information such as names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. An example of this would be the date of their last dental visit, recent dental procedures, as well as any current dental problems (Appendix A-C). This is because the dentists are essentially in the same discourse community, as they are general dentists sharing a similar goal in looking for new patients. Considering the same goals they share, it is not a surprise that the documents of their practices share similar questions word for word. There is information that dentists find important and valuable when getting new patients, so it makes sense that all of the dentists are wondering about their potential patients medical life. All of the doctors are looking for similar information,

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which leads to the similar genres that are created, because as stated by Bawarshi in the article Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities, many genres are designed within one specialist community for functions to be filled by nonmembers of that community (Bawarshi 543). Genres have a huge impact on the response from a writer, as weve learned from Devitt. Genres also tend to look for similar, and in this case the exact same, information from the participants. It is obvious that general dentists are all going to be requiring the same information from their patients, which explains such similar documents. Understanding genres may be difficult, but when you analyze a specific one, such as the dental paper work in this essay, it becomes more clear. The authors of the genres are creating these documents very similarly because they are all targeting the same information, and this will vary with each different possible genre of each different discourse community.

Works Cited

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Devitt, Amy J. "Generalizing About Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept." College Composition and Communication. 44.4 (1993): 573-586. Print. Devitt, Amy J., Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff. "Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities." 65.5 (2003): 541-557. Web. 7 Sept. 2013. Swales, John. ''The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990.21-32. Print.