Discourse Community Ethnography Reflection Revised
In my essay I examine the discourse of the long car ride community. I accomplished this by accompanying my family on a long car ride from Ohio to South Carolina. I was hoping to get insight into the kinds of lexis and mechanisms of communication that are used in the community. I ended up finding out that the barriers of language and communication are broken down by the uses of talking, music and movies by those who are in a car for a long time. While writing this essay I focused on explaining the lexis and the mechanisms of communication. I had to give examples of each and explain how it contributes to breaking down the barriers of language. The particular skills I worked on were being descriptive and being complete. What I mean by that is that I tried to present my examples in a way that reached out to the reader so they could experience what I was talking about. I also worked on transitions and conclusions. A common theme throughout my writing is having a difficult time with conclusions. This includes concluding sentences at the end of paragraphs and conclusion paragraphs at the end of essays. In the completed version, I feel that I took great steps to getting closer to being able to write effective details, transitions and conclusions.
The skills this essay forced me to practice where more formal. This essay had a very academic nature that felt like a research report, and in many ways, that’s exactly what it was. The skills that were required for this essay dealt with presenting information. I had to talk about all these aspects of discourse community, which isn’t a simple subject. To effectively present the information, I can’t just get right into the heart of the research. I had to give background to everything so the people know what I’m talking about and so they don’t get lost. Also, I needed to be effective in presenting each new aspect of discourse communities. If I just start talking about lexis like it’s nothing, the paper won’t be effective and will be confusing for the reader. By explaining lexis and why it’s important to discourse communities, the reader will understand why I’m talking about it and they will get a deeper understanding of the results. In the paper, I believe I did a good job at doing this.
Two things I still need to work on are the thesis and the conclusion. The thesis may not have been the most clear and may not have been supported by what I was talking about. However, I do feel that the examples I gave where effective, they just where supporting a thesis that may not have been clear. I also need to work on conclusions. One of the toughest times I have with writing is when I write the conclusion. When writing the conclusion, I usually tend to get really out of control. I have a hard time recapping everything I talked about in a way that isn’t a bunch of statements or direct orders to the reader. If I can effectively and smoothly talk about the important parts of my paper, the conclusion will be far better.