It Was You I Was Thinking Of: Looking at Audience through the Genre of Mixtapes

 

​A mix is a composition that addresses some of the same features as many written genres. Looking at questions about audience in particular, Kampmeier examines the way that mixes imply or attempt to establish a relationship with another person and the process an author may go through to meet those audience expectations. 

C.R.E.A.M. (Coupons Rule Everything Around Me)

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Cochran explores the activity system of coupons, looking at the coupons themselves as artifacts, the trajectory of coupons to consumers and manufacturers/retailers, and the way individuals in the same household use coupons differently. 

CHAT: Four of One Hundred and Forty Characters

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O’Ryan explores the effects of CHAT on organizational Twitter accounts, analyzing the communication choices of Alpha Gamma Delta, The Vidette, and City Dance. She describes how the characteristics and trajectories of each account build an understanding of its goals and its effects.

Word Choice: Global Challenges in Academic Writing 

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Sánchez-Martín describes the decision-making process she goes through as she is writing and explores some of the challenges that both second/third language writers and first language writers face in academic discourse. She describes the lexical and grammatical difficulties the participants of her study have while writing and reaches the conclusion that all sorts of writers, no matter what their first language is, seem to deal with similar problems in their writing.

Office Talk: Exploring Jargon in the Workplace 

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​Through research and personal experience, Chandler defines jargon and explores how it is used in work environments. She then examines the trajectory of jargon as it travels through the activity system of the workplace and makes its way into different genres.

Changing Professions, Identities, and Writing: Will the Real Writer Please Stand Up?

 

When Rinehart switched careers, she had to learn new writing genres as a part of changing her professional identity. Combining her two professional identities when she writes is a challenge because it involves two different versions of who she is. Learning new writing genres is a lifelong endeavor, requiring a lot of writing research, some introspection, and positive relationships with colleagues.

Eavesdropping on the Conversation: Situating an Undergraduate’s Role within the Scope of Academic Journals

 

Wojciechowski explores the intended audience of an academic journal in semantics, highlighting the presence and prominence of secondary audiences in the genre of scholarly texts. Drawing from the results and implications of the exploration, she discovers that scholarly journals, despite their narrow, intended audience of related professionals, are incredibly useful to students writing at any academic level.

Genres that Suck! Why is Dracula in a Commercial Selling Car Insurance, Anyway?

 

After seeing Dracula in a commercial, Wright is prompted into writer

researcher action. Exploring how and why vampires are so prevalent in so many genres, Wright probes deep into genre studies and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory for answers. 

In the Twilight of the Modern Age: What Stephenie Meyer Can Teach Us about CHAT

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Edel explores how audience responses to Twilight offer important insights about how books are produced and then taken up by society. Examining this can help us better understand Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in terms of three major components: the act of writing, cultural views, and physical resources.

Mashup: Superheroes and Children’s Literature

 

Burgess looks at the many uses of superheroes and the genre of picture books by examining scholarly sources and also multiple examples of the genre. In doing so, she comes to learn that genre research can include many different approaches.

Angela Rides the Bus: A High Stakes Adventure Involving Riveting Research, Amazing Activity Systems, and a Stylish Metacognitive Thinking Cap 

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​In this children’s story style article, Sheets explores her process of researching and learning to navigate the Bloomington-Normal bus system. She discusses how her awareness of her own learning process helps her adapt to the new situation. Additionally, she examines how the various genres in the Connect-Transit Bus System make the bus-riding activity possible.

How Many Presidential Scholars Does It Take to Read a Bus Map? Ten

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​The authors collaboratively explore student interactions with the genre of maps and the qualities that make a map effective for a student demographic. After investigation, the authors conclude that a hybrid approach is necessary to format maps in a way that is useful for students.