Sunday, February 28, 2016

Academic Discourse and Genre

In this post I'll be evaluating the different genres I found in my academic journal, American Journal of International Law.

1. It would be most efficient for me to start with an article I've already analyzed, so I will use "Genocide as a Crime Under International Law". This article is highly objective with the purpose of informing the reader about a past legal case. I'm going to call this one "History Lesson".  The next article I found that I liked was called "The Legitimacy of International Governance: A Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law?" This article is far longer and shows multiple points of view about a current issue, so I'll call this one "Debate". And finally, I decided to use 'Jeremy Bentham and the Fashioning of "International Law"'. This is an article of medium length which sounds like it might be a history lesson, but it's different. It's a discussion of how something came to be by looking back at the legacy of a certain figure in the field. For these reasons I'll call it "Reflection".

2. I answered most of this portion in number one, but here I'll reiterate in a way that is more pleasing to read. To sum up, we have three genres:

  • History Lesson
    • Highly objective
    • Purpose to inform
    • Subject matter has long been resolved
  • Debate
    • Very long
    • Multiple points of view
    • Subject matter is very current
  • Reflection
    • Medium length
    • Discussion 
    • Looks at past and future through legacy
3. Again, I answered most of these questions in numbers 1 and 2, but I did not specify a target audience so here I will speculate that.
  • History Lesson
    • Students
    • Those who need to cite sources for a paper
  • Debate
    • Someone with a genuine interest
    • Someone who needs to come up with an informed opinion of their own
  • Reflection
    • Someone with interest in past v future
    • Someone who might need to make a decision about the future of a field (CEO, exec, etc)
As a final note, this post was a tad shifted from the questions, but all the information is there and I believe I've gotten my points across. 

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