Genre and Discourse

As an undergraduate I wrote a scholarly research article titled “From Empty Room to Art Exhibit: The Rhetorical Genre of the Exhibit Label” for the course Genre and Discourse, which I submitted for publication in volume 8 of the journal Creating Knowledge, the undergraduate research journal for the college of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at DePaul.

Research and Writing

The goal of this project was to research a genre of text through the analytical framework of rhetorical genre theory. My object of study for the project was museum exhibit labels.

Tasks

• Identified two field sites (the DePaul Art Museum and the Chicago Cultural Center)
• Analyzed my samples noting similarities and differences in certain qualities such as form, format and content
• Interviewed the Program Director at the Chicago Cultural Center to bolster my understanding of the context in which the genre is written
• Synthesized the results of my analysis with existing research on rhetorical genre theory
• Produced a research article around 3,000 words in length.

Editing

After completing this assignment for my coursework, I submitted it to represent the Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse department in Volume 8 of Creating Knowledge. Upon acceptance into the publication, I made extensive edits to clarify my thesis and research, which was then reviewed by a faculty representative in my department for comments and revisions. After several editing cycles it was submitted and published.

The final, published article is available to read below.