Why a Genre Genealogy?

When Travis and I began imagining our citation-tracing tool, one concern we had to address was how, beyond its more limited scope, was this tool different from other tools readily available in the library databases, such as Web of Science? Our tool purports to trace the conversations about genre and collaboration in composition studies by tracking forward and backward from the core texts we read this week. Our choice of core texts is admittedly somewhat arbitrary, and do leave out Brooke's "Perspective: Notes toward a Remediation of Style," but we feel that as the texts selected by Dr. Graban for us to read during this turn, they represent an adequate starting point. Our tool tracks both the influences on these articles and the influence they have had on subsequent articles concerned with genre and collaboration.

This focus on genre and collaboration is what differentiates our tool from those like Web of Science and makes it more useful for a peer conducting inquiry into the concepts from the position of composition studies. Travis's blog post addresses some of the insights our tool reveals as we look to the influences on these works, so I'll turn to the future citations. When tracking Miller in Web of science, 452 results appear. Google Scholar, which offers a similar resource, finds 2497 citations. Our tool narrows those results to a more manageable and relevant number--two of our core articles, Berkenkotter and Huckin and Devitt, plus four articles drawn from the list of supplemental readings for the week. Among these supplemental articles is, not surprisingly, a later work by Miller, examining blogging as one specific genre and form of social action. The other three apply Miller's article to the role of genre in constructing texts and contexts (Bawarshi 335), to ideas of genre as ways of doing and therefore knowing (Carter 388), and to examination of a bank's communication strategies with outsiders (Smart, in Bazerman and Russell 15). Exploring Miller's treatment in these texts, we learn that she is heralded as an important figure in reconceptualizing genre and that she is also included in discussions of composition as constructive. Those conducting a more comprehensive exploration of Miller could then turn to Web of Science or Google Scholar for a more thorough listing of locations where she is cited, but someone conducting research that is specifically focused on genre in composition studies would find our tool useful in exploring the ways Miller's ideas have been taken up in the discipline.

By focusing on a curated selection of articles, drawn originally from the core readings and supplemental readings but with the intention to expand as developers found appropriate, our tool allows users to focus more in depth on the ideas connecting the readings this week and extending into a wider pool of scholarship on genre and collaboration rather than merely offering an automated algorithm for tracking citations.

Works Cited: 
Bawarshi, Ania. "The Genre Function." College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000): 335-60. 
Bazerman, Charles, and Russell, David, eds. Writing Selves/Writing Societies: Research from Activity Perspectives. Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse, 2002. 
Carter, Michael. "Ways of knowing, doing, and writing in the disciplines." College Composition and Communication 58.3 (2007): 385-418. 
Miller, Carolyn. “Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70.2 (1984): 151-67
Miller, Carolyn and Dawn Shepherd. "Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog" Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, COmmunity, and Culture of Weblogs.2004.