1. Understanding
Research Genres
Building interdisciplinary bridges
Margie Clow Bohan
Dalhousie University
April 10, 2008

2. Background
— My interest
— mixed-presence, inter-professional teams working
through genres
— Informing disciplines
— Writing Studies
— Organizational Behaviour
— of interest: Computer Science (mixed-presence
support), Sociology (interaction), Qualitative methods
research
— My job?
— I run the Writing Centre – so the weight of production
is felt

3. So ...
— How do I take the information (interests, theories,
methods, etc.), use them to understand more fully
my interest, and then contribute to the field?
— Which field? Who will care? Who will see this work
as valid?
— Who will publish it?
Build a bridge

4. Cautions…about bridges
Don t cross the bridge until you have figured the
following things out:
— You have to know where you are standing.
— You have to know what is on the other side.
— You have to know if the bridge can support your
weight.
— You have to know what is in the river – just in case.
— You have to know where you want to go – maybe the
people with whom you want to visit live somewhere
else – you don t need this particular bridge at all.
Think before you cross.

5. You’ve figured out that this is
the right bridge… now what?
— In terms of writing –
— Review the literature from each field. Look at
individual journals – editorial guidelines.
— How are these scholars writing?
— Interests (in people such as users, in events, in
processes such as systems, in policies, in theories or
practical applications)
— Perspectives (qualitative, quantitative, mixed, blended,
innovative – theoretical imperatives (all the isms)
— Methods (what methods does the field or journal find
credible?)

6. Continued…
— Length of work (3-5 pages or 35 pages)
— Components (if any, sections , headings, abstracts, etc)
— Style Considerations
— What is included in each section?
— How is material attributed and to what extent?
— What kind of writing is used (formal, less formal, detailed
or concise)?
— Do they use ideas from other disciplines?
— How do they convince the reader that what they say is
correct?
— On what note do they end?
— What do they include as supporting materials?

7. Big Question
— How open is the field to interdisciplinary interests
and questions?
— Don’t combine physics and rhetoric & composition
and think that physics journals with publish on the
writing preferences of physicists. However, education
and composition journals will.

8. Possibility?
[G]raduate writing groups across the curriculum
make it possible for graduate writers to become
rhetorically-savvy writers and readers both within
and without their disciplinary discourses.
Gradin,S., Pauley-Gose, J., & Stewart, C. (2006). Disciplinary Differences,
Rhetorical Resonances: Graduate Writing Groups Beyond the
Humanities Models for Interdisciplinary Writing Groups at Ohio
University Writing Center Praxis: A Writing Center Journal