Community Informative Report – (Re)Writing Communities and Identities (2024)

Community Informative Report Assignment Description

Your Community Informative Report will be 5-8 double-spaced pages (approximately 1500-2400 words) and written in a professional report format. You will identify a community and blend together primary and secondary research to make this community interesting and relevant to a public or professional audience. You will need to explain what is culturally and socially significant about your research and why it should interest your readers. You should incorporate at least five primary and secondary sources. When you complete your report, you will write an abstract that will provide your readers with an overview of your report, including the community you have investigated, your major findings, and your points of significance. You will place the abstract before your introduction.

There are several purposes that you can explore for this report. For example, you may conduct a mini-ethnography on your community, meaning that you are interested in revealing how this community works for your readers: who are the members, and how do they interact with each other? What different roles do members have? How do new members learn to become “experts” in this community? What are the values that unite these members? Students have produced effective ethnographies on local daycare centers, athletic teams, musical groups, and civic organizations, among many other possibilities. Both face-to-face and online communities can be good candidates for a mini-ethnography. For example, students have explored how people have created online communities to learn and play the card game, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or to inspire their creative writing.

You can also research a community to respond to misconceptions that your audience might have. For example, what misconceptions could you address by researching such communities as the local chapter of the NRA, 4H, the Flinthills Pagans, or the KSU Star Wars Club? What are some interesting cultural or social points you could explore by addressing the misconceptions about these groups?

Another purpose angle could be to explore an issue in terms of a community. For example, you may be interested in researching how a local company trains its employees to address diversity- based controversies that national chains, such as Starbucks, have experienced. Or, you may be interested in researching the gender gap that exists in the College of Engineering or another academic unit on campus.

As you explore your purpose, you will more than likely discover that you need to be adaptable and open to new possibilities as you conduct additional primary and secondary research. Your community informative report asks you to consider your research before you focus on a main point of significance.

Rationale

This assignment relates directly to several of the K-State Undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes, including knowledge, diversity, communication, and academic and professional integrity. The Community Informative Report asks you to gain experience with primary and secondary research strategies that you may need to use in projects and writing assignments in your classes at K-State. Most importantly, this assignment asks you to pay attention to your audience to figure out how your community is significant for them. In many of your classes in ENGL 200 and beyond, you’ll be asked to consider your audiences, evaluate the credibility of your sources, and find effective ways to organize and integrate these sources.

As you make your decision about what community to explore, do remember that you’ll need to be able to explore the cultural and social significance of the group for your readers. If you feel that you are going to struggle coming up with something interesting to say about this group, then keep on considering other options. That being said, you might be surprised by what you’ll be able to come up with that is socially and culturally significant about this group.

To give you some ideas about the rich diversity of official communities at the university, local, and regional level, please consider the groups in this following list:

• Community
• Conversations on Race and Reconciliation
• Flint Hills Human Rights Project
• Renters Together, Manhattan Alliance for Peace & Justice
• First Tee Program
• Flint Hills Wellness Coalition
• Manhattan Resiliency Coalition
• Kansas Health Foundation
• Equal Justice Coalition
• Hidden Common Ground Initiative
• Northview Rising
• Youth Community Perceptions

Here are some additional local groups:

• Wounded Warrior United
• Aggieville Business Association
• Flint Hills Wisdom Keepers
• Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE)
• Civitas Group – Green Apple Bikes
• T. Russell Reitz Animal Shelter
• Food and Farm Council of Riley County and City of Manhattan
• North Central Flint Hills Area Agency on Aging
• Manhattan Riley County Preservation Alliance
• Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice
• Flint Hills Renewable Energy & Efficiency Cooperative, Inc.
• Wonder Workshop Children’s Museum

As you search your apps, social platforms, or the Internet for online groups, you’ll want to find a group that will interest you and your audience and allow you to come up with a significant thesis. You’ll also want to make sure the group is dynamic and interactive, as you’ll want to collect evidence and take notes. Finally, you’ll want to feel comfortable serving as an observer. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Clubhouse, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit are the types of virtual spaces where you may find communities to observe and analyze.

Once you have found an online community, you can pursue many of the same questions and processes that you would for a physical community. A research methodology of anthropology, netnography, serves as one way to collect information about an online community. Here are some of the questions that a “netnographer” might ask:

• What languages are used by members of the online community when they are interacting with each other?
• How formal or informal are these language choices?
• What are the terms or phrases that make up the “insider” language of the community?
• What are the icons, visuals, or symbols that members share?
• What are the modes for interaction? (print, aural/oral, visual, etc.)
• How do members name and represent themselves?
• What are the rules for how people become members and how they interact with each other? Are these rules official or unofficial?
• What are the demographics of the community in terms of gender/sex, age, ability, race, ethnicity, etc.?

For example, if you explore the talk-based social application, Clubhouse, you might come across an international community such as this group of Mongolians (situated in Mongolia, the United States, and throughout the world), who meet regularly to discuss the social and political development of Mongolia and, as in this image, the 2021 presidential election:

Principles

Clubhouse was designed to be a space for authentic conversation and expression—where people can have fun, learn, make meaningful connections, and share rich experiences with others around the world. Below are a few guiding principles that we believe are important.

Be yourself. The authenticity of Clubhouse begins with the people.

Be respectful. This applies to every person, at all times.

Be inclusive. Tolerate, welcome, and consider diverse people and perspectives.

Build empathy and understanding. Engage in debates that are in good faith.

Foster meaningful and genuine connections. This is what Clubhouse is all about.

You may not find it necessary to interview a member of this online, as you may discover you have a lot of data to analyze. However, you’ll want to keep on investigating the community, take notes, freewrite, and look for something interesting and significant for your audience about this group. How does this online community function? How does it satisfy its members more than a traditional, face-to-face group? What misconceptions about this community might your readers have, and how can you inform them?

Testing Community Appropriateness

To what extent can you consider these following communities as being appropriate ones for the informative report? What might be some drawbacks? What are some criteria or “rules” that you can use to decide upon your community? What might be some ways to focus these groups to find more suitable communities?

• Your particular ENGL 100 class
• The class of students from your high school with whom you graduated
• All people who play Minecraft
• People who love animals
• Harry Potter fans

Identifying Your Audience

Consider who will be interested in learning more about this community you are exploring. If you are exploring a workplace community, then perhaps a professional audience may be interested, either at the local level (the managers or owners of the company or organization) or the regional/national level (the regional headquarters). If you are exploring a student organization, you might consider a K-State audience or even a professional organization at the national level. If you are exploring a community that might have interesting moments of significance for such cultural and social conversations as gender, race/ethnicity, or national identity, you might consider an organization that is invested in these conversations.

Here is a brief list of some possible audiences:

• A public audience?
• An executive or officer for a national company?
• A head of a professional organization, NGO, or non-profit organization?
• A local, state, or national politician?
• The head of a department or division at Kansas State?
• Search online for a contact person and try to find something about them.

Get their name, title, and contact information. If possible, find a mission statement for the organization (check the “About Us” if this audience has a website). What points or values from the mission statement will be important for you to consider?

Your audience becomes extremely important in this report, as you will be showing them how the research about the community relates to their needs, interests, and expectations. As you write and revise the report, you may discover that you need to change audiences to one that is more relevant for you and your research.

With your classmates, brainstorm some possible audience ideas. Here is one example:

Community: An online LinkedIn “community” devoted to graduates from a particular Kansas high school.

Who might be interested in this community, and why?

LinkedIn Executive Team: They may be interested in how communities are forming and building around interests or identities that may not have been in the initial vision of this online company.

High School Principal or District Superintendent: They may be interested in this community for several reasons, such as figuring out the demographics of committed alumni or trying to identify the overall values of this group.

Faculty in the Education Department: They may be interested in how relationships endure long after graduation from high school.

Local or Regional Politician: Similar to some of the other audiences, they may be interested in examining the ways in which the members of this alumni group represent themselves and how they identify themselves with their hometowns or high school, especially if they have moved far away.

Identifying and Contacting Your Community Insider

As you settle on the community you want to explore, you’ll want to contact at least one “community insider” whom you can interview and learn from. You should be able to interview this insider within the next week, and you can conduct the interview face-to-face, by telephone, and by various digital platforms (Zoom, Skype, Facetime, etc.). At times, especially if your insider is a member of an online community, you may be able to use a texting platform.

Inquire whether your community insider will be willing to meet and talk with you. A thorough interview will take 30-45 minutes, and you may have to follow up with some additional questions as you draft your report. Tell your community insider the types of questions that you will be asking.

Make sure that you also discuss these points with your community insider as you prepare for the interview:

• What format will your interview take? (e.g., face-to-face or online; will you be able to provide your questions ahead of time?)
• Can you find a time to observe and/or participate with the community?
• Will your community insider allow you to use his or her name, or will you have to provide a pseudonym?
• Creating Interview Questions

Though the types of questions that you will explore depend upon your overall research questions, the following list includes questions that typically connect communities to cultural and social issues:

• Typically, what type of people make up the members of this community?
• What are particularly important terms or concepts for this community? (i.e., what is the “lexis”—the
• How do members become members of this community?
• How do members learn how to become “good” members of this community?
• How can “newcomers” draw negative attention to themselves?
• What do “old-timers” consider to be important?
• How are the rules of this community made known to members?
• To what extent are the rules “written” or “unwritten” (official or unofficial)?
• What do members do?
• How do people learn in this community?
• What are the “obvious” things that they learn? What are the more “secret” things that they learn?
• What are the ways that members of this community communicate with each other?
• What do members of this group typically write or read about?
• What different types of members are there in this community? How do members differentiate themselves from each other? How do they label each other?
• How do members stop being members?
• What other communities does this community closely associated itself with?
• What other communities does this community clearly separate itself from?

Look at the questions in the list above, and then consider ways to adapt them or make them more specific for the community you are going to be exploring.

Create a range of different types of questions, moving from closed-form ones, in which you are only expecting yes/no or brief responses to more open-ended questions. You should consider questions that will generate more of a response from your participant:

• What’s your favorite thing about being a member of this community?
• What story can you tell about something that happened to you (either good or bad) as a member of this community?
• What are the concerns that you have, if any, about this community?

In addition to closed (convergent) questions and open-ended questions (divergent), you can consider hypothetical and mirror/spontaneous questions. Hypothetical questions are a form of open-ended question in which you are asking your interview participant to react to a hypothetical situation. For example, if you were interviewing a member of a male athletic team at K-State and you were interested in broader issues of diversity, you could consider a hypothetical question such as the following: “How would you and your teammates respond to an official meeting in which issues of sexual orientation were the main focus?” Unlike the other types of questions, mirror or spontaneous questions cannot be scripted beforehand. Rather, as you listen to your interview participant’s responses, you might pose a question to follow up on something that was just said.

As you revise your questions, consider their sequence. For example, which questions to you want to ask first, to make your interviewee feel more comfortable? Do you want to ask the closed questions first, as you have specific informational goals that you want to meet? Or, do you want to begin with more open-ended questions?

Practice your questions with a classmate and make sure that you have the sequencing down.

Writing Your Interview Script & Informed Consent

Before you conduct your interview, your interview participant should have a good idea as to why you are meeting with them and what you are going to do with their information. You should go over your interview purpose and notify them about how you plan on using the interview results. You should also give them informed consent, allowing your interview participant to declare whether they want their identity to remain confidential and enabling them to withdraw from participation from the research at any time (please access the informed consent form in your Canvas course).

Draft a paragraph that will provide you with a script to present to your interview participant:

• What is the purpose of the interview? (You will have an academic purpose—you are conducting the interview to meet the obligations of ENGL 100—and a research purpose; that is, your particular interest in researching a community of which the participant is a member.)
• In general, what information are you interested in receiving from the interview participant?
• What will you do with this interview research? (you will include it in an ENGL 100 informative report that will be read by the course instructor and classmates)
• How long will the interview take?
• What format will the interview take?
• How will you record the interview notes?
• What will you do with the notes, either digitally recorded or written, after you have completed your research?
• How will you protect the interviewee’s privacy and confidentiality, if desired?

After you have completed your interview, make sure to email or text a follow-up “thank you” message.

Conducting Secondary Research

More than likely, you will have chosen a community to explore that is going to be specific and local. Therefore, you will rarely find any secondary research on the particular club, workplace, or organization that you are interested in.

What you need to do instead is to consider your research questions and the general type of community that you are interested in. You can then conduct a preliminary Google search to experiment with keywords (search terms) and to test what types of research exist.

For example, if you are interested in exploring your friend’s Fantasy Football League, you can conduct research on the more general phenomenon of Fantasy Football in the United States. Given your interview results or your own gut reactions regarding Fantasy Football, you may want to make your search more specific by exploring some of the cultural and social aspects of Fantasy Football, including

• Gender
• The use of language or the ways in which Fantasy Football Owners interact with each other
• Age
• Culture

A Google search for “Fantasy Football Culture” results in some less formal blog posts and sports- related editorials, including

• “A Gentleman’s Guide to Fantasy Football Trash Talk” (from an online site, The Manual)
• “Do We Take Fantasy Too Seriously? Highs and Lows of ‘Pretend’ Football” (from Sports Illustrated online)

These sources may be helpful in providing you more examples about cultural and social aspects of Fantasy Football, but they are probably too informal and fan-based to be useful for your report readers. These types of sources, though, may be useful to get you started, as you’ll get a feel for some of the conversations or issues that make up your community and you may learn more about the demographics of Fantasy Football Leagues (e.g., how many people play in them), information about when Fantasy Football became popular, and how much money is at stake in this industry.

K-State Library Catalogue (Search It)

After you’ve experimented with search terms on Google or Google Scholar, then do a preliminary search on Search It (lib.k-state.edu). You’ll find these sources, when searching for “Fantasy Football Culture,” that are easily accessible:

• Monstrosities, Money, & Machines: A Metaphoric Analysis of Fantasy Football as a Social World (a Ph.D. dissertation)
• Fantasy Football: Analyzing Fantasy Themes in America’s Rhetorical Pastime (a Ph.D. dissertation)
• “Social Networks, Football Fans, Fantasy and Reality” (article from Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in Society)

These are all academic sources that will give you a much better sense of how researchers are looking at Fantasy Football as a cultural phenomenon.

K-State Library Database: ProQuest

Go to the K-State Library databases, which you can access by using a link under the catalogue search window. Go to the ProQuest Research Library. This time, if you change your search terms to “Fantasy Football Gender,” you start finding sources that might be interested in social identity and consumer behavior (click on “Peer reviewed” and “Full text” to make these research sources more credible and accessible):

• “Fantasy vs. Reality: Exploring the BIRGing and CORFing Behavior of Fantasy Football Participants” (Sports Marketing Quarterly)
• “Fantasy Sport Consumer Segmentation: An Investigation into the Differing Consumption Modes of Fantasy Football Participants” (Sports Marketing Quarterly)
• “The Effects of Fantasy Football Participation on Team Identification, Team Loyalty and NFL Fandom” (Journal of Sports Media)

Organizing Primary and Secondary Research Results

Eventually, you should end up with several pages of primary (interview) data and secondary source research notes. What do you do with all of this material?

You should reread your notes carefully and start looking for patterns and themes. The bulk of your report will be the middle results section, which reflects the results of your primary and secondary research. Your main goal in this section is to organize according to several main meaningful “chunks,” themes, or points.

Researchers have many ways of doing this important step in sifting through their notes and finding patterns, including the following:

• Searching for “hotspots,” which are especially interesting moments that show up in your interview and secondary research notes; take down notes on these hotspots and consider how they will be interesting and relevant for your readers
• Brainstorming and clustering, activities in which you read your notes and start writing down thoughts and keywords and finding links between them
• Freewriting, in which you return to your research questions and begin to respond to them with your data and notes in mind (in this case, you are writing quickly to yourself)
• Outlining, in which you envision what the main categories are or the sections that you will use to guide your readers through this section
• Identifying “gaps,” places in your research about which you and your readers will want to know more

When writing up your results section, these are some questions that you can respond to:

• What are the main patterns, “hotspots,” or points from your research?
• What research questions have you explored?
• What meaningful chunks are the most important and relevant for your readers?
• What does your community insider say about the community that is important for your readers?
• What do your secondary research sources say?
• How can you synthesize your secondary research sources and your interview data?

When you are organizing your primary/secondary research notes, consider different ways of organizing your results section into two or more meaningful chunks; we can call these sub- sections, as they are smaller sections within the larger results section.

Here are several examples of what these sub-section headings will look like:

Example #1

Results

Interaction

Language

Learning

Roles

In this example, the writer is using the results section to explore the community and will be basing their results off of their observations and interview notes. They include four sub-sections, which will respond to these following research questions: How do people in the community interact with each other? What are the special terms that people use to communicate with each other? How do new community members learn to become “good” members? What are the different roles that make up this community?

Example #2

Results

Interview Results Secondary Research Results

Here, the writer is organizing the results according to the two different types of sources that were used.

Example #3

Results

Roles of Religion

Roles of Socializing & Alcohol Roles of Academics

Roles of Sports & Athletics

In this fraternity community example, the writer is focusing on four different “hot spots” that were coming out of the interview and secondary research.

Example #4

Results

Local Community

National Community

This simple organizational strategy allows the writer to focus first on the local community and then make connections to the same community but at a higher level or scale.

As you are working on your sub-headings, make sure you find a way to use typeface effects (ALL CAPS, bolding, centering, italics, etc.) to distinguish the major results heading from the sub- section headings.

Clarifying the Purpose of the Community Informative Report

Recall the overall purpose of the community informative report: you are exploring several research questions related to a particular community using primary and secondary research in order to inform a public or professional reader who should find the research significant. Yet, be careful about trying to address the purposes of “typical” research papers or arguments.

With a partner, talk through your own purpose, audience, and research focus.

Writing Your Introduction

In your introduction, you will be announcing your purpose (i.e., you intend to inform your audience about a community) and the community you have selected. You should also explain why this community is relevant and interesting for your audience. Finally, you will explain any background information or context that is important for your audience. You should explicitly tell your readers what your overall main point of your research is going to be. You may also want to tell them what to expect.

Below, you will see some examples for three of the core features of introductions: purpose, thesis (the main point of significance), and blueprint statement.

Purpose

The purpose focuses your readers immediately on your community and why you are researching this community.

Some examples:

• In this ethnography, I want to show how I’ve delved into the background and practices of Jenna Moreci’s YouTube channel.
• The purpose of this paper is to interview one member of the Clovia House at K- State and analyze the ways in which this community suggests how young women should act.
• This community informative report analyzes the British Radio Five Live podcast, The Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Review, to figure out whether the listeners of this podcast can be considered as members of a community even though they may never interact with each other.

Thesis

The thesis tells the readers the overall main point of significance, which you will develop more fully in your analysis section. If your purpose statement tells the reader your overall goal for writing this report and the reason for why your audience is being asked to read it, your thesis provides the most important take-away point with which you want your readers to leave the report.

Some Examples:

• My findings indicate that this discourse community as an ideal informal learning space thanks to Moreci’s use of language to engage and shock viewers along with her concise presentation of information.
• Readers might assume that women’s cooperative organized living is like a “Build-a-Housewife Workshop”; however, my community report will show that Clovia’s environment establishes professional skills for the workplace such as language, problem management, writing, and negotiation.
• As I explore more fully in the final section, in response to doubts from communication researchers, global online communities can exist even though they rely a great deal on passive readers or listeners.

As the last two examples showed, you can frame your thesis in terms of a misconception or an information need that your audience has:

• Many people in my audience know a little about X, but I can help them learn more
• Many people in my audience have a misconception about X, but I can help to change their misconception.
• Many people in my audience don’t see that X relates to them, but I can show how it does relate to their needs.

Blueprint Statements

Blueprint statements serve as “tables of content”; they forecast what is going to happen, and they can occur towards the end of introductions and at the beginning of the other two major sections. Below are four examples that format the blueprint statement differently.

Example A

In this community informative report, I first explore the interaction of the Child Center assistants, training rituals, and evaluation policies. I then explore, in the concluding section, the ways in which these three areas may influence employee turnover among these assistants.

Example B

This community informative report answers the following questions:

• • What are the interaction styles, training rituals, and evaluation policies at the Child Center?
  • How do these components affect the turnover of assistants?

Example C

In this analysis of the Child Center, I will do the following:

• • Describe the interaction styles among assistants
  • Identify the training rituals for new assistants
  • Explore the evaluation policies

Afterwards, in the concluding section, I will show how these three elements increase the turnover of assistants.

Example D

This community informative report (a) explores the interaction of the Child Center assistants, (b) describes the training rituals of new assistants, and (c) identifies the significant evaluation policies. Finally, this report shows how those three elements impact assistant turnover.

Freewrite your responses to several of the questions below to help you build the introduction:

• What is your main purpose in this report?
• What community are you exploring?
• Whom are you interviewing and why have you chosen this person?
• How will this community be relevant and interesting for your readers?
• What important background or context does your reader need to know?
• What is your overall main point of significance?
• What should your readers expect?

As you work on your introduction, two strategies that you might want to consider are (a) locating a “mission statement” for the organization that is linked to your primary reader in order to highlight the values of your reader as a way to show how your community research is relevant and (b) finding a compelling statistic or fact about your community that shows how the community you are researching has recently changed (for example, if you are writing about a local 4H organization, you might want to point out how participation in this organization has decreased over the past decade).

Here is an example of an introduction from Katie Gehrt’s “Fantasy Football: A Discourse Community That Reinforces Male Privilege.” While reading Gehrt’s introduction, identify the ways that she

• Interests her audience
• Provides relevant background information
• Provides a misconception that readers might hold
• Guides readers through her major points
• Uses secondary sources
• Tells readers her overall purpose

With over one dozen phone apps available, social media accounts, sports analyst blogs, an entire DirecTV Fantasy Zone Network, and 74.7 million registered members in 2015, one may have a hard time believing that Fantasy Football, an electronic network for National Football League (NFL) football fans, has been around since 1962. The first Fantasy Football League, called the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League (GOPPPL), had its first draft in 1963, marking the first official season that Fantasy Football took place (Brown). This interesting discourse community serves as an opportunity for individuals to build, manage, and coach their own “dream” team, all while competing against other teams coached by friends, coworkers, or even strangers. Each league member has the same goal: to have the winningest record over the course of the season, and therefore win the League. Depending on the league one is participating in, success could be measured in monetary winnings, or for a sense of personal satisfaction and bragging rights.

When many people think of Fantasy Football, often times they do not consider it a community that exchanges much literacy; however, without it, this community would not be able to function or expand as it has in the past decade. Although the level of communication between members varies in every league, the rules and regulations designed by each League Commissioner are significant in determining scoring, what an acceptable trade is composed of, and the style of draft used prior to the start of the NFL season. One of the most important qualifying components of a discourse community is the lexis used within the community and within the genres used by the members of the specific community. These are arguably two of the most significant aspects of Fantasy Football; to participate, one must have an understanding of the terms and systems in place to operate a team. Furthermore, if one were to be successful in a League, this terminology becomes even more crucial. While the specialized lexis used is one of the most compelling reasons to study Fantasy Football leagues as a discourse community, it also serves as a deterrent in encouraging outside parties and new members to participate, especially women. Women only make up 20% of Fantasy Football League owners, and the discrepancy between men and women only continues to grow when evaluating the types of leagues that each participate in. Many women choose not to join a league at all, or opt for a less traditional approach and play weekly Fantasy challenges through programs like FanDuel (Rubin). These non-traditional leagues require less of a time commitment and overall knowledge about football because it takes place over the course of one week as opposed to thirteen weeks in a traditional league. A few studies have been done to examine the role of male privilege in Fantasy Leagues and how sports knowledge operates as way to perpetuate male privilege. Through this mini-ethnography, I will explain the substantial characteristics of Fantasy Football within the league that I participate in by focusing on how these characteristics qualify it as a discourse community and examine the role that male privilege has on the participation of women in traditional leagues.

Coming Up With Significance

The research that you develop and organize in the results section should be building up to an important point about how the community reveals something interesting and important about society and culture for your readers.

In the results section, you have described the community for your readers and you have provided some interesting insights about this group. Now, examine these main points that you have identified and come up with an overarching theme that is relevant for your audience: this point of significance may interest them and, conversely, may trouble them.

Your earlier class discussions about gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic class/status may be useful at this stage to shape a larger point about significance. Your research questions may also be leading you to this point of significance.

For example, while Julian E. Orr was conducting an ethnographic study on a community of photocopy machine repair specialists, he came across a significant point about how these specialists actually learn. In a 1990 article, ‘Sharing Knowledge, Celebrating Identity: Community Memory in a Service Culture,” Orr concluded that these specialists do not learn from textbooks or classroom lectures, but from a social community of their photocopy machine specialist peers who tell each other stories. In this case, the point of significance was one about learning.

Similarly, other ethnographers have been interested in finding out what is significant about the ways in which certain communities “apprentice” newcomers—that is, what are the mechanisms in place to train these new members? In a classroom setting, for example, researchers have looked at how policies, such as those that allowed new students to get comfortable for several weeks before they were asked to speak and participate, ended up enhancing the participation for women and other groups of students.

A few stock questions that may lead to a point about social and cultural significance:

• Is this community in a conflict with other communities? If so, is there a cultural or social cause for this conflict?
• Is there anything striking about the demographics of this community?
• Is there a particular political orientation that members of this community hold?
• In the past, has there been a change in this community that is important when it comes to social and cultural issues?
• Is there an issue or conversation that divides members of the community (or that separates them from members of other communities)?
• Is there a way that members interact with each other in this community that they would not in other communities or settings?
• Are there any internal contradictions in this community?

You should also keep on considering your audience and how they will respond to the information you are presenting them about this community. What will surprise them? What is a misconception about the group that you are perhaps clearing up?

Writing Your Analysis

After you have explored the Coming Up with Significance section above, you can then work on your analysis, in which you develop the significance of your primary and secondary research. In the results section, you provided your readers with a lot of information and points about the community. In the analysis, you now have a final opportunity to explain how they should think about this research and what they can do with it. Note: There are several options for naming this final section. You might also consider using “Discussion,” which is typical of social science reports, or “Significance” as your major section heading.

You should not introduce new research and material in this section, yet you can pose questions and get your audience thinking about future research questions. You should continue to think about your audience and what they might find surprising in your research from the results section. If you use secondary research in the analysis section, you should do so as a way to develop and extend the significance of your findings.

As your analysis explores the “main point” of your informative report, you’ll want to make sure that you tie it back to your introduction and results section.

Here are a few questions that you can freewrite on. You should also use the significance questions above.

• What is the most important point that is coming out of your results section?
• What point is going to surprise your readers the most? Why?
• What’s a misconception about your community that your readers may have held before? How should their position now change?
• What is significant about this community in terms of culture and society?
• How can the results be helpful for your readers in thinking about the community or making decisions?

Consider this template as one strategy for developing your analysis section:

• First paragraph: Summarize your main findings from the results section, perhaps by using a bulleted list. Include a take-away point for each of your sub-sections from the results.
• Following paragraphs: Develop one overall point that helps connect the points that you clarified in the previous paragraph. Or, develop at least one of these major findings and point out why it’s interesting, important, and/or significant for your readers. In short, why should your readers care about this main point?
• Concluding paragraph: Emphasize your overall main point, and leave your reader with a good overall impression of yourself as a researcher and writer. You can also offer a gentle recommendation. Given the findings from your results section, how should your readers reconsider their thinking about this community or what changes in their own organizations should they consider making?

Here is an example of an analysis from Katie Gehrt’s “Fantasy Football” report. While you are reading it, focus on the ways that Katie is extending and developing points that she already divulged in her Results section.

Analysis: How Fantasy Football Reinforces Male Privilege

Although the intercommunication, genres, and lexis are important in qualifying Fantasy Football as a discourse community, research has shown that they can also be a huge deterrent in encouraging outside party participation, particularly women. One of the most fundamental ways that Fantasy leagues do this is through the sport itself; there are no current Fantasy leagues for any female sports. In addition, the competitive aspect of Fantasy and the genres used reinforce male privilege and fortify masculinity through communication between members and the names that are frequently used for female teams.

According to Davis and Duncan in “Sports Knowledge is Power: Reinforcing Masculine Privilege through Fantasy Sport League Participation,” fantasy leagues reinforce hegemonic heterosexual gender roles through the competition of league members and utilizing sports knowledge as a power mechanism over others. My own research supported this idea, especially when evaluating the lexis that is needed in this community and how it bars women from obtaining the same knowledge and participation. Statistics reveal that if women participate in Fantasy leagues, they are more likely to opt for non-traditional leagues that typically span one week because they require less knowledge of statistics and sports news. This research supports the theory that sports knowledge provides individuals, particularly men, with a sense of power because they can use this as a way of leveraging their control over others. In turn, this knowledge gained by males creates a large barrier that prohibits women from feeling as if they would know enough to participate and creates a fear that if they were to join, they would be ridiculed for not participating “well enough.”

One of the other ways that Fantasy Football discourages female participation is through the message board and communication between members; like through the use of lexis, it is interesting that one of the major genres and qualifying factors of this discourse community also serves as a way of making the league participation more exclusive. Through their study, Davis and Duncan concluded that:

Competition arises as another important mode of fortifying masculinity through sport participation. Analysis of fantasy football league message boards as well as focus group responses indicated competition as an important component of the masculinization of fantasy sport participation. Competition fosters an ideology of male supremacy by allowing men to celebrate their masculinity through verbal acts of aggression, emphasizing power and strength.

The language within message boards and intercommunication between male members have also contributed to the male privilege within fantasy leagues by promoting competitive language that reinforces the gender roles of males being more dominant and aggressive through competition, whereas women are not; one of the interesting pieces of research that I found was when I searched the names available and suggested for female Fantasy owners. Oftentimes, names that Fantasy owners choose reflect members of their team and serve as another outlet for intercommunication, as members will often suggest ideas of clever names for the upcoming season. Some of the popular suggestions for female teams were things such as, “Hair, Makeup, and Wins, Brees between my knees, Back that pass up, and Cleats and Cleavage.” These names themselves suggest that women are incapable of contributing to the competitive nature of Fantasy leagues without subjecting themselves to names that are offensive and degrading; furthermore, each name is sexualized and reinforces gender roles. In the study conducted by Davis and Duncan, they found that males reported feeling uneasy and felt that their masculinity was challenged by women that took Fantasy sports seriously. In other words, women who did not conform to the sexualized heterosexual gender roles and perhaps choose a hyper-sexualized name were considered a challenge and were not regarded positively by the men in the study.

Fortunately, the leagues I have participated in have not outwardly demonstrated oppression to me in this way, but for other women that attempt to compete in male-dominant leagues experience this discrimination and oppression often through genres such as the Message Board and the resources available for individuals searching for a team name.

Another unique aspect of the research that I came across was the analysis of women that participate in traditional leagues and why women make up such a low percentage of all owners. One researcher suggested that women participants act as a placeholder when there are not enough male participants (Christ). This fact was especially interesting to me because in one of the leagues I compete in, I was asked last minute to join because there were not enough participants to form a complete league. In the same evening that I was asked to play, I was expected to draft without conducting any personal research on players that I was interested in drafting, therefore causing me to be at a disadvantage from the start. This idea of “placeholder” participation is especially damaging because the males that do not serve as a placeholder have an advantage within the league and can exercise that advantage in a way that exacerbates privilege. Furthermore, the research suggests that low female participation is not due to lack of resources or accessibility to the important literacy genres; it is mostly due to the reinforcement of gender roles that bar women from being capable of being knowledgeable about sports.

In conclusion, the research I conducted through this ethnography suggests that there are many important literacy devices that qualify Fantasy Football as a discourse community, but these devices oftentimes suppress female participation and perpetuate the male privilege that already exists within professional sports. The specific terminology necessary to be successful is often used as a power mechanism by male participants and in turn causes females to hesitate participating in traditional leagues for fear that their knowledge of statistics is not adequate enough. In addition, research suggests that females do not fail to participate because of accessibility problems, but that often times females who choose to participate in leagues act as placeholders when men cannot compete. Furthermore, the genres used between members, such as the message board within the ESPN Fantasy App creates an environment of extreme competition which fortifies the masculinity that Fantasy sports emphasize and value; in many studies, men reported feeling as if their masculinity was challenged by women that took Fantasy sports seriously. Finally, the research conducted through this ethnography suggests that although Fantasy Football qualifies as a unique discourse community with many forms of literacy, the specific genres and resources available are designed to benefit, attract, and retain male participants rather than women, which is one major way why women only make up 20% of all Fantasy owners.

Writing Your Abstract

Your abstract provides a synopsis of your community informative report; readers should be able to scan your abstract quickly to determine whether it will be useful for them. Your abstract should be approximately 100-200 words long, and it should focus on the important keywords that make up your study and that were used in your research process.

Your abstract should include a one-sentence summary of each of the sections of your report, including the following:

• Your overall social issue, research question, context, or community
• Your intervention—your research purpose, participant, and methodology
• Your most important findings
• Your most important points of significance and, if applicable, recommendations

Here is an example of an abstract from Benjamin DeZube’s “The Misconceptions Behind Being a Division I Football Player”:

Abstract

This community informative report explores the misconceptions that the audience and general public may hold about the life of college-level football players. Through secondary research and an interview with a first-year Division I college football player, this report focuses on the intense training schedule, the isolation that some players may feel, and the emotional struggles that some players may experience. This report then expands upon the interconnection between masculinity and the inability of many college-level football players to express their emotional concerns to their teammates and coaches. Finally, this report emphasizes the importance of providing psychological services for football players.

References

Buchanan, S. (2018). Personal Communication. Donaldson, E. (2018). Personal Communication.

Glinton, S. (2013). The changing story of teens and cars. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2013/08/09/210253451/the-changing-story-of-teens-and-cars.

Lumsden, K. (2010). Gendered performances in a male-dominated subculture: ‘Girl racers’, car modification and the quest for masculinity. Sociological Research Online,

15(3). http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.5153/sro.2123.

Russell, T. (2018). Personal Communication.

Walker, L. M. (1998). Under the bonnet: Car culture, technological dominance and young men of the working class. Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies: JIGS, 3(2), 23-43. https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=200001317;res=IELAPA;type=pdf.

If Hilinksi had someone that just would’ve kept tabs on his mental health, he still might be alive today. Carr points this out in his article about mental health in college athletes. He notes that a team psychologist could give athletes a much easier resource than seeking campus services. This resource could also take away the shame of sharing their struggles with someone else and getting help. However, it has gotten a lot better. Huge masculine icons such as Dwayne Johnson and NBA player Demar DeRozan have been coming out publicly about their bouts of depression, and this is a huge step in the right direction. These public revelations could help show these athletes that they are not alone and that it really is okay to get help. Who knows how many athletes at big schools are struggling with mental illness and how much help they could receive if only we could, as a society, continue to diminish this stigma of both males and college athletes being “mentally tough” and not needing help while also providing more resources for athletes to reach out?

Conclusion

Being a football player for a Division 1 program is daunting; it is a true commitment, and these athletes should now how much they are sacrificing before they commit. This full-time job along with school can put a huge amount of strain on these players that may require help. While they are provided countless tutors, physical trainers, and dieticians, mental health should be prioritized in the same boat as these other necessities for athletes. If these athletes are given the

proper resources that help diminish the stigma of being seen as weak, they will be much safer, and their mental health will be much more stable. This connection to psychological services will allow them to focus more on what happens on the field rather than hiding what they’re feeling off the field.

Works Cited

Carr, Chris. “Mind, Body and Sport: The Psychologist Perspective.” NCAA.org – The Official Site of the NCAA, 18 July 2017, www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport- psychologist-perspective.

Levine, David. “How Can Men Fight the Stigma of Dealing With Mental Health Problems?” U.S. News & World Report, 9 Feb. 2018, health.usnews.com/health-care/patient- advice/articles/2018-02-09/how-can-men-fight-the-stigma-of-dealing-with-mental- health-problems.

Mantick, Kelly. “A Day in the Life of a Division I Football Player.” NCSA Athletic Recruiting Blog, 16 Nov. 2017, www.ncsasports.org/blog/2017/10/03/day-life-division-football-player/.

Masisak, Corey. “College QB after Teammate’s Suicide: Football Culture Needs to Change.” New York Post, 25 Jan. 2018, nypost.com/2018/01/24/college-qb-after-teammates-suicide- football-culture-needs-to-change/.

Editing Strategies

As you edit and proofread your community informative report, consider these following three strategies:

1. Specify your nouns and make your verbs more active

Search for vague nouns and weak verbs that might end up confusing your readers. Here is one example:

Having conducted research on homeschooled students, it was discovered that there are many motivations for homeschooled families for homeschooling their children. This is important when making policy recommendations for the government.

In this example, the main grammatical noun of the first sentence is “it, and “this” is the noun of the second sentence. You’ll want to make sure that you are emphasizing your points and guiding your readers with far more concrete nouns. The main verbs are “was discovered” (a passive form), “are,” and “is.” Again, whenever possible, look for more active verbs that connect back to the nouns. One quick revision of the paragraph above could be the following:

Having conducted research on homeschooled students, researchers have identified several main reasons for why families homeschool their children. This finding can guide government policy recommendations.

The revision now focuses on “researchers” and “finding” as the main nouns of these two sentences, which are then connected to the active verbal forms of “have identified” and “can guide.” An added benefit is that there is no longer a dangling participle, which was one of the problems of having “it” serve as the main noun in the first example.

Search for these forms on your word processor and determine whether you can find a more concrete and active verb:

• There is (There was, There were, etc.)
• This/That is (This/That was)
• These/Those are (These/Those were)
• It is (It was)

2. Consider your level of formality

An informative report has a fairly high level of formality. Look for these following informal uses in your own reports:

You: In an informative report, you can certainly use “you” if you are referring directly to the intended reader: “As the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you obviously are aware that…” However, when you are using “you” in a colloquial sense, when you are really referring to people in general, you can affect the formality of your writing. Here is one example of the informal use of “you”: “Employees at the company have many tasks; for example, on any given day, you might find yourself having to conduct data analyses, interact with customers on the telephone, and inspect social media settings. You might feel that you are actually working for several different divisions of the company all at once.” It would be more formal for the writer to substitute “employees” or “they” for these instances of “you.”

Word choice and clichés: There are certain words and phrases that signal more of an informal stance by the writer, including “I feel that,” “ok,” and “kinda.” You may also want to be mindful of the clichés that you use, which can also reduce the specificity of your points. For example, consider this sports metaphor: “Homeschooled parents can knock their children’s education out of the park if they consider online packages.”

Contractions: In more formal writing situations, many readers will prefer fewer contractions. So, look for instances of contractions in your report and consider writing out the full forms.

1. Andriessen, J. H. Erik. “Archetypes of Knowledge Communities.” Communities and Technologies, edited by P. van den Besselaar, G. De Michelis, J. Preece, and C. Simone, Springer, 2005. ↵