Report on My Interviews

What are the most significant or interesting genres that you learned about from your interviewees? Please identify at least THREE specific genres from your discipline/field of study that your interview subjects discussed writing within.  

1. Journal Articles
2. Books
3. Public Art


How do these genres differ from one another? Think about things like genre convention, content, purpose, audience, message, and context as you describe these differences.

Books and journal articles both tend to discuss research and studies, but differ in length and other ways depending on the content. Journal articles and books are very different from public art. They are typically academic, and the audience is usually academics, activists, and students. The purpose of journal articles is usually to inform or give the audience language to use or ways to understand people and society in concern with gender and women's issues. Public art can take on many different forms, unlike journal or academic articles. The purpose of the art is usually to highlight social justice issues and raise awareness, the audience for art might extend to a wider range of people, not just academics.

Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is challenging and/or difficult about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

Journal articles can take a very long time, especially because writing projects in general can take long. They require patience and a long-term strategy for academic publishing.

Sometimes working on smaller projects takes away from larger/more crucial writing projects.

Because of the controversies surrounding gender and women's issues, writing can easily stir people who are very biased and emotional on the topic, so thinking about the audience and language is crucial to focus on when deciding an approach and writing style.

Some work is very disciplinary and may take a while for readers to find it, and some is "too esoteric" for "general academic audiences."

Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is exciting and/or rewarding about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

Gets people, students, faculty, or parents thinking in a different way.
Intended audiences are usually responsive.
Helping activists on social issues
Teaching students concepts and theories that they've actually done research on


Where in mass media - popular, academic, and/or social - can examples of this genre be found? If genre examples cannot be found within mass media easily, where can genre examples be found/located?

Many online publication sites like SAGE journals that publish Gender & Society and Sex Roles, the professionals' websites, and blogs or The Feminist Wire. 

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