Genre Analysis

Julio Goris Wolcott Spring 2013 MWF 9:30 am-10:20 am Genre Analysis Paper
The discourse community I have chosen to study and analyze is the physical therapy community. Through my research on a few articles Ive collected regarding the field of physical therapy, I noticed one key thing. The treatment of injury that hinders ones mobility is a situation that occurs frequently, and this discourse community is the rhetorical response to this occurrence. I find this to be the main purpose for the genre of physical therapy existing, and through some of the articles Ive selected I was able to notice some interesting trends and patterns of this emerging genre. The three articles I chose to analyze all came from a publication called PT in Motion. This periodical is written by both certified physical therapists, as well as freelance writers who interview several certified physical therapists about a certain topic they choose to write about, backed with the statistics to state their case. Due to this, one that is not actively involved in the physical therapy community or has no knowledge of the verbatim used may get lost at certain parts of an article. Thankfully, in all of these articles, when some unknown acronyms are introduced, the meaning is either placed in parentheses next to it, or it is explained in the following sentence. For example, in the article Making Waves With Aquatic Therapy by Lisa
Iannucci, on page 19, she uses a quote from a physical therapist named Allison Hoy, who works at The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In the quote, Hoy says And we treat a special population of polytrauma patients (combat injuries in Afghanistan and Iraq) with amputations, limb salvage, and/or traumatic brain injury. Without indicating specifically what polytrauma patients are suffering from, one would be led to make an assumption of their own, which could end with someone either being misinformed or just missing the definition completely. The structure used was similar throughout all three, as the articles were divided into different section through the use of blue headings, making it easy to distinguish when you were moving into a different subject. Another trend I noticed while reading and sifting through the articles was the prevalence of advertisements throughout the articles. In the aforementioned Making Waves With Aquatic Therapy article by Iannucci, there were three different articles for products/services of use to professionals in the field on pages 19, 20, and 23. The same number of articles was found in an article called The Joint Manipulation Debate by Chris Hayhurst, on pages 31, 33, and 35. I believe these ads not only add some color to the articles to ease the eyes from all the reading, but it also helps the PTs and PTAs (physical therapists/ physical therapist assistants) by introducing them to products/services they may have not been aware of, and could help their practice or help them on a personal level. A few other visuals served as cover art for both the Making Waves With Aquatic Therapy and The Joint Manipulation Debate articles. Also, I observed their pattern of citations. When referencing a physical therapist, they would state their name, their credentials, and then where they practice physical therapy or where they teach it. In the Ethics in Practice: Were Being Used article by Nancy R Kirsch, PT, DPT, PhD and the Making Waves With Aquatic Therapy article by Lisa Iannucci, whenever they referenced a physical
therapist, they also provided a picture for them as well. All three articles had a references section at the end of the article, which serves as their works cited page. All in all, after the examination of these three articles, I believe the genre of physical therapy is designed to be one that can be easily understood by all and that makes strides and innovations readily accessible through using texts, such as the PT in Motion magazine. The explanation of phrases and different visuals make the articles informative and easy to read at the same time, while the in-text citations and references at the end make certain that everyone who was involved in the articles got their credit.

Genre Analysis

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Julio Goris Wolcott Spring 2013 MWF 9:30 am-10:20 am Genre Analysis Paper

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