Academic Discourse and Genre

Searching through scientific journals is actually a lot easier than what I was expecting. You know, after I was done embarrassing myself at the library of course. Especially since all the articles have to do with what I'm interested in -- being nosy and figuring out what makes people tick. 

• There's only two kinds of genres that are published in volume 69, issue 2 of The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. One of the genres is a case study where professionals formed a hypothesis and went out in the field and conducted an experiment in an attempt to explain the original (alternative) hypothesis. This form can be seen as a "conversation starter" in the psychological field. The second genre is a scientific article that is written in response to a new/controversial case study. This genre is typically seen as a "response" in the overall "conversation." 

• There's only two main genre types (mentioned earlier) that I could find published in the current issue. As for significant formal differences:

• Case study: Opens up with an abstract summarizing the experiment and results. Then it goes into an introduction of the experiment, then it outlines the methods they did to perform the experiment so others can duplicate it. The methods are then followed by the results of the study and a discussion section where the authors open up the conversation to other professionals in the field. The tone is more formal and has a whole lot of technical jargon. 

• Scientific research article: Opens up with an abstract summarizing the article's content (this can be mistaken with a case study abstract). Then it goes into an introduction of what experiment the article's about. Then the article goes into an analysis of the results of the experiment being researched. Once the analysis is finished, the article has a large discussion section where it reiterates the conclusion the analysis reached and again, opens it up for the public to also analyze. A scientific research article is a lot more informal and a more basic vocabulary, thus making it more appealing for the general public to read and understand.

• Definition (in my own words of course) of each genre:

• Case Study: a paper that outlines an experiment that the authors themselves conducted and gives the results in either table or graph forms. Also, the results are not analyzed, but rather just stated with a (typically) small discussion section at the end. The purpose is mostly to inform other professionals in the field of new discoveries and what they could potentially mean. That being said, the target audience are other professionals in the field (which is made very clear since I can barely decipher half of a case study published in a journal).

• Scientific research article: a paper that discusses the results of a case study not performed by the author(s). This type of article is seen as a "response" to the overall conversation that the case study started. These articles typically have the author's own biases and opinions (which a case study lacks). That being said, the purpose of this type of article is to inform and persuade other professionals, as well as the general public, what the results of that particular case study means. It's also geared towards the general public since the vocabulary is a lot more lowkey and easy to read to nonprofessionals.