WRIT 300, University of Baltimore: Discourse Community Investigation

This report investigates a discourse community within the field of Health Systems Management at the University of Baltimore (UB). The student examines the genres used in the discourse community, including a video ad from Shenandoah University, the UB website, and a textbook on legal aspects of healthcare. The analysis explores how these genres communicate information and knowledge to students and professionals. The report also considers the role of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) in shaping the discourse community. The student reflects on challenges encountered during the writing process, such as identifying the relevant discourse community and understanding genre conventions, and outlines strategies for improvement, including the use of outlines. The report highlights the shared goals, values, and vocabulary within the healthcare management discourse community at UB, emphasizing the importance of communication through various channels like email, social media, and student organizations.

Running Head: INVESTIGATION OF DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 1
Investigation Discourse Community
University Affiliation
Student Name
Date

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Investigation of Discourse Community of My Area of Interest
A discourse community is a word that is used to describe a group of individuals who share
similar ideas concerning a specific topic. According to Farnia and Barati (2017), primary
dominant discourse with academics and secondary discourse with coming together in class times
of lectures. “Primary discourse is achieved through being a part of something while secondary
discourse is learned through social institutions such as school, church, and work.” The University
of Baltimore College of Public Affairs provides information and knowledge for students
registered in programs offered by the School (Heathfield, 2018). I chose to progress my
discourse community investigation for field, Health Systems Management. My discourse
community investigation is envisioned to bring together a group of classmates who share a set of
goals and understand basic values and norms of the major as a way of communicating with my
classmates on our academic journey (Dube, 2016). My academic discourse in healthcare
involves reading, writing and communicating with my friends in our professional language. The
academic field of Health Systems Management are courses taught using specialized language
related to health law or other courses. The purpose of this paper is to examine the genres used in
investigation of my discourse community.
My position where I have been stationed at is at the University of Baltimore (UB) under the
healthcare academic field. I am familiar with legal aspects in healthcare by using a video ad
from YouTube that describes health care management. My academic discourse community
communicates through listeners and readers that set meaning into context and respond by
exchanging information by way of mouth, email, and video chat (Farrell, 2016). My community
at UB uses common genres of video and snapshots and UB magazines shown through the
website.

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As I identify each type of genre from my sources such as, the common genres associated with
UB are an anthem video that celebrates our accomplishments and our legacy and our impact,
which is called, “You know US”. According to UB’s Oman (2017), “you know us because we
are nationally for serving career-focused working adults, plus through our faculty outstanding
research and teaching, plus thanks to the hard work and dedication of UB alumni, students and
staff their approach to education is different by design, and we prepare students for high demand
careers” (Farrell, 2016).They showcase Instagram on UB’s site to show current events or history
of the university along advertising UB’s school magazine.
I chose a healthcare video that ties within my discourse community investigation. “The genre of
a video introduces healthcare management in red and blue backgrounds presented by students
through collaboration of a professional education committee at Shenandoah University (Kotler,
2016). “It explains the topics in healthcare with a fast-growing industry and current issues of
Affordable Care act plus other factors” (Farnia & Barati, 2017). My video ad from Shenandoah
University provides the purpose of informing students what healthcare management is all about
quality assurance and healthcare policy and reform. “The expectation of students surrounding
the communication of healthcare management requires good communication, common goals,
influence, encouragement, and engagement. “It also requires them to exceed goals, has high
outcomes, and handle fiscal responsibility” (Pérez-Llantada, & Swales, 2017). The video ad
shows conventions of why roles of healthcare managers are important to the field such as, “talent
recruitment and retention and ultimately to improve the quality of care that is being given and
shape healthcare reform and monitor healthcare facilities” (Story, 2015).
I have a textbook called Legal Aspects in Healthcare Administration that I have examined
overall from the outside to the inside. This source falls into the textbook genre, compared to my

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sources above; one genre is a website, the other is a video ad. The style of genre teaches legal
aspects in healthcare administration that shows the front cover textbook of a judge’s bench with
books and a gavel (Wilson, 2018). The purpose is to teach you the legal aspects of healthcare
administration through health law courses with set language such Res Ipsa Loquitur where the
prevention of children is taught in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)
(Dube, 2016). This source uses discourse specific terminology that experienced professionals in
the field might know and handle in legal cases (Frolova, 2014). Protection of children right
under CAPTA is regulated by federal laws that are concerned with the rights of children by
protecting them from harm, including physical or emotional harm, death, sexual abuse, or
exploitation of children by people responsible for their well-being. Res Ipsa Loquitur is a
legislation principle that is used in instances where individuals have exclusive control over the
thing which caused the harm, and without negligence of the person, the harm could not have
occurred (Peterson, 2016). Legal Aspects in Healthcare Administration textbook dives into many
topics addressing health law that healthcare managers or professional students can face in the
work field within my discourse community investigation (Swales, 2017).
Farrell (2016), show general conventions of a service-learning approach through four learning
experiences. The four learning experiences are “needed for preventive healthcare, the
importance of health services and resources, awareness of student attitude and behavioral
changes, and increased awareness of student and client expectations for health care services”
(Tyko, 2018).
According to Farnia and Barati (2017). “health-related disciplines voluntarily took an
interdisciplinary community-based health course offered at an urban, mid-Atlantic, private
university”. Besides, “The discourse community investigation of a public or private university

INVESTIGATION OF DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 5
within a central area has many courses within a health systems management program of
combining or involving two or more academics in the field of study” (Oman, 2017). The UB
students to this health systems program can experience healthcare management, business and
public policy applied through various courses plus ethical teaching within courses.
The Health Care Executives of the American College (ACHE) is a body that set-in rules for
healthcare managers to abide by their codes and ethics and will be my next source (John, 2018).
The source has way of being part of my discourse community at UB as to joining student
organizations such as students engaged in public health or student membership for ACHE (Harte
et al., 2016). As particularly relevant to my discourse community investigation, “healthcare code
of ethics follows responsibilities to a community for encouraging and participation in public
dialogue on healthcare policy issues, and advocating solutions that will improve health status and
promote quality healthcare” (Farnia & Barati, 2017). The organization sponsors conferences and
seminars are a part of a participatory mechanism that students can engage in. The expectations
surrounding the communications of the healthcare field are that managers must uphold ethical
thinking, perform duties well, develop team-building through financial budgeting, handle
medical cases, and improve quality plus more, which is learned through my academic field of
health systems (Smith, 2017). The students can exchange information with each other by
engaging in the organization of ACHE.
My discourse community of UB has built-in genres of education through spreading out course
information, knowledge that works, and student events to the student body. The discourse
community of healthcare students has many roles in studying for writing assignments, discussion
forums, special projects, and essays (Garton et al., 2016). This academic field of students
produces applications for admission to UB. “UB has subject matter of news in the media of

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University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs climbs in US news til 2020” (University of
Baltimore, n.d.). The college is ranked at 60, climbing in the four spots from its 2019 ranking.
The purpose of UB is to inform their community and beyond as to what they offer in academic
programs plus other criteria to students.
UB hosts open houses to spread out academic programs to prospective students. “The school’s
website presents information on programs in blue, request information in red or visit in yellow,
and apply now in green” ((Farrell, 2016). Also, UB admission through freshman, graduate level,
and applying to law school or transferring from another school all in blue. It presents the courses
in my discourse to register for in health systems management (Janes, 2016). It shows an
academic calendar of upper-division writing, Walters Art Museum, and telephone maintenance
and features a video, even if you don’t know our name, “You Know Us.” According to UB,
“You know us because we’ve been educating leaders for nearly 100 years; you know us through
our faculty’s outstanding research and teaching; you know us thanks to the hard work and
dedication of UB alumni, students, and staff. You know us because we are the University of
Baltimore” (Dontcheva-Navratilova, 2016). Also, the school is featured through Instagram
sharing of alumni graduates, history of women, or forge your future in the various programs. It
presents UB magazine of “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” which means women exceeding to the
top in business school in the US.
There are mutual targets, ethics or values, specific vocabulary, and genre, which is
specialized in the reflection of my discourse community investigation. I still do not feel clear
about how UB adopts genre. UB has great content in its website gear toward students, but no
special jargons (Everingham, 2018). This paper also led me to prove that my discourse
community of healthcare students at UB has its language, rules, and common public goals. UB

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spreads out information to its members through its site, Facebook, and Instagram (Pérez-
Llantada, & Swales, 2017). Email is used a lot in my academic discourse connecting with
students to the professors in the healthcare courses. UB spreads out information to students in
many avenues to keep them inform about changes in program requirements and social media.
After finishing my discourse community assignment, I realized that some of the biggest
problems that I have encountered while writing this paper were figuring out which discourse
community that I belonged to because I have heard of the term discourse community. I
also thought that it was hard knowing what the purpose of my essay was other than turning it
into the teacher for a grade, but after reading the article about the different discourse
communities, I found that answering the questions for my paper was easier. An improvement
that I would be most proud of about this assignment was that I learned to think about what
message I am trying to get across to my readers without trying to persuade them to think a
certain way. A strategy that I have developed was that it is good to get someone else’s
feedback on what you are writing because sometimes they able to point out something that
you do not see in my writing.
A discourse community and how healthcare management can relate to different sources.
One through google scholar of an Allied Healthcare scholarly journal, a previously used textbook
from a course, my school’s website, an organization of codes and ethics to follow by under
ACHE, and other university’s video ad with a similar Healthcare Management program. The
most useful sources would be UB’s website and ACHE plus video ad of similar degree program.

INVESTIGATION OF DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 8
Any revising plans could be a process of eliminating extra work that does not fit with the
assignment instructions and developing in areas that need more support and rereading it to
myself. If I had to start this project over again, I might use an outline to help me with how the
sources present conventions and genres because it hard for me to pull them out of the websites. I
do not necessarily know how conventions are used on websites.

INVESTIGATION OF DISCOURSE COMMUNITY 9
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