Matt Sierzputowski English 3840j 14 March 2013 Project #2 Reflective Essay

After finishing this project I have to say that I am a little bit tired of genre. We have spent so much time on it. That being said, I have learned a lot. I enjoy that in this class we get to research our chosen fields of study/discourse communities. I wanted to choose a junior composition course that focused on my major, but there wasnt one. I think this class and this project are as close as I can get to learning about my future career field outside of taking a major class. I struggled at times during this project figuring out how to put thoughts into writing and synthesize the material. I am a sport management major for a reason. It may have been tough but I put in the time and the effort. I learned from the course readings that genre is exclusive. You really have to be a part of the discourse community to fully understand the genre. Practicing the genres helps you understand the language the discourse community uses. I think figuring out the language of a discourse community is the most important thing you can do. There are so many things that are specific to a particular discourse community that you wont learn anywhere else. The only way of learning it is slowly becoming apart of the discourse community. The course readings that we read go super in depth into genre. I think that is great but it ultimately comes down to getting to work and learning the norms of your discourse community.

I struggled most with synthesis. At times I had a hard time figuring out what you wanted from this project. I think I may have been more successful if I was given some sort of roadmap of what to write about. Part of my job with this project was figuring that out on my own. I just had trouble with it. I think I will be able to get a better grasp on these topics by the final portfolio. Until then I will continue to do what is asked of me.

Matt Sierzputowski 14 March 2013 English 3840J

Project #2: The genres within Sport Management

For this project I chose to dive deep into the field of sport management. Sport management is my intended job field so I will need to learn the genres that go along with it. Before I could choose specific genres I had to narrow down the expansive sport management field. The industry is made up of three primary areas: brands, agencies, and properties. Brands are companies like Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor. They tend to be focused on apparel, sporting equipment, and shoes. Agencies are the more law-focused area of sport. They are made up mostly sport agents. They acquire endorsement deals for players and deal with player contracts and benefits. The Agencies are of sport can also include governing bodies like the NCAA. Finally there are properties. Properties are professional sport leagues and teams. This includes the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and many more. This is where I intend to work one day so I will need to learn the norms and genres of the field. For the remainder of this paper I will ignore the brands and agencies of sport and narrow my focus to properties. I will analyze two specific genres that business professionals in the properties area of sport deal with on a daily basis: a SWOT analysis and a sponsorship fulfillment report. Throughout my analysis of these two genres I hope to provide a more in-depth look at their purpose within the sport management discourse community. My analysis is not ground breaking. I am not trying to establish a new view

on genre in anyway. But I am trying to relate to the many authors we have read in class and hopefully expand on their thoughts. This paper is not only for the purpose of analyzing the two specific genres I have picked, but also, For the purpose of elucidating issues associated with learning any new genre (Beaufort). I will first look at the genre of a SWOT analysis. The business operations side of a professional sports team usually handles a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is used as somewhat of a decision making model. An example of this would be a professional sports team deciding whether or not to build a new stadium. They would create a SWOT analysis to determine if this would be a smart move. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The business operations team would make a list of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of building a new stadium. Strengths could be large amounts of assets, open space to build the stadium, and financial support from the city they are in. Weaknesses could be a small fan base, minimal construction room, and no financial support. Opportunities could be the ability to host large events such as Super Bowls, and the ability to attract free agents to the team. Threats could be other sports teams in the area or declining ticket sales. The use of this genre is widespread, but in a professional sense it is usually used within the business world. In reality it could be used to make any decision. It is like making a list of pros and cons but in a more professional and organized manner. The readers and writers of a SWOT analysis are usually in-house. A sports team will create a SWOT analysis and then read it over to make their decision. Higher-level managers who were not involved in the creation of the SWOT may also read it, but it is usually a small group of individuals. This makes learning about the SWOT genre very difficult. It is very

private compared to a genre like wedding announcements, which you can see in any newspaper. In our readings Devitt said that genre is exclusive. Some genres, like a SWOT analysis, are specific and designed for a specific discourse community. It is not meant for people outside of the community. There would ne no need to understand a SWOT analysis if you had no plans of a future career in sports. It may be difficult for me but as Devitt pointed out, but learning genres can help synthesize the inner workings of discourse communities, which make the community more tangible. That is indeed worth the trouble. After analyzing the SWOT analysis for some time I have come to the conclusion that I have a slight disagreement with Dirks thoughts on genre. Dirk says that, Genre is often thought of as simply filling in the blanks. This is simply not true (Dirk). I do not think that Dirk can just brush this thought aside. In some cases I believe genre can come down to filling in the blanks. A SWOT analysis is often set up as a square separated into four boxes. Each of the four boxes is either labeled strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You then literally fill in the blank space. It is true that every SWOT analysis will be unique, but the process is simple. Dirk would be correct in saying not every genre is fill in the blanks, but a SWOT analysis seems to be just that. This led me to think more like Miller. Genres are less about the structure and more about what is actually being done. Structure makes a SWOT analysis a fill in the blank scenario, but substance makes it unique to the discourse community. It is easy to do a SWOT analysis, but to do it for a specific team or decision is what makes it difficult. The next genre I will analyze is a sponsorship fulfillment report. Sponsorships occur when a professional sport organization teams up with a brand or business that

wants to promote themselves using the team as a medium. This can include signs throughout a stadium, advertisements on the boards of a hockey arena, or the name of an actual stadium. The sponsorship fulfillment report is an overview of what type of sponsorship the team and business agreed upon, the numbers involved, and the results/benefit received from doing so. Most reports start with an executive summary. This highlights who is involved and how much money is being spent. This is very important because the company spending the money is reluctant to do so. The fulfillment report must show that their money is being put to good use and is returning on the investment. The readers and writers of a sponsorship fulfillment report are different, opposed to the SWOT analysis where they are the same. The writers of the report are within the marketing department of an organization. There is usually a sponsorship fulfillment team. This team must make the genre understandable to those outside of their discourse community. Devitt gives an example of this process with the way the IRS writes tax forms. The IRS is tax professionals. They have a deep understanding of the genre that no one else can obtain. The problem is they are writing for the average American who could have little to no knowledge of tax procedures. The IRS must take the complex genre that they know and make it easy to understand for an outsider of their discourse community. This is what the sponsorship fulfillment report writers have to do for the report readers. The report readers are from the company paying the sponsorship money. They need to understand how their money is being used, and how they will get a return on their investment. The information is usually presented to them in a simplified presentation format, often using PowerPoint. This allows the writers of the presentation to efficiently

and effectively get their point across and subsequently help explain the genre. The readers of the report will not fully understand the genre, but they will understand the points that are being presented to them. I agree with Reiff who said, The process of study lies within the language using society, there is no sense in which language one tries to understand can be thought of as located outside the living situation in which the thinker is working (Reiff). You must be apart of the discourse community to fully understand the genre. I am not yet fully immersed in the sport discourse community because I am still a student. I do practice these genres in classes, clubs, and internships. It helps me understand the norms of the discourse community before I am working in it. After analyzing the works about genre we have covered in class it made me realize something. Authors like Beaufort, Reiff, Berkenhotter, and Huckin stress the fact that you must be apart of a discourse community to fully understand it. Yet I am writing this paper to try and explain genres of a discourse community that I am not fully apart of yet. So am I supposed to believe that I can fully analyze and explain these genres? I do not think I can yet, but I believe what Devitt says to be true, Analyzing genres can provide discipline and focus to the study of discourse communities (Devitt). Practicing analyzing genres I will one day encounter can provide the discipline and focus I will soon need to use the genres in real life. Like Dirk said, Understanding genre in the real world can make what if often theoretical, tangible.

Works Cited

Beaufort , A. B. (1999). Writing in the real world . Making The Transition From School To Work, 111-130.

Deshmukh , N. (2009, September 11). Img-swot analysis . Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/nileshd5480/img-swot-analysis

Devitt , A. D. (n.d.). Where communities collide: Exploring a legal genre . Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities , 102-105.

Dirk, K. D. (2010). Navigating genre. Writing Spaces: Readings On Writing , 57-64.

Reiff, M. J. R. (n.d.). Accessing communities through the genre of ethnography exploring a pedagogical genre . Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities , 107-109.

Russell. (2006). Sponsor fulfillment reports. Retrieved from http://www.rrm.com/meeting/06rdm/russell.pdf