Annotation Dissection: Genre and Rhetoric in Sorority Life

Taylor Smith

Department of Writing and Rhetoric, University of Central Florida

ENC 1102

Professor Mooney

March 1, 2020
D., L. (2011, November 30). Unchallenged, Professed Core Values: Do Undergraduate

Fraternity/Sorority Members Actually Benefit in the Areas of Scholarship, Leadership,

Service, and Friendship?. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1006547. This article

focuses on the stereotypes of fraternity and sorority and how they affect the publics’

perception of Greek life as a whole. They begin by diving into past studies done on

scholarship, leadership, service and friendship within the Greek community and find that

the statistics were very low. So, the author decides to change the variables of the research

to get more accurate results. Long finds that in each section being tested, scholarship,

leadership, service and friendship, were significantly more successful and prevalent in

sorority and fraternity life than previously stated. For example, study hours are

mandatory for most Greek organizations, forcing all members to dedicate a few hours per

week to academics.

This article relates to the other articles within my annotated bibliography because

it includes the major themes I have been referring to throughout my research proposal,

genre and rhetoric. It expands upon establishing a culture within your sorority and

fraternity, and the way they go about it is through communication. This communication is

carried out via various genres. Long talks a lot about leadership and service

(philanthropy) within the Greek community and this really benefitted my research. He

goes into detail about the benefits of leadership, which I was able to expand upon in my

research proposal by explaining how each position of power is able to get things

accomplished.
Henley, T. K. (2001). Utilizing Research to Develop a Plan to Gain Members and Increase

Morale in a University Sorority. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 8(4),

103–112. doi: 10.1300/j054v08n04_09. The main focus of this article was on the

recruitment process of sorority rush. This includes how the chapter produces a new

member class. The article acknowledges the fact that Greek Life doesn’t have the best

reputation when it comes to recruitment. In order to be appealing to the potential new

members, the chapter as a whole has to create reasons for them to want to join. This

includes many scholarship opportunities and social benefits that will positively impact

their futures at the university. Since this article was written in a time where social media

wasn’t as prevalent, the chapter would market using flyers, banners, advertisements in the

school newspaper, along with holding events on school grounds.

This article specifically relates to the other articles in my annotated bibliography

because they it has to do with my discourse community as a whole. Not all of them focus

on the same topics, but they all have the same overarching theme, which is going into

detail about the moving parts in a typical sorority. This particular article is the most

crucial to my research question because it discusses the various forms of genre the

chapters use to put on an event such as recruitment. While their methods are a little

outdated, the general idea of utilizing texts to carry out an event is still the same.