Inquiry Project - Exploration

Part I: Exploration
1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your Inquiry Project.
Academic discourse and the ability of people from different cultures to engage in academic discourse.

2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?
Academic discourse is something I struggle with. As explained in the next question, I find academic discourse alienating of various populations of people. The purpose of academic discourse and the implications of requiring or expecting that people whose writing fits the realm of academic discourse are intellegent and learned.

3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?
I think academic discourse is alienating. Especially for people of lower class systems in our society, it is more difficult for them to learn how to engage in academic discourse because they do not have examples readily available to them to begin imitating at an early age etc. Class often is also connected to race and I think there is a connection here worth exploring the implications and effects of. I think there is value to writing that does not necessarily fit the realm of academic discourse, both informal and formal writing – there is a fine like I think I am looking at here.

4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?
My main questions are centered around what the fine line between academic disourse and non-academic discourse is. What constitutes academic discourse? How do people understand or learn from academic discourse? Is there a barrier to engaging in academic discourse for people of different social classes/races/cultures?

5. How might composition theorists and researchers approach or study this topic? Does this approach differ from those of other related disciplines (such as communication studies)?
I’m not sure. I think there will be some relationship to intercultural studies or some overlap between the two disciplines, but I’m not sure exactly how composition theorists specifically would approach this topic.

6. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?
I could do interviews of people from various backgrounds and find out about the difficulty they faced in school/college – their grades on academic papers will be telling, were they able to figure out how the teachers expected they write? How long did it take? (Longer for some than others?)

Part II: FocusingWrite an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.

Is academic discourse, as presented and required in academia, alienating of various populations of people within the greater society? And what are the implications or consequences of such alienation?