Composition Studies

Composition studies is an interdisciplinary field, which study writing processes and the composition of texts.

 

The theory in this field emphasizes the role of discourse communities in written communication for the functionality and design of texts.

 

This field is potential important for Library and Information Science. For example, future developments in full text searching may be based on knowledge about how scientific articles and other kinds of texts are designed. In bibliometrics may composition studies help to explain the choice of references and their distributions in texts.

 

An example is given in Figure 1. below. It illustrates four rhetorical moves and their specific sub-functions commonly found in scholarly book reviews.  The figure mirrors a similar figure found in Motta-Roth (1998, p. 35), but is supplemented by two additional sub-functions (12 and 13), which Nicolaisen (2002) found when examining a number of book reviews in various LIS journals.


 

Figure 2 shows how the typical elements in a scientific article are shaped by methodological and epistemological norms and how elements added by information professionals relate to the information  provided by the author (cf., Record).

 

 

Fig. 2: Structure and Elements in a Typical Scientific Article

Norms of scientific method and philo­sophy of science external to the article

Elements contained in the article

Value-added information

(Subject access points, access and evaluation information)

 

 

 

  • Observation and description

  • Problem state­ment

  • Hypothesis

  • Experiment

  • Theory building

 

 

 

  • Bibliographical identification (journal name, volume number, pages)

  • Title

  • Author(s) with corporate affiliation and address

  • Author abstract

  • (Author keywords)

  • Introduction

  • Apparatus and materials

  • Method

  • Results

  • Discussion

  • Conclusion

  • (Acknowledgments)

  • References

 

  • Bibliographical description

  • Relations to other editions

  • Identifier

  • Biographical information

  • Institutional information

  • Indexer abstracts

  • Indexer descriptors 

  • Classification codes

  • Language codes

  • Document type codes

  • Editorial comments  

  • Links to citing papers,    reviews, and criticism

  • Information about availability of document

                       (From Hjørland, 1997, p. 23).

 

 


Literature:

 

Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge: the genre and activity of the experimental article in science. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press. http://wac.colostate.edu/books/bazerman_shaping/.

 

Bazerman, C. & Paradis, J.  (eds.). (1991). Textual dynamics of the Professions: Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.
 

Brereton, J. C. (1944). The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College, 1875-1925: A Documentary History. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. (Series in Composition, Literacy, & Culture).

 

Clyne, M. (1987). Cultural differences in the organization of academic texts. Journal of Pragmatics, 11, 211-247.
 

Ewald, H. R. (1993): Waiting for Answerability - Bakhtin and Composition Studies. College Composition and Communication, 44(3), 331-348.
 

Fishman, S. M. (1993). Explicating our Tacit Tradition - Dewey, John and Composition Studies. College Composition and Communication, 44(3), 315-330.
 

Hartley, J. (Ed.). (1992). Technology & Writing: Readings in the Psychology of Written Communication. Taylor & Francis.
 

Hawisher, G. E. (1991). Evolving Perspective on Computers & Composition Studies: Questions for the 1990s. NCTE, 1991.

 

Hjørland, B. (1997). Information Seeking and Subject Representation. An Activity-theoretical approach to Information Science. Westport & London: Greenwood Press. 

 

Motta-Roth, D. (1998). Discourse analysis and academic book reviews: a study of text and disciplinary cultures. In I. Fortanet (Ed.), Genre studies in English for academic purposes (pp. 29-58). Castelló de la Plana: Universitat Jaume.

 

Mullins, N; Snizek, W. & Oehler, K. (1988). The Structural analysis of a scientific paper. IN: Handbook of quantitative studies of science and technology. Ed. by A. F. J. Van Raan. Amsterdam: North Holland, 81-106).

 

Myers, G. (1990). Writing Biology. Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. 

 

Nicolaisen, J. (2002). Structure-based interpretation of scholarly book reviews: a new research technique. In: H. Bruce, R. Fidel, P. Ingwersen & P. Vakkari (Eds.), Emerging frameworks and methods: proceedings of the 4th international conference on conceptions of library and information science (pp. 123-135). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Abstract: http://www.db.dk/jni/Articles/Abstract_Colis4.htm

 

Nystrand, M.; Greene, S. & Wiemelt, J. (1993). Where Did Composition Studies Come From? An Intellectual History. Written Communication, 10(3) 267-333.

 

Smith, L. D., Best, L. A., Stubbs, A., Archibald, A. B., & Robertson-Nay, R. (2002). Constructing knowledge: The role of graphs and tables in hard and soft Psychology. American Psychologist , 57(10), 749-761.
 

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

 

Vipond, D. (1993). Writing & Psychology: Understanding Writing & Its Teaching from the Perspective of Composition Studies. Greenwood.

 

 

See also: Genre (Epistemological lifeboat);  Information architecture; Information science, related fields

 

 

 

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 17-05-2006

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