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Dear Inkshedders,

Thank you so much for your warm words. I look forward to seeing you at 4C's.

To answer Russ's and Betsy's questions in one e-mail:

I'd be happy to write about the work for the newsletter.

I presented the results of my dissertation in Gimli last year and 
published its theoretical part and one case study
in "Rhetorical Genres Studies and Beyond" (Eds. N. Artemeva and A. 
Freedman), available via Inkshed website.
The abstract is below:

> Becoming an Engineering Communicator:
> A Study of Novices' Trajectories in Learning Genres of their Profession

> Abstract
> This dissertation focuses on the learning trajectories of novices as 
> they first participate in genres of their profession (engineering). 
> The goals of the study are: (a) to refine the current understanding of 
> what constitutes professional genre knowledge and how novices learn 
> and use genres of professional communication, and (b) to test the 
> effectiveness of the suggested pedagogy for an Engineering 
> Communication course. This qualitative, longitudinal exploration 
> includes ten case studies that span eight years and trace the 
> participants' trajectories through the university and workplaces. A 
> combination of three theoretical perspectives--Rhetorical Genre 
> Studies, Activity Theory, and situated learning--is used as a lens for 
> the analysis of novices' learning trajectories on their way to 
> becoming professional communicators. The study demonstrates that -- in 
> addition to the knowledge of genre conventions and understanding of an 
> audience's expectations -- genre knowledge results from the 
> accumulation of such ingredients as (a) cultural capital, (b) domain 
> content expertise, (c) the novice's understanding of the 
> improvisational qualities of genre, (d) agency, (e) formal education,  
> (f) workplace experiences, and (g) private intention. The findings 
> indicate that the ingredients of genre knowledge accumulated in one 
> context may be used in another, that is, that rhetorical strategy may 
> be portable, thus allowing novices to adapt genres learned elsewhere 
> to a new rhetorical situation.

Thanks for your interest

Natasha

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