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Acknowledgments

As with any work of this length, I owe a great debt of gratitude to many. First and foremost, I thank the four writers who allowed me to intrude into their graduate studies and put their words under a microscope. I also thank the writing instructor for allowing me to sit in her class and talk with her students about that class. Their willingness to allow me to observe them, audio-record them, and analyze their writing and their words is a remarkable display of trust. Without these individuals, this project simply could not have come to fruition. I sincerely hope that I have not represented any of them or their experiences in a way that they would find misleading.

I owe thanks as well to the many people who have influenced my understanding of genre and writing through their work. Their voices run throughout this book and continue to challenge and motivate me. On a more personal level, I am grateful to Margie Berns, Graham Smart, and Irwin Weiser for their comments and help on the research that led to this monograph. Many thanks also to John Swales, whose work first sparked my interest in genre many years ago and who has been remarkably supportive of me from my days as an undergraduate to the present. And I owe special thanks to Tony Silva, who has taught me much more about research and second language writing than he knows. His careful and cutting-edge work has inspired me as a researcher, and his encouraging words and calm demeanor helped me keep my sanity while swimming in binders and files of data.

I am also very thankful for the support I’ve received at DePaul University, especially from my department chairs Bill Fahrenbach and Peter Vandenberg, and my past and present colleagues in rhetoric and composition (Pete, Darsie, David, Roger, Heather, Julie, Melinda, Matthew, Shaun, René, and Tony), who have indulged my attempts to bridge disciplinary divides. DePaul’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences also provided helpful support through a summer research grant. At Parlor Press, I am grateful to David Blakesley, who provided very helpful guidance and support along the way, and to Paul Kei Matsuda for his belief in this work from its earlier stages and his always helpful conversations in moving forward to this stage. I am also indebted to Anis Bawarshi for his thorough read and insightful suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. Any remaining faults in this work are mine alone. Finally, I thank Matthew for putting up with the endless anti-social evenings that have gone into this project and for engaging my obsession with seeing the world through genre.