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Alexandra Clark
Ms. Breanne Weber
UWRT 1101
October 7, 2015
Ethnography Reflection
I really enjoyed the Ethnography assignment. This assignment allowed me truly
understand the life of a football player. When the Ethnography paper was first assigned I was a
bit hesitant. I had never written a 6-8 page English paper in my life. History and science, yes.
English, not so much. I had no idea how I was going to be able to find enough information, or
how I was going to go about putting it all together. When it comes to history and science, all the
information is in front of you, and its not hard to gather it all and form a well developed paper.
Not to mention, I hadnt fully grasped the concept of a discourse community myself. After class,
I decided to read the Swales piece again, hoping to gain clarity. Clarity is what I received. While
reading the article, I couldnt help to think of football. Every single characteristic matched
perfectly with the components of a typical football team. I chose to observe and base my paper
on UNC Charlottes football team for two reason. For one, as a student at UNCC and peer to the
players, I thought it would be interesting to look into their lives. For some reason whenever I see
a member of the football team on campus, they either seem exhausted or completely care free,
theres no in-between. The other reason I chose UNC Charlottes team oppose to another one was
because of the interview requirement. Since my brother is a member of this community, I knew it
wouldnt be a problem to get an interview from him. Plus, I am a nosey sister and would love to
know the daily schedule of my brother. Especially since every time I seem to call him, I get a

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quick-text response that says either Im in a meeting or Im in class. It turns out that he
may have been telling the truth.
After I finished the interview, and gathered all of the information needed to complete the
assignment, my mind drew blank. I wasnt sure how to format or structure the paper. Since the
paper was based on the idea of a discourse community, I decided to start off by stating what the
characteristics were. This was done to explain why I chose football, and how it follows the
guidelines of a discourse community. After that, the writing process started to flow. I simply
explained every characteristic and how it relates to UNCCs football team.
My ethnography connects to the overall ideas we discussed in class because I had to
provide facts and information to that supported UNCCs football is indeed a discourse
community. In class we discussed the importance of having information to back up a statement,
and that was the basis of this paper. We have also discussed planning. The interview, was my of
planning for the paper. I used my interview with Cameron as a blueprint for my paper. Overall, I
am pleased with the way my Ethnography turned out, and am starting not to see writing as a
burden.