Deliverables

If you used GenAI to complete any deliverable, you must submit a Metacognitive Report alongside your assignment. For the exercises, the report can be as concise as 250 words. For the Creative Challenge, the report should be more substantive because it should summarize how you used GenAI across the exercises leading up to it as well as during the Creative Challenge itself, reflect on the key decisions you made independently to preserve your own voice and judgment, and explain how your use of GenAI evolved across the module.

1. Summary and Analysis of Assigned Readings
2. Literature Review on Literature Reviews
3. Literature Review on Citation Analysis
4. Portrait of Literature Reviews and Citation Practices at JTWC

Introduction to the Module

In your first module, Rhetorical and Stylistic Analysis of Research Studies in Professional and Technical Communication, you examined the broader landscape of PTC by analyzing who publishes in leading journals (JBTC and TCQ), what topics and research questions they pursue, and how journals establish expectations for contributors through discourse conventions and design choices. You developed a portrait of the PTC methodological community and learned to read individual research articles as rhetorical systems that both shape and reflect the field’s values.

Now, in this second module, you’ll shift from rhetorical analysis of the research community—the people, topics, and questions that define the field—to examining the specific genres and practices that enable scholarly conversation: literature reviews and citations. This multi-part project teaches you how researchers use these genres to build credibility, trace the evolution of ideas, and position their work within ongoing scholarly conversations.

In the first stage, you’ll read foundational scholarship on how research functions as an ongoing conversation, why researchers situate their work in relation to prior studies, and how information literacy strategies help investigators assess the authority of knowledge claims.

In the second and third stages, you’ll write two short literature reviews: one synthesizing what makes effective literature reviews according to leading scholars (Grant & Booth, Pautasso, Sanders, and others), and another explaining how citations function rhetorically to establish authority, signal source quality, and enable participation in scholarly conversation.

Finally, you’ll apply these concepts in a capstone analysis of three published articles from The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (JTWC). You’ll examine how authors construct literature reviews using Swales’ CARS model (establishing territory, identifying a niche, occupying that niche) and how they use citations to signal source quality through the CRAAP framework (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose). Your integrated synthesis will reveal patterns in how PTC researchers establish what is known, identify what remains uncertain, and justify why new work matters.

Together, these exercises strengthen your ability to evaluate sources critically, recognize how knowledge circulates within research communities, and participate responsibly in scholarly conversations—skills essential for conducting your own research in Module 5.

Significance – Why Does This Assignment Matter?

In order to avoid being duped by misinformation as a citizen or knowledge worker, you need to be able to differentiate quality information from misinformation & rhetrickery. In turn, to conduct research studies you need to learn how to discern the authority of a knowledge claim, which requires expertise in critical analysis of reviewed research and citation analysis

To achieve their goals, people can lie. In research contexts, scholars can make up sources or misrepresent sources. By peer-reviewing scholarly and scientific research studies, publishers attempt to doublecheck claims to weed out bias, academic dishonesty, and unethical behavior.

Yet mistakes still happen. For example, consider Peter Navarro’s use of fictional sources to substantiate his argument that the U.S. needs stronger tariffs against China. Peter Navarro, President Trump’s White House trade adviser and longtime academic, repeatedly bolstered his anti‑China arguments by quoting “Ron Vara,” a supposedly hard‑nosed Harvard‑trained economist. Reporters later discovered that Ron Vara was an anagram of Navarro’s own last name—a fictional alter‑ego Navarro slipped into six nonfiction books, policy memos, and media appearances (Bartlett, 2019). When The Chronicle of Higher Education exposed the fabrication, Navarro brushed it off as an “inside joke.” For Navarro making up sources may be a joke, but for the academic and scientific community that practice reflects research misconduct. This episode illustrates why you can’t rely on the authority of a single individual. Even celebrated experts can invent sources, plagiarize, or otherwise manipulate evidence.

Bottom Line: Triangulating data—cross‑checking claims, vetting methodologies, and building robust literature reviews—protects you and your readers from being misled.

This assignment equips you with the specific habits that make triangulation possible:

Skill you’ll practice	Why it protects you (and your readers)
Pinpoint the research question	Clarifies what a study really promises so you can test whether the data and conclusions match the claim.
Interrogate the literature review	Reveals whether authors have mapped the full conversation or cherry‑picked sources (Navarro-style) to prop up a predetermined stance.
Analyze citation patterns	Shows whose voices are amplified or ignored, helping you spot bias, gaps, or fabricated authorities.

Definition of Terms

In order to do well on this assignment, you must have a working understanding of the following terms:

Research Questions, Literature Reviews, and Citation Practices

Research Questions, Literature Reviews, and Citation Practices are discourse conventions (also known as genres)–socially defined ways of communicating academic, scientific, and professional knowledge.

• Research Questions: Creatives, Designers, Interpreters, Scientists, and Mixed Methods Researchers, and Scholars (Textual Researchers) tend to ask questions in different ways because they have different ideas about what knowledge is and how it is developed and vetted. For instance, in response to the question “why does the sunrise happen?” the creative might speculate the sun reflects an ethereal life force that gave birth to humanity; the designer might develop a prototype for a planetarium to expose the sky’s hidden gears; the mixed-methods researcher might speak with local Shaman, endeavoring to make sense of different creation stories.
• Literature Reviews: Investigators want to ensure that the research questions they are asking are significant and informed by the hard work of previous researchers. Beyond being driven by human inquiry, humankind’s insatiable to understand the universe, research is informed by the archive — a process anthropologists call “the ongoing conversation of human kind.”
• Citation Practices: Citation is more than a matter of giving credit—it’s a rhetorical strategy that helps writers establish credibility, situate their work within ongoing conversations, and signal their epistemological allegiances. Creatives may cite artistic influences, cultural myths, or speculative texts to inspire new ways of thinking. Designers are more likely to reference prototypes, focus group results, or UX studies to justify design choices. Scientists typically rely on peer-reviewed research and prioritize reproducibility. Textual Scholars tend to cite seminal theorists, and canonical texts. Mixed-methods researchers tend to be more inclusive in their citation practices, citing works from science, the humanities, and the arts. voices from the field or draw on ethnographic sources. Hence, how, when, and why researchers cite reveals their methodological community’s values and the kind of contribution they aim to make to human understanding.

Literature

In the context of the research community, the term “literature” refers to the body of published, peer-reviewed work that is relevant to a particular field of study or research topic. This includes:

• Journal articles
• Conference proceedings
• Books and monographs
• Dissertations and theses
• Reports and white papers
• Other formal academic publications

Literature Review

A literature review is a systematic survey and synthesis of existing peer-reviewed works related to a specific research topic or question. It serves multiple purposes and can be understood in two primary contexts:

1. As a Genre of Discourse: A literature review is a distinct genre of discourse that focuses on synthesizing and critically analyzing the existing body of scholarly work on a particular topic. As a genre, it has its own conventions, rhetorical appeals, and expectations that distinguish it from other forms of research genres, such as empirical research articles or theoretical papers.
2. As a Section within a Research Study: Within the structure of a research study or paper, the literature review typically represents a dedicated section or chapter. It provides an overview and analysis of the relevant literature, contextualizing the current study, identifying gaps or areas that require further investigation, and establishing the rationale and significance of the research being undertaken.

John Swales’ (1990) CARS (Create a Research Space) model provides a useful framework for analyzing literature reviews and citation practices. In research studies across methodological communities, Swales argues investigators make these common rhetorical moves:

1. establishing a territory,
2. identifying a niche, and
3. occupying that niche.

Learning Outcomes for the Module

By completing this project, you will

1. understand how researchers construct literature reviews and employ citation practices to substantiate the authority of their works and situate their arguments in ongoing scholarly conversations
2. understand how to evaluate the authority, accuracy, currency, and purpose (CRAAP) of sources/evidence
3. understand the utility and genre of the literature review or problem statement in academic and professional research
4. develop the critical literacy practices necessary to gauge the validity and authority of knowledge claims and research

Guidelines for the Summary and Analysis of Readings (Authority – Rhetorical and Stylistic Analysis)

Required Readings

Before you analyze journals and research studies, you need a working vocabulary for entering scholarly and professional conversations. This assignment introduces you to the core concepts—rhetoric, information literacy, authorship, credibility, evidence, citation, and professional style—that function as the lingua franca (the shared language and values) of academic and workplace communication. Together, these ideas provide the conceptual foundation for understanding how writers and researchers create, evaluate, and circulate knowledge within the field of Professional and Technical Communication (PTC).

1. Scholarship as a Conversation – The Conversation of Humankind
   1. Bruffee, K. (1984). Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind
   2. Conversation Between Sources
   3. Literature Reviews – How Scholars, Empiricists, Creatives & Designers Frame Scholarly Conversations (Moxley 2024)
   4. Understanding How Conversations Change Over Time
2. Information Literacy
   1. Authority & Credibility – How to Be Credible & Authoritative in Research, Speech & Writing
   2. ACRL Information Literacy Framework
   3. Evidence – The Heartbeat of Successful Communication
   4. Canon – Why is the Concept of the Canon So Important to Writers?
   5. The CRAAP Test –  Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose
3. Citation
   1. Attribution — What is the Role of Attribution in Academic and Professional Writing

Requirements

Write a 600–700-word synthesis that answers the following questions:

• Why do researchers situate their studies in the context of ongoing scholarly conversations? What information literacy strategies inform how investigators assess the authority of a research claim? And why are citation practices so important to scholars and researchers.

Your synthesis should:

• Combine insights from multiple readings rather than summarize them one by one.
• Include at least three short quotes or paraphrases (with in-text attributions), using APA 7
• Organize your writing with clear headings (e.g., Scholarship as a Conversation, Information Literacy, Citation)

Evaluation Rubric (100 Points Total)

Criteria	Description	Points
Understanding	Accurately explains key rhetorical and stylistic concepts (rhetorical knowledge, reasoning, style, and authority).	40
Synthesis	Connects ideas across readings to explain how rhetoric and style shape credibility and knowledge-making in PTC.	30
Evidence	Uses at least three well-integrated quotes or paraphrases from the readings.	15
Clarity & Organization	Writing is coherent, well-structured, and follows format and length requirements.	15
Total	100 pts

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Guidelines for Literature Review on Literature Reviews

Write a concise literature review (approximately 500 words, excluding references) that synthesizes insights from four of the following assigned readings:

1. Literature Reviews – How Scholars, Empiricists, Creatives & Designers Frame Scholarly Conversations (Moxley, 2024)
2. A Hermeneutic Approach for Conducting Literature Reviews and Literature Searches (Boell & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2014)
3. A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies (Grant & Booth, 2009)
4. Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review (Pautasso, 2013)
5. How to Write (and How Not to Write) a Scientific Review Article (Sanders, 2020)
6. The art of writing literature review: What do we know and what do we need to know (Paul & Rialp Criado, 2020). <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0969593120300585?via%3Dihub>

(Note: These articles are provided in the Files for the course at Canvas.)

Your goal is to explain what makes an effective literature review according to these authors. This means your claims should be grounded in specific arguments from the readings — not general writing advice that could apply to any assignment. Focus on shared principles and distinctive emphases—such as organization, purpose, ethics, and information value. Weave quotations and paraphrases into a single, coherent argument as opposed to writing one paragraph per article. Summarizing each source separately is not synthesis.

Theoretical Framework

As you address these questions, consider Swales’ CARS model (Create a Research Space), which describes how researchers use citations to:

• Establish territory (show what’s known)
• Identify a niche (reveal gaps or problems)
• Occupy the niche (position their contribution)

Requirements

1. Length: 500 words (excluding reference list).
2. Include at least one direct quotation and one paraphrase from each of the four readings.
   • In APA style, a direct quotation means any phrase of three or more consecutive words copied from a source. Place it in quotation marks and provide an in-text citation with a page or paragraph number.
3. Use APA 7th edition for all in-text citations and the reference list.
4. Upload your completed work to the Canvas Discussion Board by the due date.

Critical GenAI Strategies

You may use GenAI tools to help you with this assignment so long as you submit a metacognitive report on GenAI usage. For example, you may

1. Drop the readings in Notebook LLM to create a podcast.
2. Use multiple GenAI tools to create a summary, so long as you read the readings and double check for GenAI hallucinations
3. Use GenAI to double check your APA 7 citations.

Evaluation Criteria

1. Responsiveness to the prompt (synthesizes at least four of the required readings).
2. Integration and accuracy of quotations and paraphrases.
3. Coherence, concision, and clarity of writing.
4. Correct APA 7 citations and reference formatting.

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Guidelines for Literature Review on Citations and Their Role in Research

Purpose

You already know how to cite sources. This assignment asks you to do something harder: explain why citation practices work the way they do. Citations are not just a formatting requirement or a way to avoid plagiarism — they are rhetorical moves that position researchers within ongoing scholarly conversations, establish credibility, and signal a writer’s relationship to their discipline. Understanding this will sharpen your analytical eye for the capstone, where you’ll be evaluating how JTWC authors use citations in professional and technical communication research.

Assignment

Write a 500-word literature review (excluding references) that explains how citations enable researchers and readers to participate in the ongoing scholarly conversation of humankind. Your review should be a single, unified argument — not a list of answers to the questions below.

The following questions are meant to guide your thinking, not serve as an outline. Do not answer them one by one. Let them inform a central argument that you develop through synthesis across your sources — the same move the previous assignment asked of you.

1. How do citations connect current research to a discipline’s canon and to broader scholarly conversations, helping readers understand what is already known, what remains uncertain, and why new work matters?
2. How do researchers use citations to establish ethos, credibility, and authority — and what do their choices reveal about their awareness of the assumptions, strengths, or limits of the evidence they draw upon?
3. How do researchers introduce sources to signal their authority, currency, relevance, accuracy, and purpose?

Theoretical Framework

Draw on concepts from your previous assignment where relevant — particularly Bruffee’s “scholarly conversation,” Swales’ CARS model, and the CRAAP framework. These are not required in every paper, but students who engage them tend to write more analytically sophisticated reviews. The goal is not to explain these frameworks but to use them as lenses.

This framework helps explain why citation choices matter—they’re not just giving credit; they’re making rhetorical moves that position research within ongoing scholarly conversations. As you’ve seen through Swales’ CARS model, citations aren’t just giving credit — they are the rhetorical moves that position a researcher within an ongoing conversation.

Required Readings

You must cite at least three of the following. Choose the readings that best support your argument — depth over breadth. Include at least one paraphrase from each reading you cite. Direct quotations are welcome but not required

1. Citation Guide – Learn How to Cite Sources in Academic and Professional Writing
   1. Attribution — What is the Role of Attribution in Academic and Professional Writing
   2. Citation – How to Connect Evidence to Your Claims
   3. Citation & Voice – How to Distinguish Your Ideas from Your Sources
   4. Citation Conventions – What is the Role of Citation in Academic & Professional Writing?
   5. Citation Conventions – When Are Citations Required in Academic & Professional Writing?
      1. Summary – Learn How To Summarize Sources in Academic & Professional Writing
   6. Paraphrasing – How to Paraphrase with Clarity & Concision
   7. Quotation – When & How to Use Quotes in Your Writing
      • Block Quotations

Requirements

Word Count: Approximately 500 words (excluding reference list)

Citation of Assigned Readings: Your citations may come from the required readings listed above, from Bruffee’s concept of the “scholarly conversation,” from Swales’ CARS model, or from the CRAAP framework — or from some combination of these. What matters is that you cite at least three sources accurately and weave them into a unified argument rather than summarizing each one separately.

Include at least one paraphrase from each reading you cite. Direct quotations are welcome but not required. Note that paraphrases still require an in-text citation — you must acknowledge the source even when you are putting the idea in your own words. For example: Moxley (2024) argues that effective literature reviews do more than summarize sources — they synthesize and critically evaluate existing research to advance scholarly understanding (para. 3). If you do include a direct quotation, place it in quotation marks and include a page or paragraph number. For example: Bruffee (1984) describes scholarship as “the conversation of humankind,” emphasizing that knowledge is socially constructed through ongoing dialogue (p. 642).

Synthesis, Not Summary: Do not summarize each reading separately. Your entire review should be written as a single, unified paragraph. Do not write one paragraph per source. If you find yourself writing “Author X says… Author Y says…” in separate paragraphs, stop and restructure.

APA 7 Format: Use APA 7th edition for all in-text citations and the reference list. Your reference list should include all readings you cited.

Submission: Upload your completed work to the Canvas Discussion Board by the due date.

Critical GenAI Strategies

You may use GenAI tools to help you with this assignment so long as you submit a metacognitive report on GenAI usage. A reminder from the previous assignment: GenAI tools frequently hallucinate quotations and paraphrases from sources like these — plausible-sounding but fabricated. Before submitting, use Ctrl+F to verify every direct quotation against the actual source text. Submitting a hallucinated quotation will result in a 0 for the Integration criterion. Going forward, hallucinated citations will result in a 0 for the entire assignment.

Evaluation Criteria

Responsiveness to Prompt — The review explains how citations function rhetorically in research, addressing how they connect to disciplinary canons and scholarly conversations, establish credibility, signal source quality, and reveal methodological awareness. Claims are grounded in the assigned readings rather than general knowledge about citation mechanics.

Integration and Accuracy — Includes accurate quotations and paraphrases from at least three required readings, properly formatted with in-text citations including page or paragraph numbers.

Depth of Synthesis — Weaves ideas together across sources into a unified argument rather than summarizing sources separately. Connects citation practices to broader frameworks such as Swales’ CARS model, CRAAP criteria, or Bruffee’s scholarly conversation where relevant.

Clarity and Coherence — Writing is clear, concise, and well-organized. Ideas flow logically and build toward a central argument about how citations enable scholarly participation.

APA 7 Format — Correct in-text citations and reference list formatting. All cited sources appear in the reference list.

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Guidelines for Creative Challenge – Literature Reviews and Citation Practices at JTWC (The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication)

Building on What You’ve Learned

In Module 1, you developed a portrait of the PTC research community by analyzing who publishes in JBTC and TCQ, what topics they pursue, and how journals establish credibility through rhetorical and stylistic choices. You learned to read individual articles as rhetorical systems — paying attention to exigency, audience, tone, evidence, and design. In this module, you’ve shifted from that bird’s-eye view to examining the specific genres that make scholarly conversation possible: literature reviews and citation practices. You’ve read what leading scholars say makes a literature review effective, and you’ve practiced synthesizing across sources rather than summarizing them one by one. This capstone asks you to apply both sets of skills together — the rhetorical eye you developed in Module 1 and the analytical vocabulary you built in Module 2 — to see how PTC researchers actually construct literature reviews and use citations in published work. In Module 3, you’ll build on this foundation by examining the epistemologies and methods that inform PTC research, so the sharper your understanding of how researchers frame and situate their work here, the better prepared you’ll be for what comes next.

Purpose

In this Creative Challenge, you will apply what you’ve learned about literature reviews and citations to examine how these features function in the wild—that is, in published research in Professional and Technical Communication (PTC).

For this assignment you should:

1. Select two of the most-read articles in The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (JTWC), as listed under the “Most Read” tab on the journal’s homepage. (Click More for full list.)
   • Founded in 1971 and published by SAGE, JTWC is one of the field’s longest-standing journals, featuring qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies on trends and approaches in professional and technical communication research.
2. Analyze two studies (rhetorical and textual analysis)
   • How do the investigators
     • follow Swales’ CARS model? How do they establish a territory (what is known), identify a niche (what gap exists), and occupy that niche (what this study contributes)?
     • Exemplify — or fall short of — the principles of effective literature reviews as described in the assigned readings.
     • Use citations to signal Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose (CRAAP) and establish ethos and authority with their readers.

Your goal is not simply to describe what each article does — it is to build an argument about what both articles reveal together about how PTC researchers construct authority and participate in scholarly conversations.

Deliverables

Submit one integrated document containing:

• A synthesis table summarizing quantitative patterns across the two JTWC articles
• An argument-driven synthesis analyzing literature review and citation practices across both articles. Your argument should be grounded in the quantitative patterns from your table and the assigned readings.
• Taken together, your synthesis and interpretation should be around 800 to 1000 words.
• APA 7 reference list for all of the sources you cite

At the top of your document, include:

• Your Name
• Total Word Count for the Entire Document (excluding table and references).

Requirements

Citation of JTWC Articles and Assigned Readings

1. Hallucination Warning: Verify all quotations against the actual source text before submitting. GenAI frequently fabricates plausible-sounding quotations from published articles — and unlike the assigned readings, your instructor may not immediately recognize a fabricated passage from a JTWC article. Your integrity depends on accuracy regardless. Use Ctrl+F to search the actual PDF for the exact words you’re quoting before submitting. If you cannot locate a quotation in the source, rewrite it as a paraphrase you can verify. Hallucinated quotations will receive a 0 for the entire assignment.
2. For Swales attribution:
   • Every time you apply the CARS model — including the very first sentence of your analysis — Swales must be cited. Writing “both articles follow the CARS model” without a citation is the same error as omitting a citation anywhere else.
3. Citation of JTWC Articles: Your reader needs to know which article you’re analyzing at any given moment — don’t assume it’s obvious from context. When you’re discussing a study’s literature review specifically, name it explicitly in your citation so the analytical move is clear:
   • Example (narrative citation): “Author A’s (Year) literature review establishes territory by surveying two decades of [topic] research before identifying a gap in [specific area].”
   • Example (niche occupation): “The literature review in Author B (Year) occupies its niche by proposing a new framework that bridges [concept X] and [concept Y].”
   • Include at least one direct quotation or paraphrase from each JTWC article. In APA style, a direct quotation is any phrase of three or more consecutive words taken from a source — place it in quotation marks and include a page or paragraph number:
     • Example (direct quotation): Author A (Year) argues that [paste actual words from your article here] (p. XX).
     • Example (paraphrase): Author B (Year) contends that effective [X] depends on [Y], a claim that reflects the field’s broader turn toward [Z] (p. XX).
4. Citation of Other Sources:
   Every time you apply Swales’ CARS model, the CRAAP framework, or other ideas from assigned readings, you must cite the source. Using a concept without attribution — even if you’re not quoting — is the same error as omitting a citation in any other context.
   • Example (single source, direct quotation): Paul and Rialp Criado (2020) argue that the central purpose of a literature review is to critically analyze existing scholarship while “identifying relevant theories, key constructs, empirical methods, contexts, and remaining research gaps in order to set a future research agenda” (p. 6).
   • Example (paraphrase): Effective literature reviews do more than catalog prior studies — they synthesize existing knowledge, expose gaps, and justify why new research is warranted (Moxley, 2024).
   • Power Quoting — Gathering Multiple Sources Behind One Claim: One of the most efficient credibility moves available to you as a writer is what scholars sometimes call “power quoting” — gathering two or three sources into a single parenthetical citation to demonstrate that a principle reflects field-wide consensus rather than a single authority’s opinion. Notice how the example below advances a claim without interrupting the flow of the argument:
     • Example: Effective literature reviews do more than catalog prior studies — they synthesize findings, expose gaps, and justify why new research is needed (Moxley, 2024; Paul & Rialp Criado, 2020; Pautasso, 2013).
   • This move is especially useful in your synthesis when you’re making a claim about what the field broadly values. If you find yourself citing the same idea from multiple readings, consider combining them into a single parenthetical rather than writing separate sentences for each source.
5. APA 7 Format:
   1. Use APA 7th edition for all in-text citations and the reference list.
      • The reference list should include both JTWC articles plus any of the assigned readings you cited. Your reference list is where full names and titles live. Trust it to do that work so your prose stays clean and readable.
      • First names do not appear in APA 7 in-text citations — “Guiseppe Getto et al.” should simply be “Getto et al.”
      • Titles belong in the reference list — not in the body of your analysis. When you introduce a source in your text, author and year are all you need. Listing full titles mid-sentence clutters your prose and is not standard APA practice. Compare these two versions:
        • Cluttered: “Guiseppe Getto et al. in How to Write With GenAI: A Framework for Using Generative AI to Automate Writing Tasks in Technical Communication (2025) argue that generative AI can be used to automate writing tasks in technical communication.”
        • Clean: “Getto et al. (2025) argue that generative AI can be used to automate writing tasks in technical communication.”
        • Cluttered: “Guiseppe Getto et al. in How to Write With GenAI: A Framework for Using Generative AI to Automate Writing Tasks in Technical Communication (2025) argue that generative AI can be used to automate writing tasks in technical communication.”
        • Clean: “Getto et al. (2025) argue that generative AI can be used to automate writing tasks in technical communication.”
6. Submission:
   • Upload your completed work to the Canvas Discussion Board by the due date

Synthesis Table

Before writing your synthesis, complete the table below. The table is not busywork — the numbers you collect here should directly drive the claims you make in your written synthesis. If something looks interesting or surprising (an unusually short literature review, a very low percentage of recent citations, a CARS move that’s conspicuously absent, or a pattern across both articles that reveals something about how PTC researchers construct authority), that’s worth writing about. Let the table generate your argument — your synthesis should open with a claim that only someone who completed the table could make.

Article (APA In-Text Citation)	Lit Review Length (pages or ¶s)	Total References	% References <5 Years Old	CARS Elements Present	Notable Citation Patterns
(Author, Year)	3 pages	45	62%	Territory, Niche, Occupation	Heavy empirical studies; includes practitioner sources
(Author, Year)	2.5 pages	38	71%	Territory, Niche, Occupation	Theory-focused; cites canonical PTC scholars

How to complete each column:

1. Lit Review Length: Count the pages or paragraphs dedicated to reviewing prior literature — not the full article.
2. Total References / % <5 Years Old: Count all references in the reference list, then calculate what percentage were published within the last five years.
3. CARS Elements Present: Mark which of Swales’ three moves are clearly present (Territory, Niche, Occupation). If a move is weak or absent, note that too.
4. Notable Citation Patterns: Describe what types of sources dominate — empirical studies, theory, practitioner sources, international vs. US-focused, and so on.

Example of a Synthesis Table

Interpretive Narrative – Synthesis (approximately 800 words recommended)

Your goal is not to report what the table shows but to argue what it means — to use the quantitative patterns you documented as evidence for a larger argument about how PTC researchers construct authority and situate their work in ongoing scholarly conversations. The questions under each heading below are thinking prompts, not an outline to answer one by one. Let them guide your analysis, then build a single, unified argument — the same synthesis move you practiced in the earlier assignments. Do not write one paragraph per article and do not write one paragraph per source. If you find yourself writing “Article A does X… Article B does Y…” in separate paragraphs, stop and restructure around an argument that both articles illuminate together.

Required Headings

Literature Review Practices Across Two JTWC Articles

Go beyond what the table already recorded.

Ask: Are the CARS moves executed convincingly, or does one move feel rushed or underdeveloped? What does the length and recency of each literature review suggest about how these authors position their work? What do two or three of your assigned readings (Grant & Booth, Pautasso, Sanders, Boell & Cecez-Kecmanovic, Moxley, Paul & Rialp Criado) help you evaluate about how well these reviews work — or where they fall short.

Citation Practices Across Two JTWC Articles

Go beyond what the table already recorded. Ask: How do these authors introduce and frame their sources — do they signal Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose (CRAAP) explicitly or implicitly? What do the citation patterns you noted suggest about the disciplinary values and methodological commitments of PTC research? Where do the two articles converge or diverge in how they use citations to establish ethos?

Your citation analysis must be a dedicated, sustained argument — not observations scattered through your literature review section. And organizing it criterion-by-criterion — Currency, then Relevance, then Authority in separate paragraphs — produces a checklist, not an analysis. Instead, ask: what do the citation patterns across both articles reveal together about PTC’s disciplinary values? Let that question generate your argument.

Concluding Synthesis

End with a clearly labeled paragraph of 75–100 words. This is a required element with its own word count — not a throwaway closing sentence. Answer this question: Stepping back from both articles, what do the patterns you’ve identified reveal about how PTC researchers construct authority and participate in scholarly conversations? What would a newcomer to the field learn about PTC’s values and practices from these two examples alone?

Your concluding synthesis should answer a specific question: what do these two articles reveal about how PTC researchers construct authority that a newcomer to the field would find surprising or instructive? A strong concluding synthesis does not address the reader directly, does not summarize what you already said, and does not make claims general enough to apply to any academic field. Compare these two examples:

• Weak: “Both articles show that literature reviews are important for establishing authority in scholarly conversations.”
• Strong: “Taken together, these articles reveal that authority in PTC is not declared through credentials alone — it is built through deliberate alignment between citation strategy and argumentative purpose, whether that means anchoring a theoretical argument in decades of genre scholarship or bridging academic and practitioner knowledge systems to serve two audiences simultaneously.”

From Summary to Argument: How to Write a Strong Synthesis

The most common mistake in this assignment is treating each article separately — one paragraph on Article A, one paragraph on Article B. That structure produces summary, not synthesis. Synthesis means organizing your analysis around a central claim that both articles illuminate together.

Compare these two openings:

• Summary: “Both articles use Swales’ CARS model to establish territory, identify a niche, and occupy it.”
• Synthesis: “Reading the two articles together shows a disciplinary pattern: recency and empirical density signal urgency for immediate, data-driven interventions, while theoretical anchoring signals the need for conceptual reframing.”

The second opening could only have been written by someone who completed the table. It makes a claim about what both articles reveal together about PTC scholarship — and the rest of the analysis exists to prove that claim.

Ask yourself before you write: What do these two articles reveal together about how PTC researchers construct authority and situate their work in scholarly conversations? That argument — not a description of what each article does — is where your opening should come from.

Critical GenAI Strategies

You may use GenAI tools so long as you submit a metacognitive report on usage. You may drop readings into NotebookLM, use GenAI to create summaries, or use it to check APA 7 citations — but you must read the sources and use Ctrl+F to verify every quotation against the actual source before submitting.

Evaluation Criteria

Synthesis Table
Accurately documents data for both articles. Clear, complete, and properly formatted. Quantitative patterns are visibly connected to the written argument. Note: simply checking “Territory, Niche, Occupation” without evaluating whether those moves are executed convincingly will not earn full points.

Literature Review
Analysis Builds an argument across both articles rather than summarizing them individually. Evaluates whether CARS moves are executed convincingly or fall short, not just whether they are present. Applies Swales’ CARS model with attribution. Draws on at least two assigned readings, cited when applied. Includes at least one direct quotation or paraphrase from each JTWC article as evidence — unsupported claims about what an article does will not earn full points.

Note: writing one paragraph per article is a summary, not an argument. If you find yourself writing “Article A does X… Article B does Y…” in separate paragraphs, stop and restructure.

Citation Analysis
Examines how citations build authority across both articles. Analyzes CRAAP signaling and citation patterns. Connects citation choices to disciplinary values and methodological commitments. Note: walking through each CRAAP criterion in a separate paragraph produces a checklist, not an analysis — organize around an argument about what the citation patterns reveal.

Clarity, Style & Format
Clear, concise, and well-organized. Argument is not structured article-by-article. Includes required 75–100 word concluding synthesis. In-text citations follow APA 7 conventions: author and year only — full titles and first names do not belong in the text. Accurate APA 7 citations and references. Meets word count.

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Guidelines for the Metacognitive Report

For detailed guidance, examples, and the complete list of legitimate AI roles, see Metacognitive Report – AI Writing Ethics: Balancing Agency, Voice & Disclosure.

Your report must include:

1. Header — Beneath your title, record left-justified:

• Word Count / Name / GenAI Tools Used / Chat Log Links

2. GenAI Usage Table(s) — One table per tool with these columns:

• Step in Writing Process (Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, etc.)
• Number of Chats
• Primary Purpose(s) (Thought Partner, Research Assistant, Teaching Assistant, etc.)
• Notes on Use (2–3 sentences: what you asked, what the AI gave you, and whether you accepted, revised, or rejected it — and why)

3. Critical Reflection (minimum 250 words) — Explain:

• Which roles AI played and why
• At least one moment where you rejected or corrected AI output
• How AI helped you learn something you then applied independently
• Where you made decisions AI could not make for you

Submission Guidelines

Upload your report along with your assignment to Canvas by the required due date.

Evaluation Rubric

Criterion	What Earns Full Points
Required components & specificity (header, table(s), chat logs, word count; concrete examples from every major assignment)	Everything present, accurate, and specific — no vague generalities
Critical analysis of agency, iteration, risks, & lessons learned — including explicit discussion of when and why you accepted chunks of AI-generated text, what you changed or kept, and what that choice reveals about your judgment as a writer	Clear references to required readings; honest discussion of how you stayed in control; accepted passages are identified and defended, not just mentioned
Clarity, organization, & authentic voice	Logical flow, concise sentences, error-free PDF; authentic voice evident — writing does not read as AI-generated