Journal of Business and Technical Communication Apr 2006

Look Who’s Talking: Teaching and Learning Using the Genre of Medical Case Presentations

Marlee M. Spafford University of Waterloo ; Catherine F. Schryer University of Waterloo ; Marcellina Mian University College London ; Lorelei Lingard University of Toronto

Abstract

In a pediatric teaching hospital, the authors examined 16 novice medical case presentations that were classified as instances of a hybrid apprenticeship genre. In contrast to strict school and workplace genres, an apprenticeship genre results from the sometimes competing activity systems of student education and patient care. The authors examined these novice case presentations for the amount and patterns of time devoted to student learning and expert teaching, the difficulties created for participants, the sometimes misunderstood implicit messages delivered by experts, and the opportunities to address educational objectives. This study offers professional communication researchers a model that combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to assess the effects of competing activity systems in the development of communication expertise.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2006-04-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651905284396
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
genre theory teacher development professional writing
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (13)

  1. Driscoll et al. (2022)
    Threshold Genres: A 10-Year Exploration of a Medical Writer’s Development and S…
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  2. Weedon et al. (2021)
    Embodied Genres, Typified Performances, and the Engineering Design Process
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  3. Campbell (2018)
    The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine as a “Teaching Subject”: Lessons from the M…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Lawrence (2015)
    Book Review: Vaccinations and Public Concern in History: Legend, Rumor, and Ris…
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  5. Spinuzzi et al. (2015)
    Remaking the Pitch: Reuse Strategies in Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Decks
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Show all 13 →
  1. Spinuzzi et al. (2014)
    Making the Pitch: Examining Dialogue and Revisions in Entrepreneurs' Pitch Decks
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. Bellwoar (2012)
    Everyday Matters: Reception and Use as Productive Design of Health-Related Texts
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Artemeva et al. (2011)
    The Writing’s on the Board: The Global and the Local in Teaching Undergraduate …
    Written Communication
  4. Spinuzzi (2011)
    Losing by Expanding: Corralling the Runaway Object
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. Dannels (2009)
    Features of Success in Engineering Design Presentations: A Call for Relational …
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  6. Dannels et al. (2008)
    Critiquing Critiques: A Genre Analysis of Feedback Across Novice to Expert Desi…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  7. Artemeva (2008)
    Toward a Unified Social Theory of Genre Learning
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  8. Varpio et al. (2007)
    Seeing and Listening: A Visual and Social Analysis of Optometric Record-Keeping…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication

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CrossRef global citation count: 38 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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