Doctoral students who seek to become part of what Geertz called “intellectual villages” (Geertz 1983: 157) must acculturate themselves into the ways of being, knowing, and especially writing in an academic discourse community. In this autobiographical case study, I use the academic writing I produced as a doctoral student to explore the process of developing an academic identity. I analyzed my writing for the absence or presence of the following rhetorical strategies: referencing conventions, use or avoidance of the scholarly I, and use of questions in the text. This critical examination of my writing illustrates the ways in which I experimented with my emerging academic identity as I struggled to begin participating meaningfully in the ongoing conversation within the discourse community I sought to join.