Gerald Azul 9/4/2012 Tuesday and Thursday at 9:00 am

Preliminary Genre Analysis Political science is a multi disciplinary discipline. It blends all social sciences to analyze people and situations. Political scientists are sometimes referred to as analysts, and as analysts they usually break down situations psychologically, sociologically, or historically. Sometimes analysts are able to use all three and maybe more. Political scientists/analysts share their analyses with one another through personal writings and publishing them in scholarly journals. Journals are either very broad or very specific to a subject. Journals are the political science genre. Genres are a reflection of a discourse community, in this the political science major. Genres are where members of a community socially interact and create meaning. All in short, genres are a written method of communication within a community. Political scientists participate in the community by reading and writing articles in journals. Absorb what others have to give, and contribute what you can. According to Swales, a discourse community requires group participation and feedback. This is achieved through genres.

Setting

The articles I obtained were from the UCF library databases. The database I used was Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Other articles in the same journals I retrieved my specific

articles were all political analyses. They range from specific analysis to certain countries and events, or broad overviews of regions and events. My topic, which is the real Che Guevara and politics/views in relation to todays world, has been thoroughly analyzed in this database. The database also provided broad overviews of Che Guevara. Two of the three articles were in depth analyses of Che. This shows that political analysts go deeper into subjects/topics more than the general public. Many who know of Che Guevara merely have an elementary understanding of this political figure. Political scientists/analysts are a specialist group that breaks down politics and people into smaller disciplines like psychology and sociology.

Subject

Two of three articles are in depth analysis of Che Guevara. The article by James Petras put Che Guevara into perspective with contemporary revolutions, especially in Latin America. Latin America today is pretty much a refuge for far left ideologies, for example Venezuela and their leader Hugo Chavez; a far left politician. The book which my second article originated from by Humberto Fontova analyzes the true character of Che Guevara. He attempts to remove the mystique and folk legend perspective of Che Guevara. For example; Fontova refers to Che Guevaras travels as a doctor as hoboing. He removes the romantic image of Che as a roaming doctor/rebel without a pure cause to fight for. The third article by Gordon H. McCormick is a broad overview of the legendary Che Guevara. It mainly contains a brief history as to why he is so revered by the world today. It would be something you can find on wikipedia or any basic source of knowledge. For example; McCormick explains how Ernesto Guevara became known as Che. You can find this piece of information in almost any article about Che Guevara.

Participants

The main audience of these articles is fellow political scientists and analysts. Not only do they read these articles, many write their own articles with their own analysis. For this topic, mainly political scientists and analysts with a specialty in revolutions will have much interest in these articles. It wasnt until after the 1960s academics took up studying revolution, especially in todays world where terrorism is a problem, and events like the Arab Spring. The authors are all analysts. Gordon H. McCormick is an analysts that has worked for the Department of Defense and other agencies with similar objectives. James Petra is a political scientist and sociologist, as well as an activist. Humberto Fontova is a Cuban Exile and a sociologist. Political science is a blend of other social sciences, this is why two of the three authors are sociologists. This shows that the political science/analyst community breaks down politics and people into more disciplines. Fontova analyzes Che from a sociological perspective. This is so the people can have a full understanding of certain politics and people. The first rule of war is to know thy enemy. This cant be done by googling your subjects.

Feautures

The recurrent feature in these articles is Che Guevaras political ideology (Marxist Leninist). The difference between the three is the analysis. For example, Fontova removes the legend of Che from the individual and analyzes him as a person. Petras puts Che in contemporary revolution terms and how his ideology would be today. For example, he mentions

a clich about Che; he wrote along the lines of, Che would shoot the people who wear shirts and other memorabilia. McCormick actually keeps the legendary aspect of Che. His article is mainly about what made Che a legend, not necessarily as in depth as the other two analyses. All the articles are written in sections. Each begin with a quick overview, and then jump into the analysis. The voices are either monotone or highly passionate. I would assume the article by McCormick would be passionate being it is about the legend/romantic aspect of Che.

Patterns

The genre of these articles is for the political science crowd. In turn these are written in the APA format, or at least cited in this manner. The articles are written in sections, and each section is an elaboration/presentation of evidence for a certain argument or analysis. It shows the values these authors have. They value their perspective and present them to the reader in an upfront manner. The flow of the articles is that there is none. The flow resides in the individual subheadings. The values is not prettiness of the writing, as in lyrical flow, but mainly how well the message is delivered to the receiver. The best way for the writers to convey their messages is in an upfront logical manner. These are used normally with research in liberal arts. For example in Comp 1, my class was assigned to do ethnography. After the research was conducted of a certain discourse community, the data was written up in the APA format. This format is usual with liberal arts like history, especially when a specific event or time period is researched and the writer has a specific analysis. From these articles especially when doing extensive research allow the reader to gain a certain perspective. In time the reader can create his or her own perspective and analysis, then write of it. The attitude of the articles is generally biased. Che Guevara was a

political figures, and all politics are biased, they are a simply a theory like genres and genre analysis in writing. The writers attitude toward the world go from anti-imperialist to American conservative. Each authors article is usually skewed by the right or left wing in relation to the country and lifestyle they were raised in.