ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author follows a skilled adult writer, Nate, entering a research community by examining the introductions he wrote to research papers over the first year and a half of his tenure in a doctoral program. The research described above suggests that writing the introduction to a research report involves bringing into play a considerable amount of procedural as well as content knowledge. Thus the introductions to Nate's research reports can be viewed not only for presence of the rhetorical features that mark acceptance in a national community of researchers but for facility with and dependence on topics and language from both his past and from his immediate social context. The antecedents to the propositions on collaborative writing, social contexts, and critical reading and writing are traceable to earlier drafts, comments by his professor and classmates, and class discussion as evidenced by Nate's self reports during the semester.
