ABSTRACT
Scholars of communication and rhetoric have been interested in scientific genres
for some time. In fact, much of the seminal work in genre since the 1980s has
dealt with scientific texts (e.g., Bazerman, 1988, 1994; Berkenkotter & Huckin,
1995; Miller, 1984, 1994; Schryer, 1993, 1994; Swales, 1990, 2004), and these
studies have helped us understand the inherently social nature of genres (Miller,
1984), their key role in community formation and cohesion (Miller, 1994), and
the ways that genres evolve and interact in assemblages (Bazerman, 1994; Devitt,
1991; Orlikowski & Yates, 1994; Spinuzzi, 2002, 2004; Spinuzzi & Zachry,
2000; Swales, 2004; Yates & Orlikowski, 2002).
