Graham Smart

Biography

After completing a Ph.D. in Education at McGill University’s Centre for the Study and Teaching of Writing, I taught in the U.S. for seven years, five at Purdue University and two at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, before coming to Carleton in 2004. My research and teaching focus on the study of writing in academic and workplace settings as well as on environmental discourse. In my most recent research, I am looking at how arguments are socially constructed within the various discourses comprising the current debate over the reality and implications of global climate change.

Prior to starting a professional academic career, I worked for a number of years as an in-house writing consultant and trainer at the Bank of Canada, the country’s central bank. As an insider, I was able to use the Bank of Canada as a research site for an ethnographic study of the role of technology-mediated discourse in the organization’s knowledge-building, policy-making, and public communication. This work was eventually published in the book, Writing the economy: Activity, genre, and technology in the world of banking .

During the 2007-2008 academic year, I was the School’s acting Graduate Supervisor.

Research Interests

• writing in academic and workplace settings
• genre theory and genre analysis
• interpretive ethnography
• environmental discourse

Courses

Current course information for this faculty member can be found by searching the Carleton Central/Public Schedule by Term and Name.

Courses previously taught

• ALDS 3401 / ENGL 3908: Research and Theory in Academic Writing
• ALDS 3402: Research & Theory in Workplace Writing
• ALDS 3706: Discourse Analysis
• ALDS 4403: Writing & Knowledge-making in the Disciplines
• ALDS 4906: Special Topic in Applied Language Studies: Teaching Writing in School and Workplace (formerly LALS 4906)
• ALDS 5001: Directions in ALDS
• ALDS 5005: Theoretical Foundations for Applied Language Studies (formerly LALS 5005)
• ALDS 5605: Research and Theory Workplace Writing (formerly LALS 5605)

Recent Publications

“Argumentation across Web-based organizational discourses: The case of climate change.” In Srikant Sarangi & Chris Candlin (Eds.), Handbook of communication in organisations and professions. Mouton De Gruyter. 2011.

In press. “Discourse-oriented ethnography.”  In James Gee & Michael Handford (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of discourse analysis. Routledge.

Accepted for publication pending revisions. “‘Unprecedented Breakthrough!’ AND ‘Abject Failure!’: A Contextual and Textual Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord.” Journal of Language and Politics. (co-authored with Aditi Bhatia)

“Ethnographic-based discourse analysis: Uses, issues and prospects.” In Vijay Bhatia, John Flowerdew, & Rodney Jones (Eds.) Advances in discourse studies. London and New York: Routledge. 2008.

“Writing and the social formation of economy.” In Charles Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 2007.

Writing the economy: Activity, genre, and technology in the world of banking. London: Equinox. 2006.

“Developing a ‘discursive gaze’: Participatory action research with student interns encountering new genres in the activity of the workplace.” In N. Artemeva & A. Freedman (Eds.), Rhetorical genre studies and beyond (pp. 241- 282). Winnipeg: Inkshed Publications. 2006. (co-authored with Nicole Brown)

“A central bank’s ‘communications strategy’: The interplay of activity, discourse genres, and technology in a time of organizational change.” In Charles Bazerman & David Russell (Eds.), Writing selves/writing societies: Research from activity perspectives (pp. 9-61). Fort Collins, Colorado: The WAC Clearinghouse and Mind, Culture, and Activity. 2003.

Awards/Honours

• Nominated for Capital Educator’s Award, March 2007.
• Article nominated for 2000 National Council of Teachers of English ‘Award for Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research in Technical or Scientific Communication’, as well as for 2000 Association for Business Communication ‘Award for Distinguished Publication in Business Communication’: “Storytelling in a central Bank: The role of narrative in the creation and use of specialized economic knowledge.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 13 (1999). 249-273.
• An Ethnographic Study of Knowledge-Making in a Central Bank: The Interplay of Writing and Economic Modeling : Second place, 1999 National Council of Teachers of English ‘Award for Best Dissertation in Technical Communication’; and first place, 1998 ADEREQ (Association of Deans of Education for Research in Education in Quebec) ‘Outstanding Dissertation Award’.

Recent Graduate Supervisions

M.A. Thesis, Phillip Sloan. Contextualizing Writing Centres: Theory versus Practice. Defended May 2007 (passed with distinction). School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Carleton University.

M.A. Thesis. Jennifer Blankert. The U.S. Navy Casualty Report: A Genre of Inclusion and Exclusion. Defended April 2003. Department of English, Purdue University.