Displaying Disciplinarity

Abstract

Publishing in professional journals requires the author to display disciplinarity and yet to say something novel. This article approaches this familiar rhetorical problem from a novel perspective by analyzing disciplinarity as a kind of orthodoxy. Four elements of orthodoxy (narrative knowledge, assumptions and methodologies, hierarchy, and doctrinal knowledge) are identified. Then, the article argues that an orthodox ethos is created by signaling allegiance to a plurality of these elements. An example of an article that displays disciplinarity, David Raup's “Cohort analysis of generic survivorship,” is analyzed, showing the author establishes his orthodox ethos by challenging only one of the elements of orthodoxy while simultaneously signaling allegiance to the others.

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