Summary Swales lists a set of criteria to better define a discourse community.

These are the six characteristics Swales uses to define a legit discourse community. 1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. 2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. 3. A discourse community uses it participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. 4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possess one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. 5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. 6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. (further analysis with corresponding numbers )

Analysis In the essay, Swales notices a problem with the Herzberg definition of discourse communities. The definition is lacking a list of characteristics that define a discourse community. Discourse communities are just glorified speech communities. And example Swales gives are New Yorkers and Fishermen. One must know one form of speech and know its patterns of use. Both are required to be a speech community. For the sake of this explanation, I will use Club softball as my discourse community 1. Everyone on the team might have their own separate goals, like a higher batting average, or lower ERA. But the fact that the main goals, (winning, teaching and having fun) are shared by all makes it a discourse community, 2. The main way club softball communicates is through a group page on Facebook made especially for the team. It is there that practice times and tournament dates are posted. 3. An example of this would be going to practice. You are not a part of the team unless you attend practices regularly; therefore you are not a part of the discourse community. 4. A main goal of club softball is winning. Tryouts are held every year to recruit new, better players in the hopes of becoming a better team. 5. There are many terms we use in club softball that might not be familiar to others. Examples include ERA, suicide squeeze and pickle. There are also hand signals that the coaches give to players who are on base. 6. There is a definite layer to this discourse community: you have the officers, who are usually the oldest and run the club. Then there are the returners, who already know each other and how the team is run. Then there are the newbies, mostly freshmen, who hardly know any one, with inadequate knowledge of how the club is run.