Source: Michael Carter, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 385–418
Tags: metagenre, problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from sources, performance, disciplinary writing, genre, ways of doing, writing in the disciplines, WID, outcomes assessment
Carter identifies four metagenres – broad categories of disciplinary "doing" that cut across many fields. Each metagenre describes a general kind of learning situation and the typified writing responses that go with it. The four are: problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from sources, and performance. These are drawn from outcomes-assessment plans across fifty-one programmes at NC State.
Metagenre
A broad, cross-disciplinary category of ways of doing. Each metagenre defines a generic learning situation and groups together the genres (written and otherwise) that respond to it. Carter identifies four.
Problem solving (metagenre)
The metagenre in which students define a problem, establish parameters, generate possible solutions, evaluate them against criteria, and justify a recommended solution. Dominant in engineering, applied sciences, and pre-professional programmes.
Empirical inquiry (metagenre)
The metagenre in which students formulate hypotheses, design investigations, gather and analyse data, and draw conclusions. Associated with the natural and social sciences. The classic structure is introduction–methods–results–discussion.
Research from sources (metagenre)
The metagenre in which students gather information from existing texts and sources, synthesise it, and build a persuasive argument or interpretation. Characterised by the research paper. Dominant in the humanities and some social sciences.
Performance (metagenre)
The metagenre in which the primary evidence of learning is the artefact or act itself (a design, a piece of writing, an artwork) rather than a report about it. The doing is implicit in the object produced. Found in art, design, rhetoric, writing, and language disciplines.
Critique ("crit")
A genre within the performance metagenre, especially in design and art fields. Usually an oral or written presentation of a student's artefact or portfolio, followed by evaluation of the work, process, and effectiveness. Faculty identify it as crucial to student success, yet it often receives little formal instruction.
Carter's data comes from outcomes-assessment plans across all nine undergraduate colleges at NC State, supplemented by conversations with faculty committees. He acknowledges the data is limited to one large Southern land-grant institution, but argues the metagenre concept itself is generalisable even if the specific groupings may vary elsewhere.
The four metagenres share two things in common: each defines a generic learning situation, and each is composed of genres that respond to that situation across different disciplines.
This is the dominant metagenre at a land-grant university with strong engineering and pre-professional programmes.
Generic learning situation: Students define a problem, establish parameters for a solution, generate possible solutions, evaluate those solutions against criteria, and identify and justify a recommended solution.
Example – Food Science:
Identify, define, and analyse a problem (what generates it, what is given, what is unknown, what are the criteria for viable solutions)
Determine what information is appropriate, assess its authority and validity, use it effectively
Integrate and apply basic science and mathematics to food systems problems
Offer a range of potential viable solutions
Evaluate solutions against established criteria, choose the most viable, and make a convincing case for it
Example – Textiles Engineering (ABET Criterion 3c):
Students demonstrate mastery of the full design process:
Problem definition (establishing need, customer/market analysis)
Concept generation (converting requirements to product specifications, generating options)
Concept selection (analysing proposed concepts against specifications, making a case for the optimal option)
Concept refinement (prototyping, testing, analysing technical/economic/environmental viability, selling the product)
Genres in this metagenre: business plans, feasibility reports, management plans, marketing plans, reports to management, project reports, project proposals, technical memoranda, technical reports.
Key point: These genres share a common broad motive or purpose, which in Russell's terms links them in an overall genre system. Faculty across disciplines like accounting, agricultural economics, animal science, business management, food science, forestry management, mathematics, pulp and paper science, psychology, and various engineering fields all describe this same basic pattern, even though the specific domain knowledge differs.
Empirical inquiry is the way of doing that consists of answering questions through systematic investigation based on empirical data.
Two primary examples – Microbiology and Political Science:
Microbiology students should be able to:
Ask pertinent questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments to test them
Apply deliberate and thorough observational skills to conduct experiments and collect data
Organise, summarise, and present data accurately in verbal and graphical forms
Interpret data and draw conclusions that allow them to support or refute hypotheses
Political Science students should be able to:
Identify important research questions
Identify an existing theory appropriate to the investigation
Create hypotheses
Test hypotheses using rigorous empiricism
Apply appropriate methodologies to collected data
Explain acquired information in the context of existing knowledge in the field
Cross-disciplinary similarity: Despite microbiology and political science being traditionally distinct, their outcomes describe strikingly similar ways of doing – identifying questions, establishing hypotheses, gathering data, testing hypotheses, and drawing conclusions. The responses to this learning situation correspond to the parts of a scientific report: introduction, methods, results, discussion.
Genres in this metagenre: laboratory reports, posters, poster presentations, research proposals, research reports, scientific articles, scientific presentations.
Variations within the metagenre:
Carter notices three variations in how empirical inquiry is applied:
Hypothetical inquiry (the classic model): research driven by a hypothesis, designed to test it. Seen in microbiology and political science.
Descriptive empirical inquiry: Lab reports that describe phenomena (e.g. geology students describing minerals according to standard parameters, or surveying a site). Emphasises abstract knowledge of methods over hypothesis testing.
Practical field inquiry: Emphasises the actual practice of methods. Anthropology, for instance, stresses that empirical research is critical to the field, but the primary teaching genre is the project proposal because full fieldwork is too time-consuming for undergraduates.
The distinguishing features of this metagenre:
The research draws on sources with their origins elsewhere (not on independent observation or data collection).
The goal of the research typically has intrinsic value to the discipline rather than extrinsic practical application.
Example – History:
History students should be able to:
Pose an interesting research question about history
Locate relevant primary and secondary sources for investigating it
Critically evaluate those sources for credibility, authenticity, interpretive stance, audience, potential biases, and value
Marshall evidence to support a historical argument and answer the research question
Example – Multidisciplinary Studies:
Students should be able to:
Take an interest or problem not contained by a single discipline and mould it into a researchable question
Choose and apply research methodologies from more than one discipline
Integrate findings from multiple disciplines to form and support a sound argument
Complete a project that integrates what they have learned across their courses
Key insight – research as a disciplinary way of knowing, not a generic skill: Faculty in fields stressing research from sources did not describe the goals of student research in discipline-specific terms the way problem-solving and empirical-inquiry fields did. They simply assumed students would know how to do research. Carter argues this reveals that for these disciplines, learning the ways of doing is itself a way of knowing essential to the discipline, even though it is often left implicit.
Faculty in these fields tend to describe research as a means to an end defined by the individual discipline, a specialised way of knowing – not an end in itself. The techniques are clearly metageneric (shared across fields), yet the ends they serve are discipline-specific.
Genres in this metagenre: historical narrative from sources, literary criticism, research paper, research project.
The label "performance" denotes both the act and the resulting object. The primary evidence of learning is the artefact itself (or the act of producing it), not a report about it. The doing is implicit in the object of the doing.
Where it dominates: Art and design, graphic design, industrial design, landscape architecture, architecture, language, writing, and rhetoric. Also music, dance, and theatre, though Carter's university does not offer bachelor's degrees in those areas.
Example – College of Design ("curriculum performance standards"):
Students should demonstrate:
Understanding of basic design principles, concepts, media, and formats across fine arts disciplines
Mastery of basic foundation techniques related to specific fine arts fields
Ability to conceive, design, and create works in one or more fine arts fields
Working knowledge of production methods and their relationship to conceptualisation, development, and completion of works of art
Understanding of similarities, differences, and relationships among the various fine arts areas
These are standards for the characteristics of what the discipline of art and design is, not standards for the performance directly. The artefacts students produce represent students' achievement of the department's outcomes.
Example – Rhetoric, Writing, and Language:
Students should:
Possess a repertoire of writing skills and familiarity with conventions governing written discourse, and apply those skills and conventions creatively and effectively
Be proficient in designing, writing, and editing documents for various audiences and purposes
Possess collaborative skills for working productively with other writers or specialists
Two distinguishing features of the performance metagenre:
The artefact takes on a heightened status. In engineering, the technical report details what was done; in design and art, the artefact is the work. Faculty and students see the primary locus of their work as the thing itself.
The learning situations are opportunities for acquisition of ways of doing through the act of creating artefacts that are then critiqued, rather than through direct instruction. Knowledge is "enduring" – enacted in performance, generating an artefact that is itself direct evidence of that knowledge.
The critique as an invisible genre: The critique (or "crit") is identified by design faculty as critically important – from first-year classes to doctoral defence – yet it typically receives little or no formal instruction. WID professionals can help make this genre visible and teachable.
Art and design outcomes do not list specific genres, instead referring generally to "fine arts" (drawing, sculpture, painting, multimedia, etc.). In rhetoric, writing, and language, the focus is mainly on written performance: documentation, editorials, feature articles, news stories, proposals, technical reports, PowerPoint presentations, websites.
⚠️ Be able to name and briefly define all four metagenres: problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from sources, performance.
⚠️ The metagenre concept shows that ways of doing are not unique to individual disciplines but cut across many fields. This is what makes them useful for WID professionals working across a university.
⚠️ Know how the empirical inquiry metagenre maps onto the standard scientific report structure (introduction, methods, results, discussion). This is a concrete example of how genre instantiates a way of doing.
⚠️ Understand the distinction between the performance metagenre and the others: in performance, the doing is implicit in the artefact, whereas in the other three, the doing is made explicit through a written report or argument about something.
⚠️ The "critique" in design disciplines is a good example of an invisible but crucial genre that WID work can surface and formalise.
⚠️ Research from sources is the metagenre where faculty were least likely to describe disciplinary ways of doing in field-specific terms, because they assumed the research skills were simply things students should already know.
Q: What is a metagenre, and how does it differ from a genre?
A: A genre is a typified response to a specific recurrent rhetorical situation. A metagenre is a broader category – a pattern of ways of doing that cuts across disciplines. It groups together genres from different fields that all respond to a similar kind of learning situation (e.g. the lab report and the scientific poster both belong to the empirical inquiry metagenre).
Q: List Carter's four metagenres and give one example discipline for each.
A: Problem solving (e.g. food science, textiles engineering), empirical inquiry (e.g. microbiology, political science), research from sources (e.g. history, multidisciplinary studies), performance (e.g. art and design, rhetoric and writing).
Q: Why does Carter find it significant that microbiology and political science share similar outcomes?
A: It demonstrates that disciplines traditionally considered distinct (natural science vs. social science) share a common way of doing – empirical inquiry. Both expect students to identify questions, form hypotheses, gather data, test hypotheses, and draw conclusions. This shared pattern is the metagenre, and it reveals cross-disciplinary connections that content-focused views of disciplines tend to hide.
Q: How does the performance metagenre differ from the other three in terms of how "doing" is represented?
A: In the other three metagenres, doing is made explicit through written reports, arguments, or analyses about some activity. In the performance metagenre, doing is implicit in the artefact or act itself. The artefact (a design, a piece of writing, a work of art) is the direct evidence of knowing, not a secondary account of it.
Q: What is the "critique" in design disciplines, and why does Carter highlight it?
A: The critique (or "crit") is a presentation and evaluation of a student's artefact or portfolio, typically involving discussion of the work, process, audience, and effectiveness. Faculty view it as essential from first year through doctoral level, yet it is rarely taught explicitly. Carter highlights it as an example of an "invisible" genre that WID professionals can help make visible, teachable, and assessable.
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