Ethnography as a Genre

Analyzing Interviewing

What kinds of questions does he ask? What is the purpose of the questions he asks? What issues/challenges does he have with interviews? How does he work out those challenges? How does he use the interviews in his ethnography? What are some strengths of using interviews? Some weaknesses (what can’t interviews do for him)? What do you think about various interviews as opposed to just one? What does that do for his ethnography?

Analyzing observing

What does he observe? Why? Where (within the truck stop) does he observe? Why? What issues/challenges does he have with observing? How does he work out those challenges? How does he use the observations in his ethnography and what affect does it have? What are some strengths of using observation? Some weaknesses (what can’t observation do for him)?

Scholarly Research in Ethnography

Where and when does he use scholarly research? Why does he seem to use it/what does his purpose for using it appear to be? What are some strengths of using scholarly research? Weaknesses (especially for ethnography) What can the other methods of research do for an ethnography that scholarship cannot?

Descriptions of People and Space

Physical representation of the truck stop – how does he describe this? How and where does he describe the people? Why is this important or helpful in an ethnography?

Ethnography Genre

From reading this ethnography, how would you explain to someone how to write an ethnography? What are the conventions of this genre? Think about: purpose of the text, formality, style, audience, research methods. What does an ethnography include? Where does his info come from (and why chose those methods at those points)

Writing Strategies

How does Zollo make this interesting to read? How does he make this informative? Look carefully at the ways he chooses to present the information to the reader. What strategies do you think are useful? Not as useful? Which ones do you think you might emulate when writing your ethnography? Does he have any biases or assumptions? If so, how does he deal with those in his writing?