Academic Discourse & Genre

This is the Nature Photonics issue I took my photo with in the previous post. Here is analysis of the different genres in the March issue:

Nature Photonics. "2016| Volume 10" 2/15/16 via nature.com.

Genres:

There are five main sections in the journal with different purposes and intended audiences:

• Editorial: Talks about current events in the "Scientific community and Society"- intended to set the publication in context with current events
• Correspondence: Researchers respond to questions(the title of the article is the question they are answering) by other researchers by showing their work- the intended audience is directly to the person/organization that asked a question
•  News: speaks of recent discoveries and the intended course of action- intended audience is broader as the articles consist of significantly less technical jargon and is easier to understand
•  Letters: address general topics in the field of optics or related fields- the audience is an expert in the field but not necessarily the topic as the letters are less specific than the articles 
•  Articles: focuses on specific concentrations in the field of optics-the audience is an expert in the field who focuses on the same concentration as the article