The document summarizes John Swales' article on discourse communities and applies its concepts to the YouTube fitness community. It discusses the six characteristics of a discourse community according to Swales: shared goals, intercommunication, participation, genres, lexis, and expertise. The document then analyzes how these characteristics apply to YouTube fitness channels and their subscribers. It explores how these channels help their followers and the effect of the YouTube fitness community through interviews and gym observations.

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Joe Vergato
Rebecca Agosta
UWRT 1103-007
7 November 2014
Annotated Bibliography
What is required of a discourse community?
Swales, John. ''The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in Academic
and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990.21-32. Print
Swales was the first piece of literature that our class read about discourse communities.
In this article Swales discussed what discourse communities were and the six things you
need to be a part of one. The first way was to share common goals. A discourse
community all share a common predominate goal. The next is discourse communities
have intercommunication. This means each discourse community have a different way of
communicating. Next there is participation, in order to be in a discourse community you
have to participate in its events. The fourth necessary thing to be in a discourse
community is genres. A discourse community will naturally break up into smaller groups.
Lexis is also necessary to be in a discourse community. This is the special vocabulary
used in every different discourse community. Lastly you need expertise in discourse
community. There are different levels of skill in every discourse community.
Swales article was the driving factor behind my research. When picking YouTube fitness
channels as my discourse community I made sure that each of the six necessary

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characteristics of a discourse community applied. For example in the YouTube fitness
community each YouTuber has their own expertise about fitness, specifically lifting
weight. Some YouTubers are experts in body building while others are experts in power
lifting. Within the YouTube community Swales fourth way of being in a discourse
community come into light. This is genres and when a community breaks into smaller
groups. This happens when some of the different YouTubeers get together and
collaborate to make one video. They are making smaller groups out of the lager discourse
community.
How does this directly relate to a YouTuber?
What makes your YouTube channel unique from all the others?
Chewning, Maxx. Who is Maxx Chewning YouTube. August 2014
From this interview Maxx, the interviewed YouTube fitness channel runner, stated that
he has expertise in power lifting and uses that expertise to help other power lifters that are
not as advanced as him. He uses the YouTube discourse community as a way to interact
with subscribers and other YouTubers. I learned different lexis used within his discourse
community and why he chose to have a YouTube channel. I learned a lot about his
personal goals and plans for his future. He is driven by the death of his father and looks
to use the YouTube community to continue his legacy by making a brand in his honor.
This interview helped me answer a lot of the questions I had about fitness YouTube
communities. I learned why Maxx has his channel, what his goals are, and how he is
unique from all the other YouTubers. Maxx has his channel purely to help and inspire

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other people who want to powerlift like he does. He is unique in the fact that he is very
personable and open about his life. He plans to continue his channel in the hope it will
continue to grow in order to keep helping the most amount of people.
How are other people effected by the YouTube fitness community?
Are there fans of these YouTuber’s following their discourse community?
gym, UNCC. Observation Joe Vergato. 2014.
To find the answer to this question I went to the only place I would expect people to
know these YouTubers, the gym. Previously in the gym I have seen people wearing these
YouTuber’s costum t-shirts that they sell online. I also had conversations with some of
the people there and they told me that they also use these YouTuber’s online training
programs to help them with their training.
This answered my question about the fans of the YouTube discourse communites. There
were plenty of fans out there that supported these YouTubers. Bust most importantly this
told me that the common goal of the YouTubers (Swales number 1) of helping others in
their lifting journey is actually paying off. Many people are actively watching these
YouTubers online and participating in that discourse community.
Are the Youtubers really helping that many people?
What do the YouTubers do to continuously help the followers of their channels?

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Candito, Johnny. Canditio Training HQ. n.d. http://www.canditotraininghq.com/. November
2014
This is a YouTubers personally website that they use in order to communicate with other
member of the discourse community (Swales number 2). This website has personal
information of the YouTuber as well as tips and training programs
This taught me that the YouTubers do not just communicate using YouTube. They also
communicate using things like personal websites. Also it reinforces the common goal of
the YouTuber discourse community of helping people since there are tips and training
programs.