Genre Cycling: The Infrastructural Function of an Operational Assessment Review and Reporting Process at a Federal Scientific Supercomputing User Facility

This paper reports on the first phase of a study of technical documentation and reporting at a scientific supercomputing user facility. This paper proposes a new conceptualization of how multiple genres interrelate to coordinate and mediate the functioning of an organization. Based on the case of the operational assessment review and reporting process, this paper strives to differentiate the function of organizational genres to maintain the infrastructural operations of an organization from the function of genres to mediate the production of an organization's mission-based output. The theory-informed analytical tool proposed by this case study, the genre cycle, proposes parameters for further inquiry into the generalizability of the concept.