Swales defines a discourse community as, "At its most basic, discourse is language in action, or language being used to accomplish something. Discourse can describe either an instances that demonstrate some quality. Because groups of people united by some activity tend to develop a characteristic discourse, we can talk about communities that are identified by their discourse-thus, discourse community (Wardle, Downs pg.795)." .
In addition to Swales direct definition of a discourse community, he also provides six characteristics that identify a group of individuals as a discourse community. In the reading Swales states, "A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales pg. 220)." This first characteristic simply explains what that group of individuals wants to display publically. Swales states the second criteria as, "A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members (Swales pg. 221)." This second characteristic is the way the community communicates with each other through phone calls, meetings, newsletters, and/or etc. Swales states the third criteria as, "A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback (Swales pg. 221)." This third characteristic explains how the community's information is exchanged by their common goals. Swales states, "A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims (Swales pg.221)." This fourth characteristic explains how activities or gatherings are executed through communication and/or text within the community. Swales goes on to state another characteristic for discourse community as follows, "In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis (Swales pg. 222)." The fifth characteristic breaks down how the community establishes and uses certain abbreviations throughout the group.