a "formalized representation of information" to a personal tool. Swarts argues that the meaning of a text is established by uptake of the users, though this varies depending on the user and the user's goal. Similarly, in Tracing Genres Through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design, Clay Spinuzzi asserts that the use of certain tools in certain situations can help users to act purposefully in that activity. Within this tradition of genre studies, "Genres are not discrete artifacts, but traditions of producing, using, and interpreting artifacts, traditions that make their way into the artifact as a form-shaping ideology." The study of genres as mediating artifacts within activity systems is closely related to Activity Theory, in which the interactions of different spheres of activity are examined. Activity theory, according to David Russell, "traces cognition and behavior, including writing, to social interaction." Activity theorists examine the ways that the work done in one sphere of activity could potentially change the work done in another. For example, Russell examines how people use writing to mediate their activities, and how changes in one activity can lead to changes in another activity. Russell points out that "the activity system of cell biology research is not confined to universities. It also extends into boundary activity systems of drug companies, government medical research facilities, and so on." Subtle changes in the use of writing in one activity can effect changes in the use of writing in related systems. If the government sets down new pharmaceutical documentation laws, then the teaching of how to document the distribution of pharmaceuticals will change, not just in pharmacies, but also in hospitals and nursing classrooms. Activity systems are always in flux, because subtle changes in one level of the system result in subtle changes in other levels of the system. Activity systems are still relatively stable, despite their constant flux. The changes within them are often subtle, and large scale changes usually occur over long periods of time. Genre ecology describes the dense connections between genres within the activities that they mediate. Multiple genres mediate a single activity; no genre exists in isolation. In "The Ecology of Genre" Anis Bawarshi argues that genres are "rhetorical ecosystems" in which participants actively enact and, consequently, reenact social practices, relations, and identities. Participants use genre to interpret and perform social motives which sustain rhetorical ecosystems that produce social contexts, practices, and identities. For