Blog #2: Genres

As there are many different genres, there are also many different types of genres. As mentioned, there are different genres for music, books, movies, but also writing and communication, two that are less thought about but still used everyday. When I think of the different writing genres I encounter everyday, I find that some are formal and some are less formal. When you read facts or statistics about San Diego State on their website, the genre, I think, is considered factual. However, if you were to look up the Aztec Nights schedule on the website, that genre is completely different. The tone you get from reading it is more casual and like a friend trying to get you to come to an event. Therefore, the genre is informative, but in fun way.

On the other hand there are more formal writing genres, but yet turn a little casual. One thing I keep thinking of is how I email my teachers or boss. I feel like the emails start out as very proper and correct, but then how you, or at least I, start to communicate to them changes (depends on the person, though.) I start to sense how my teacher or boss is and my style of writing starts to evolve. Writing your first email to a teacher can start out with, “Hello Professor Whatever,” but later turn into “Hey!” when the teacher emails you back with a tone you weren’t expecting. What I think I’m getting at is that sensing a tone in writing can set the genre in which you write in. The genre you read is the genre you are more likely to write in.

The purpose of the writing or communication totally has an influence on the genre. If I needed to write a research paper for RWS 200, I wrote in a way that I was well away of the structures of my sentences, grammar and much more. However, for a blog for RWS 305, I feel I can write more freely, like I am explaining something to a friend. I don’t focus on the technicality of writing but more of the content.

My writing and communication style change with the person I’m talking to, the place, and the thing we’re talking about. The way I write a text to my friend is completely different than how I would pretty much text anyone. With a friend, you definitely are more comfortable with your writing and communication than with a classmate you just met and have a quick question to ask.

The way I talk to my mom at home is different than how I talk to her in front of her coworkers. At home, I might talk to her like she’s one of my closest friends (because we are close like that), but at her workplace, I’ll be sure to be more appropriate.

Talking about something serious, such as an illness, would be more proper and straightforward for me than talking about my favorite reality show.

Although academic writing can be considered one big genre, I think there are different genres within it. There’s basically a genre for every subject: English, lab reports for sciences, history papers, etc. I know for RWS 200 we had to write in a strict research paper genre with specific types of citations and all that fun stuff. But freshman year, instead of taking RWS 100, I took Chicano/a Studies 111B. That genre of writing was completely different than I experienced in RWS 200. We wrote stories about ourselves, almost in the structure of writing a book about our life. It was a way I had never been told to write in before and I thought it was so weird that I can use “I” in my writing since in high school we were always told you couldn’t say “I” at all!! Looking back on it, I appreciate how were able to write in that class because it’s almost like I learned how to capture the audience and write a story, not a research paper for once.

I’m not sure a style of writing influences who I am, I just feel like I can adapt myself to the different genres if I need to. However, I would say writing so many academic paper makes me write a little more grammatically correct than not!

I kind of thought about this topic in my own way, and maybe it's the wrong way, I’m not sure. But, it definitely made me think about things today that I would have otherwise not noticed.

--Victoria