I alter each form of writing depending on my audience. There is a formal way of writing and a more causal one. These are determined by who the message is going to. In the essays, the paper is being graded by the professor. This paper has to have arguments that are backed up by reliable sources, and my opinion would not be considered reliable. This makes the writing style much more formal. However, when writing this blog, I don’t have to come up with experts to back up what I think. Emails are the same way, especially when talking to friends. However, the audience of the email also changes how I write. If I am talking to a future employer, I want to make sure everything is spelled correctly, with complete sentences. I would need “dear” and “sincerely” to make the email more formal. To a friend I would just say “hey!” These are all examples of writing. Text messaging and instant messenger follow the same guidelines as well. If I am talking to a friend, I will use a few words, rather than a grammatically correct sentence. It is easier and faster to communicate to a friend this way. In the workplace, a boss has a company to run, and nonprofessional writing may confuse the message or look bad in a professional environment.
For body modifications, they are judged differently by different audiences. For example, my friends have tattoos that they show to me and their other friends. The will never show them to their parents because they are afraid that their parents will disapprove. The same thing happens in the work place. My roommate has a nose ring, but she must wear a clear one or take it out when she interns in the professional environment of her elementary school. It is really hard to work and succeed in the normative society with visible tattoos and piercings that cannot be covered up.
I think we learn these different types of writings in the classroom because it is preparing us for the real work world. I don’t think that students always realize that employers look at everything we do. People are judge by how they communicate. If they communicate poorly, by having a bad resume, dressing causally at interviews, or writing with poor grammar, it will be hard to get that ideal career. Facebook, Myspace, and other blogs are also a form of expression that employers look at. Pictures with alcohol and drugs show how a person acts, which might not be good for an employer to know. I feel that learning different types of composition are important because it will be easier to transfer from the sheltered college life into the real, unforgiving world.
School has taught me that writing is all about the audience!!!
2 comments:
Something that you started to touch on, and that really interests me is the idea of online personal websites, like Myspace and Facebook...
I think they are probably one of the best examples of people altering their ways of communicating and writing based on what they think other people will see. I think that most of the time, if a student is writing a paper or a resume, there is a specific audience in mind. We usually have some kind of idea about what the professor will grade for, or be impressed by. But facebook and myspace are a different kind of scenario, because they are sometimes visible to both friends, employers, and now parents and family members. It makes me wonder how people decide to write and represent themselves within these forums. You must edit your natural everyday language at times, while still trying to express who you think you really are to your friends and strangers who might look at your website. I think these websites create a new kind of environment in which people have to learn how to alter their writing and communication for, and I'm interested to see how it changes (if it does) the ways that people communicate in other ways as well.
I really like your comment about college teaches us or transitions us into the real world and this is where types of composition comes into play. It is so natural to change how we write depending on the audience, it is almost second nature, but I feel as though the classroom environment enforces that. The contrast between the writing we do for a classroom and writing we do for friends create our ability to interchange the two. Your point about why we write differently on class papers was very insightful and well said. I personally write formally because I thought that is what is required. I feel weird using first person and you explained why - it is because our opinions aren't valid in such a paper, instead we have to prove our assumptions through the works of other knowledgeable people. I believe Facebook and MySpace is an example of these worlds of formal and informal colliding. The fact that employers look at such sites to judge what a person does in his or her free time and the fact that everyone knows employers look at such sites is changing everything. Now people limit the pictures and comments they write and they are trying to find a balance between the formal and informal.
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