Module 3: Remixing the Self Study
Adapting to another audience—audience analysis Examining an alternative genre—genre analysis Composing in a new medium Conducting a rhetorical analysis (p. 167).
This module is about our awareness of audience and genre as a writer or a composer. When we write, we assume that someone will read it. In some cases, we may be our readers, for example: when we write to record a memory, when we write to discover ourselves, or when to do daily journaling note-taking. In most of the cases in academic writing, we have a specific audience in mind, and it is always crucial to think about the audience we are addressing in our writing. A strong sense of audience guides our writing as it informs us about word choice, tone, degree of formality, style, etc. Like the audience, genre also matters in our writing. In literature, there are different genres like poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, essay, etc. For those who are in music, there are genres like rock, blues, country, soul, reggae, hip-hop, electronic music, punk, jazz, classical music, etc. For those who do painting, there are different genres like history painting; portrait painting; landscape painting, etc. If so, what about the genres that we do in RWS? They are visual compositions, written compositions, oral, multimodal compositions, digital multimodal compositions, etc. We also treat websites, YouTube videos, social media, podcasts, TED Talks, news reports, etc. as genres though they share some mediums (audio, visual, written). UTEP FYCH reads that “genre shapes the situation in which we compose, and the rhetorical situation demands that we thoughtfully choose a certain genre” (p. 167). It means genres and situations function reciprocally in our writing process. Rhetorical situations are out there and they are unique in themselves. Nevertheless, genres have some conventions, and a writer is expected to meet those genre conventions while addressing the audience: “Genre conventions not only provide us with a rough guide to follow, but they also offer us a glimpse into what our audience expects from us when we compose in a specific genre” (p. 168). Thus, audience and genre conventions overlap and reinforce each other in making our composition more effective:
For your compositions or communication to be effective, you have to meet at least some of your audience’s expectations. Often, your audience’s expectations will determine the genre you choose. Your audience may change with each rhetorical situation you face, so how can we get to know our audiences? (p. 169).
Now, let’s think of examples. Let’s suppose that we missed a class due to some family emergency, and we are writing an email to our professor. There are certain conventions that we follow while writing email. However, if we wanted to meet the professor during their office hours, and wanted to share our problem, we would speak to the professor differently compared to an email. In short, an email conversation and a face-to-face conversation are different even though the audience remains the same. Similarly, an email written to a professor differs from an email written to a friend even though the genre (email) remains the same. Hence, making sense of an audience and genre convention offers an opportunity to communicate effectively, to pass the message across, and to produce the desired meaning in our compositions.