Genres

As a student in an American college, you may be given the opportunity to write texts that address four distinct "discourse communities"--that is, communities of readers with shared interests and expectations: Creative Writing Community, Academic Writing Community, Professional & Technical Writing Community, and the New Media Community.   Over time, conventions emerge among writers in these discourse communities about the best ways to research, organize, and transmit documents that address specific audiences and purposes.  These conventions are commonly called genres or forms.  The objective of this part of Writing Commons is to explore some of the common genres of documents produced by writers of these discourse communities.

Creative Writing

Chiefly seeks pleasure and entertainment

Academic Writing

Professors and students often consults texts to develop new knowledge or to demonstrate understanding of existing knowledge (think, for example, "teacher as examiner" as a common readership)

Professional Writing

Employers, employees and clients that are focused on business matters or the explanation or use of technical information