Know the rules of the genre

Let’s say, you’re starting your first semester of college and you’re sitting in your freshman composition course. You’ve had plenty of English classes before and you’ve written a fair bit about literature, and you’ve done some research essays and essays on exams. But your composition instructor announces the first writing assignment is a Personal Essay. You’ve never heard these two words together. Writing for school has always been about either literature or research, and you’ve never written anything personal at least not for a class before. You write about a personal experience from your own first-person perspective, thinking you finally have an English teacher that’s okay with first person pronouns. So, when you get a research essay, you think you can write in the first person again, only to be marked down for doing so.

I wonder about students whose teachers scold them for writing in the first person, and the same teachers turn around and give the students personal accounts, journals, or even first-person fiction stories and novels that are not brought down with the same scrutiny. Suddenly, the rules that govern writing, or rather the student's understanding of them, become convoluted and inconsistent. It leaves students confused and frustrated.

Welcome to genre.

Without an understanding of genre, all writing is the same and anything goes. The result can be messy. Objective research with out-of-place anecdotes, awkward personal essays that never really say anything personal, and even job applications that give a fine description of the job but say nothing about the applicant. If you don't understand the rules of the genre, then you'll probably do it wrong.

Genre shapes the rules of writing. It is a complex topic and we don't really get much exposure to it outside of fiction. When we read a science fiction story or watch a science fiction film, we have certain expectations. The same applies when dealing with romance, fantasy, tragedy, comedy, etc.. Different genres have different rules and it's important to follow those rules.

For example. You're watching Lord of the Rings and Gandolf, in all of his trope-setting, magic casting, staff waving glory...takes out an energy weapon. Like a light saber: a mechanical apparatus that uses sophisticated technology to develop and release concentrated energy.

Out of place, much? I'm not saying it wouldn't be awesome. I'm just saying that, in a world with magical rings, dragons, and immortal races, an energy weapon is out of place. When we engage in a fantasy story, we expect fantasy.

Genres outside of fiction operate the same way. Based on the kind of reading we're doing, we'll have different expectations. If you pick up a detective novel, you'll expect mystery, intrigue, red herrings, and a protagonist who says less than he knows until the end. If you read something more personal, like the author's preface, you'll likely find the author referring to their writing process, their emotions – something more personal.

The same issue with expectations applies in all writing. The aforementioned personal essay will deal with personal experiences, beliefs, and give the reader a personal perspective on the author. It isn’t the best time to explore serious scientific issues and research: that's what research essays are for.

Bear in mind, however, the rules aren't arbitrary. Like fiction genres, they have developed over time to fit specific needs and purposes. Therefore, writing for a genre, whether of your own volition or because you're required to do so, you are fulfilling a specific purpose. The rules in question govern the way to structure a thesis, argument, organization, style – almost anything and everything.

Genre and Purposeful Theses

The form of a thesis varies depending on the genre and the purpose of the piece of writing. Different forms of writing have different conventions and much of the time we pick a genre to serve a specific purpose, or a teacher assigns a specific genre because there's a form students need to learn. These conventions and our own purposes dictate how we will write the essay and the thesis.

In other posts on the Six Journalistic Questions, I addressed how they can be used for developing a thesis and selecting a topic. For example, let’s say your six journalistic questions map out like this:

• Who: High school students, American authors with different cultural backgrounds
• What: Multi-cultural, American literature
• When: High School years
• Where: American high school literature courses
• How: Studying multi-cultural literature
• Why: To gain a better understanding of other cultures

This establishes criteria to focus on. Your essay should address these topics in detail and nothing else.

The next issue is what genre you’re writing in. A few examples include: 

• Persuasive essays are aimed at specific audiences with the intention to change something. They outline the issue and give reasons why it needs to change or improve, as well as specifying steps that should be taken to make the change happen. Theses for persuasive essays identify who needs to do what.
• Personal essays are introspective and may involve reflecting on past experience and interpreting it. Most of all personal essays talk about and explore and explain who you are: your beliefs, convictions, and practices. Theses for personal essays identify what was gained or learned from the experience.
• Academic research essays gather information from a variety of credible sources and involve some primary research as well. Most writing done in schools is this kind. Theses for academic research essays focus on a significant fact or detail and use the research to support and substantiate it.

The issue is then how to take that criteria identified in the Six Journalistic Questions and phrase them in a single sentence that matches the functions of the appropriate genres. For example:

• A persuasive essay might say “The local school district should use high school literature classes as a way to improve young people’s understanding of different cultures that exist within America by having students read books written by authors of different backgrounds, in addition to the English canon.”
• A personal essay won't do that, but instead will look more like, “From my high school literature classes, I gained a greater understanding of different cultures that exist within the United States than I would have just by reading from the English canon.”
• Or an academic research essay: “High school students who read literature by American authors from different cultures gain a better understanding and appreciation of the complexities within their country.”

The different genres will change the approach. In neither the persuasive not the research essays will the author address themselves, and instead the focus is on the subject matter. In a personal essay, first person is acceptable because the author is part of the subject. Similarly, the persuasive essay is much more concerned with the audience than the others are: a persuasive essay needs to be directed at a specific audience. However, academic essays are prepared for conferences or publications intended for experts in a scholarly field; personal essays may have a broader audience yet.

Understanding the demands of the genre is an important way to properly assemble your information and prepare to write about it. It gives you a way to structure and understand your purposes, and therefore, what goes into the thesis as well. It isn’t enough to simply gather your topics into a sentence: they have to point the reader in a specific direction.

Writing Exercise: Reflection Essay

I was nervous the first time I stood in front of a classroom to teach. The chairs were arranged in an arc around the perimeter of the room, creating a stadium like atmosphere, cutting me off from the door. I was either the grand master, or the hapless victim.

Regardless of your definition, it would be hard to promote this to story or narrative. It sets the stage for something more, but as is, it’s pretty basic. If I were to continue and write about how the day went, my efforts to engage the class in a discussion, falling back on a writing prompt to take up time, and feeling like a fraud as I fumbled about, it would be a story. But what if this followed it:

I quickly learned three things. The first was about having to smile and feign being an expert in composition. It didn't matter that I had never taken a composition course before; everything I knew of it I had gained piecemeal over my years as an undergraduate literature student. The second thing I learned was I had the knowledge. I could answer their questions and, as scattered as some of the early ones were, put together a lesson. But most of all, I learned that I could teach.

This is the makings of a Reflection Essay. What separates this kind of writing from anecdotes or stories is you interpret the events you are describing. Hence the reflection. Reflective writing is when you think back to a time, instance, or experience – something significant in shaping who you are and addressing both the circumstances of the event and what you gained from that experience.

This means reflective writing can be an odd combination of creative writing and interpretation.

On the one hand, it is important to recreate the experience, and if appropriate, provide sensory detail to create the experience for your reader. Write about what you saw and heard, as well as what you felt (both physically and emotionally). The purpose is to relive your experience so that the reader can understand your position.

Other people may have stood in front of their first classroom with enthusiasm. A lot of people will never have that opportunity. Therefore, I need to let the reader know that I was nervous, and what it was that made me nervous (in this case, the fact I was teaching a subject I had never had a class in myself), but if I can give more description of the place, the mood, and most importantly, my mental and emotional state, it will make it easier for my reader to understand my interpretation.

The interpretation makes a reflective essay what it is. After giving the details to set the scene, whether physical or mental, internal or external, you have to consider what you gained from this experience: how has it shaped you into the person that you are? In a “and knowing is half the battle” sort of way, the interpretation is the moral of the story: what you gained from it and what you hope your reader understands as well.

We may not always know what we gained from an experience until we reflect on it. Sometimes, especially when we're in school, we don't take time to stop and think about where we are and how we got where we are. Reflective writing, whether required or not, is a valuable endeavor. It’s an opportunity to stop and think things through, and a chance to get to know yourself a little bit better.

When (Not) to Quote

I wish to start this post with a pair of related essay experiences. Both essays turned to quotes from major historical figures to help prove their points. One quoted Winston Churchill, the other, Mahatma Gandhi. When I share this in my classes, I ask my students what they think these essays were about. The answers invariably center around war, politics, history, Britain, and major geopolitical issues of the last century.

Nope. The essays were about horse training and...childhood obesity.

That's right. Someone padded an essay on childhood obesity by turning to the man famous for hunger strikes.

I haven't had many students try to defend these choices, and I will admit, this is far from the worst transgression committed in composition class, but it is a symptom of at least one of three issues: procrastination and poor research, and lazy writing.

Procrastination and Poor Research

Examples include: a bibliography page that barely meets the required number of sources.

This means the student was required to find X number of sources, and rather than find and read books and articles to find the best, most relevant information available, they worked until they found one less than X sources. Then, to reach the required number, they turned to something like Wikiquote and looked up famous people – whether or not the quote or the person being quoted was related to their topic. They drop the quote in their essay and voila! X number of sources achieved! 

This generally happens because of procrastination and using the first available sources rather than the best ones. Had the student been concerned with finding the best sources, they would have found more than the required minimum and would have familiarized themselves with enough of them so, even in a pinch when the due date is fast encroaching, they can turn to solid research to fill the requirement. Best case scenario, though, you never have to think about the number of sources because you've done enough research you'll meet and exceed the required amount easily.

Lazy Writing

Examples include: introductions or conclusions that have more words from, probably dead, famous people rather than the author’s own words.

My tongue-in-cheek comment is not dealing with plagiarism (which is one of the worst sins committed in composition courses), but rather taking the profound statements of others and using them to prove a point you should be trying to prove in your essay. It's lazy writing because, rather than taking the time to really think about what you have to say, you're relying on the words of someone more famous and perhaps more eloquent than yourself. In that respect, it's related to filling space on the bibliography: it's filling space in the body of an essay to reach a page count.

These quotes are usually misplaced and taken out of context. They also may be unnecessarily long and rely more on the reputation of the person being quoted than on what the words actually express. 

The biggest problem is relying on fame rather than expertise: Churchill and Gandhi are certainly famous people, but they are not qualified in horse training and childhood obesity. Being able to properly integrate the works of experts builds your own authority as a writer: you have something to contribute because you know the literature well enough to work with it. But if you default to major historical figures unrelated to your field, it says you don't know what's going on in your field and therefore you don't know what you're writing about.

Conclusion

Quoting for the sake of quoting is a bad practice. It leads to quotes taken out of context, often with unnecessary fanfare that distracts from the subject of the essay. It becomes a matter of building false authority rather than proving your knowledge and your qualifications to write on the subject. There is a lot to gain from quoting, but it can all be undone by doing it poorly. Before quoting, make sure you properly understand what it is you are quoting, where it came from, what it means, and the qualifications, not the fame or popularity, of the person you are quoting.

Organization: An Overview

Organization is ubiquitous and yet invisible. It’s an issue identified with words like “flow,” and transition,” terms that are neither technical nor specific. An essay should flow, but what does a flowing essay look or sound like? Should an essay flow like a river?...What does that even mean?

Maybe a different comparison. 

In filmmaking, editing is the process of piecing together the different shots of film into a coherent whole. It involves sifting through the filmed footage and finding the best parts to include and putting them together seamlessly: so that you don’t even realize it’s going on. Poor editing stands out. Good editing goes unnoticed.

A well organized essay will do the same thing. You’ll be able to move from word to word, sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph without stopping to notice the fact the subject matter has changed or shifted. Organization is supposed to make the transition from topic to topic smooth and understandable: to tame the beast that composing an essay.

There are many topics that address the finer nuances of organization, none of which I have time to adequately discuss here; I’ll have to devote a specific post to each one later. For now, a simple overview will have to suffice.

• Outlining: Listing the topics you are going to write about in the order you are going to write about them.
• Methods of Organization: Using a specific form or model to give your essay a way to disseminate the information. There are a lot of different methods, and sometimes an essay will employ several.
• Transitions: Statements at the start and ending of paragraphs designed to signal the subject matter is changing. And an issue with which I have mixed feelings.
• Balance: Making sure each topic receives a fair amount of attention, and the essay is not spending undue time and attention where it should not.
• Thesis Consistency: Tracking the development of the essay’s thesis from the very start to the very end of the essay.
• Paragraph Structure: Not just the essay but the information in paragraphs need to be carefully structured and developed.
• Topic Sentences: Sub-theses for your paragraphs.
• Sentence Structure: Determining how best to place information in specific sentences so that their form and structure emphasizes your point.
• Tangents: Oddities that arise and appear out of place. They do not support the thesis and introduce topics not discussed elsewhere.

This is, at best, only some of the issues dealing with organizing. It is, as I said, made up of many topics and finer nuances. I hope that this list gives at least an understanding of how nuanced and ubiquitous it can be.

You may also notice that I left out “flow.” This was a deliberate choice. I use it to describe essays, but only for lack of a better word. I don’t feel like it’s a great teaching tool because all it really says is the information throughout the essay made sense. It doesn’t give me a model to present to a class or write about here, and it may not even mean the student has fully grasped the concept of organization. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe they wrote a way that made sense to their professor. I can teach a lot of things about organization, but I can’t teach “flow.”

My purpose in this introductory post is to emphasize the complexity of an otherwise undervalued topic. There are so many things more apparent when it comes to writing and composition, like thesis, editing, research, citations, etc, that organization can be relegated to a day or two in any curriculum on the rush towards more apparent topics. Therefore, I don’t want to take it lightly or undervalue it. I want to give it the time and attention it deserves.