What Are Genres?
A genre is a family of texts that do a similar job in a similar situation. The people who regularly use those texts are usually the ones who give the family its name. Take the book review: it turns up in newspapers, magazines, and websites, and its job is to tell readers what a book is like and whether it deserves their time. A book blurb is about the same object but does something else. It sits on a cover or in a catalog and tries to persuade someone to buy. Because their jobs and settings differ, the two are separate genres even though both talk about books.
You already own a large stock of genre knowledge, built up over years of reading and writing. The words book review are enough to call up a picture of what such a text typically does: it summarizes, judges, and recommends. That mental picture helps you understand a review when you read one and shape one when you write it.
Genres also differ in how tightly they are controlled. A few are close to fixed. A lab report, for instance, can look almost identical from one student to the next, because a lab manual prescribes the sections and only the data change.
Most genres, though, are flexible. A single text type can shift noticeably depending on the factors in the Rhetorical Planning Wheel, such as the writer, the reader, the purpose, and the setting. Films show the same thing: two romantic comedies share a recognizable formula, yet no two are alike.
Contrasting Everyday and Academic Genres
In this unit you will work with written genres you may already know. You will list some from daily life outside school (everyday genres) and some you have had to produce for courses (academic genres). Then you will examine each one with the Rhetorical Planning Wheel and explain why the texts differ according to who wrote them, who reads them, and where they appear.
The line between the two groups is blurry. Instead of sorting genres into two boxes, picture a sliding scale that runs from texts you would use almost every day to texts that belong firmly to university study.
Everyday and Academic Genres
1. Look at the genres in the grid below and select any block to read its definition, an example, and its typical features. Then work with a partner to line the genres up from the most everyday to the most academic.
Academic Genres
Reiff and Bawarshi (2011) invited first-year students to list every genre they had ever written, on blogs, in online journals, in instant messaging, and on paper for school. Here that idea is narrowed: you will list and study only the genres for which you received a grade, whether on coursework or on exams. The writing you did in earlier schooling, possibly in another country, may look very different from what lies ahead. Even so, looking back at that history helps you notice what is unfamiliar about a new genre.
Exploring Your Academic Genre History
Before you tackle a new writing assignment, it helps to take stock of what you have already done. Everyone arrives at university carrying experience from earlier assignments and tests and, for multilingual students, from writing in more than one language, each in its own school setting.
As you look back, note the labels that teachers, textbooks, and standardized tests attached to the tasks (e.g., argumentative essay, lab report, literature review, timed response). If you have written in other languages, compare those texts with your English ones. Doing so shows how expectations for a genre shift between languages and cultures.
Key Dimensions for Analyzing Academic Genres
Whether you are studying a book report, a research poster, or a persuasive essay, you can break the genre down along the same ten dimensions. Each one influences how the text is put together and how it is judged:
- Genre Name: The label that teachers or a discipline use for the type of text.
- Writer's Role: The position you take as author, such as learner, neutral analyst, critic, or expert.
- Audience: Who reads and evaluates the text, usually an instructor or classmates, and the standards they apply.
- Purpose: What the text is meant to accomplish beyond a grade, such as showing you understand the material, convincing readers, or pulling research together.
- Rhetorical Actions: The communicative moves the writer makes, such as explaining, synthesizing, arguing, responding, or analyzing.
- Context: The institution, field, and course in which the genre is used.
- Structure: How the text is organized, and whether that plan is rigid or open.
- Sources and Data: The kind of evidence expected and the citation system required (APA, MLA, Chicago).
- Language and Style: The word choice, tone, and grammar typical of the discipline.
- Conventions: Layout norms, including fonts, headings, tables, figures, and paragraphing.
Comparing texts along these dimensions builds your understanding of academic standards and prepares you to handle genres you have not met before.
Language Box: When to Use the Pronoun I
A common myth says that academic writers must avoid personal pronouns (I, me, you, we) and rely on impersonal phrasing such as it is believed that, the report was completed, or the project ended. But pronoun choice is one of the language decisions in the Rhetorical Planning Wheel, so it depends on context, audience, writer's role, and genre conventions. No universal ban like “Never write I” exists. For each assignment, find out what the genre allows, expects, and rewards. Research papers and ID questions usually call for impersonal wording. Reflections, discussion posts, personal statements, and some kinds of research writing welcome I because it showcases your ideas, your work, and your voice. Writing about your own experience naturally requires first-person pronouns. Reserve we for cases where a group is the author, as in many laboratory or experimental projects.
You seldom appears in academic genres, except when you write directly to someone, such as an email to a professor or a question after a presentation. Since most academic writing is not conversational, speaking straight to the reader tends to feel awkward and rarely works.