Justin Pham

Professor Parker

ENGL 1301

15 July 2019

Short Academic Response 3

Understanding Style and the Role of Audience in Stylistic Choices

The readings from my textbook helped me understand that choosing a style in writing

requires a lot more thought into it than I imagined. When writers choose a style, they have to

consider “appropriateness, formality, and stance” and they all have to complement each other so

that the writing makes sense. The audience heavily influences these stylistic choices because

goal of writing is to get the audience to read your writing. If the stylistic choices are not fit for

the audience, then they may be dissuaded to read your writing or the purpose would not be

achieved. For example, if you were writing a safety report to your boss but it was informal then

your boss would not take it seriously which could result in people getting hurt. Style isn’t

something that is just chosen, because you have to consider many factors, such as audience,

before writing.

Importance of Following Conventions of Writing

Following conventions of writing is important because it makes writing clear. When

writing is difficult to understand, readers will have to figure out what you are trying to say and

the writing will lose its meaning or seem unprofessional. Although writing can be informal, it

still requires some form of convention in order to be understood.

Writing for Academic Audiences and Social Media

I believe that clarity is important to consider when writing for an academic audience and

conciseness is more important to consider when writing for social media. Academic audiences
expect to understand everything when reading, therefore it would be better to sacrifice

conciseness for clarity when writing to contain information such as context. On the other hand,

people on social media will want to read something that is short and contain just enough

information which leads to abbreviations or slang. Another difference between writing for an

academic audience versus social media is formality. Formality for an academic audience tends to

range from formal to semi-formal and social media ranges from semi-formal to informal. The

similarities between the two are that they both have a purpose and an audience which will

influence what is written. Despite what it may seem most social media posts still require some

thought put into it.

 Citation

Andrea A. Lunsford et al. Everyone's an Author. Second ed. New York: W. W. Norton and
Company, 2017. 641. Print.