Genres

Genres are guidelines to writing. According to the Bedford Book of Genres there are a few things that you need to be aware of when composing a genre. These include, considering the audience that you are trying to reach, the purpose for writing, the rhetoric in order to create and explain the situation along with effective use of ethos pathos and logos, Kerry Dirk explained the idea that if a person wants to write a country song there are a few things that are essential to fit the genre. For example, the ethos or credibility comes from their pride in the south and of their roots. The pathos, or emotional tug comes from the common theme of losing a friend or a significant other.

The word genre can be deceptive in some ways. At first, when I hear the word genre I immediately imagine walking through a library and looking through the different sections such as the mysteries or fiction books. Although these are examples of genres, the term is not limited to these examples. What I mean by this is genre has to do with the appropriateness of the writing based on situation and audience as mentioned by Bitzer in his essay. They can be structured or original in format.

I recently followed an existing format for a personal genre. I had to make a resume for a job I was interested in. I knew going into it that their was a certain professional format that I needed to follow in order to get the desired response from my audience. In this particular case my audience was my future employer. the rhetoric I was creating needed to be appropriate for my audience. This would ensure that I received the response I was looking for which was employment.