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Drew Taylor
Instructor Keaton
ENC2135
1 July 2016
Defining and analyzing genre
When writing a poem for your significant other, lyrics for a new song, or even writing an
essay for your English class, you are using genre. Whether or not the genre is apparent
immediately or after the second chapter, its there, causing the author to make different choices
in their writing, such as the author of a horror novel would often use foreshadowing and creepy
imagery rather than telling jokes. A genre is a compositions kind, category, or sort. Genres give
us a way to categorize or describe types of compositions (Kleinfeld/Braziller 5). Before you
even start writing anything you think about the rhetorical situation, why are you writing this and
what is the situation surrounding this writing and the rhetorical situation generally determines the
genre or at the very least a group of genres for your writing to fit in. The genre conventions for
each genre are the rules you follow to consider your piece part of said genre. An essay written by
a colleague of mine, about the negative effects of smoking, would be considered an educational
essay. In this writing will be a definition of genre, and analyzation of the essay Cigarettes: are
they worth the risk? in regards to the rhetorical situation of the essay, the genre conventions used
to fit in the education essay genre, and how the rhetorical situation affected the genre.
Genre is much more complex than hearing music and identifying it as a song, you must
go further to create a smaller, more specific group for it to be classified as a genre. For instance,

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the song may have been alternative rock which would correctly describe its genre. Genre simply
means kind of writing (Maimon/Peritz/Yancey 9). In both definitions a genre is described as a
classification of any writing. Genre can also be used to describe music, movies, or television
shows. When determining the genre for whatever you are analyzing you generally try to figure
out what the rhetorical situation which by answering those questions often leads you to what
genre it is. The genre conventions also give you a good idea for what genre it is just by the basic
qualities, it would also follow many of the rules for the specific genre. Due to the vast history of
literature in general, when creating you often times dont have to create a new genre, you just
figure out your rhetorical situation and connect it to a genre that fits the similar idea. After
figuring out what genre your work will fit into you would continue creating, but by following
most of the rules for the genre.
In the essay Cigarettes: are they worth the risk? the author went into the writing with a
plan, she had a clear rhetorical situation outlined in her head before she even began writing. Due
to the fact that it was an essay for school she was given guidelines but also knew the
circumstances surrounding the essay. First we identify her audience, which is easy because it was
an essay for school which meant it was directed to the teacher at the time. You can see that it was
written to a teacher because of the very formal writing style but in addition it was slightly
entertaining in order to stand out to the teacher. The purpose in the text is to persuade whoever is
reading, that smoking cigarettes is harmful to yourself and others and that it should be illegal.
You see it clearly in the thesis which states Cigarettes should be illegal because not only are
they unhealthy for the smoker, but they are also unhealthy for others and the environment
(Prozillo 1). Her stance on the issue of cigarettes was strongly against them which makes the
paper slightly biased in her opinioned statements. The genre of this writing was an educational

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essay and it was made on an electronic medium for easy sharing of the paper. The author took
into account the fact that cigarettes is a controversial issue especially when discussing legality
and morality so in order to be scholarly in the essay she couldnt be too harsh, also not knowing
if her teacher smokes had to be taken into consideration before even writing the essay.
Due to the fact that the essay had to be of the educational essay genre, the author had to
follow the genre conventions in order for it to be accepted as a legitimate submission. The tone
in Cigarettes: are they worth the risk? is logical, it has many examples of the negatives of
cigarettes and connections to the health of smokers. Throughout the essay the author presents a
piece of information then explains what that means to us, the readers. Knowing the rhetorical
situation, the best tone for many essays like this are logical; being that the purpose is to persuade
the reader to not smoke, or consider not smoking. The design of the essay is strictly made under
MLA formatting. The intended reader, her teacher, would only want essays of the
straightforward, organized design. When using MLA formatting it is made clear what the
sources, author, and intended recipient are. The author establishes credibility by using sources
such as the US department of health and human services or the law dictionary, and by backing up
her opinion with facts straight from trusted sites she presents her essay as having credibility.
Having credibility is important for an academic essay, you are supposed to be teaching the reader
something. The author follows even the most basic of genre conventions by using proper
grammar and punctuation. In addition to that she uses no abbreviations or slang. She includes
dates when the essay was written and clearly identifies her sources to avoid plagiarism.
When writing to a respected adult there are certain considerations made to avoid
misunderstandings. Its made clear in the writing Cigarettes: are they worth the risk? that the
intended reader was a teacher or professor based on the genre and tone. The intended audience

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had expectations going into the project, many of the expectations translate into the genre
conventions. The teacher expected many formalities in the writing including MLA formatting
and all of the expectations were and should have been followed for credit from the essay. The
social expectations should rarely be broken when writing to an instructor; they are the ones who
judge the quality and conventions you followed. Whether or not you respect your teacher, the
genre conventions of an educational essay should be followed anyways. The teacher-student
represents an interesting relationship where the student often times follows the rules of essay for
the grade. The purpose of the writing was to persuade the reader that smoking is harmful and
should be quit, so the author followed the conventions of writing a scientific paper. The main
deviation from the genre conventions was the amount of opinion in the educational essay. In the
writing, the author provides her opinion in some times where the facts should have spoken for
themselves.
Genre is in our everyday lives, writing this essay I had to use genre conventions and had
to outline the rhetorical situation in order to try and write a successful paper. The way we use
genre conventions often times goes unnoticed by the uninformed audience but its important in
order to write a paper in a specific genre. The relationship is clear between the way you analyze
the rhetorical situation and how that affects the genre conventions you use. For example, in a
book where you are writing to adults about something horror related you would generally use
more graphic, and more startling content than a scary book similar to Goosebumps. The audience
often times affects the nature of the content through genre conventions because in books targeted
to small children you couldnt use graphic language but in a novel directed towards young adults
you could use profanity. In the essay the audience was her teacher, who is a mature adult but also
wouldnt allow such language. The same goes for most educational essays where the goal is to

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teach or persuade. In the majority of the essays genre conventions would dictate an essay that
doesnt contain profanity. Many times profanity in essays discredit the author and the essay
surrounding.
Every genre itself calls for a different set of genre conventions, you can often derive the
genre from the genre conventions provided they are used in a correct manner. Even though the
set of rules for one genre is different than another, they often times share some rules. For
example, a scary movie and an action movie share the rule that they usually leave the audience
guessing, they usually have some sort of weapons, and the movie is often times a cat-and-mouse
chase. Genre is part of the rhetorical situation, but usually the genre is determined by the other
factors of the situation. Purpose is a very important factor in choosing your genre. Genre may be
part of the rhetorical situation, but its a bigger focus of study; many times the genre is more
important to the uneducated viewer. Do I want to watch a chick flick or a superhero movie?
you may find yourself asking one night alone, and when you inevitably pick a boring movie you
will realize theres more than just genre in play when you are the audience of any piece of
fictional or nonfictional arts.

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Works Cited

Braziller, Amy and Elizabeth Kleinfeld. the Bedford Book of Genres. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014.
Textbook.
Maimon, Elaine, Janice Peritz and Kathleen Yancy. The Brief McGraw-Hill Handbook. McGrawHill Education, 2012. Textbook.