Green 1

Noah Green Professor Suzanne Ingram English 1101 049 5 December 2013 High School Genre A genre that almost everyone had to partake in during their high school career, was writing a senior exit paper. For my senior exit paper, I was required to write a research paper that paralleled my senior project, which was on the construction of surfboards. With this topic, I decided to research and write a paper on the evolution of surfing. This research paper would be part of a portfolio, with various other articles that I would present to a series of judges. In conclusion, I delivered an eight to eleven minute speech on my experiences, which I found to be the most stressful part of the project. When writing my research paper, I intended the paper to better inform my panel of judges on the evolution of surfing, and how surfing migrated from Hawaii to the rest of the world. My paper also focused on how surfboards transformed throughout the twentieth century, since the main topic of my senor project was on the construction of surfboards. Due to the nature of research papers, the entirety of my paper was focused on factual information that I delivered in a chronological order. This kept me from making assumptions on the information and including my own ideas on the topics I was covering. This can be seen in the following quotation In 2000 B.C, there was a great migration of people including the Polynesians from Asia to the eastern Pacific, though it was not until 400 B.C. that the Polynesians first came to the Hawaiian Islands. While writing the paper, I did make an emphasis on how surfing spread to the east coast, and more specifically how surfing spread to the outer banks of North Carolina. I did this so my

Green 2

audience could connect to the locations that I discussed, since I assumed my audience would be familiar with those locations. I also made an emphasis on how the style of surfing transformed throughout the late twentieth century, such as the reason why big wave surfing became popular in the eighties and nineties. I included these details of surfing evolution because they interest me greatly, and I have always had a desire to know how that specific style of surfing was developed. While writing the The Evolution of Surfing, I was instructed to use MLA format, which the Modern Language Association of America creates the rules for. This format can be used in a variety of genres, though I was specifically using it in a senior exit research essay. This research genre can be found in a plethora of contexts, but it is most often found in textbooks, in memoirs, and in biographies. Using a research genre, does limit the author in some ways since the facts in research do not change. Authors can apply their own thought and ideas, but cannot violate factual information. This type of genre prevents the author from being overly creative, due to the fact that most historical pieces must be structured. This genre does have an advantage of allowing an author to clearly articulate, a specific time in history, or express the history of a sport, a person, an area, or an object. This genre is also advantageous due to the fact, that is allows the author to teach their audience about a subject that their audience once had little or no understanding of. This characteristic can be beneficial in many situations, such as the use of information boards describing specific exhibits in museums. The purpose of my research paper was to inform my judges of the evolution of the surfing and to earn a good grade on the project. I believe I did that successfully since I described how surfing transformed throughout history and I received satisfactory grade on the project. If someone besides my intended audience read The Evolution of Surfing, I am certain that the audience would benefit from it since the paper is written in clear, non-technical language. Most

Green 3

likely, any reader who read this piece would enjoy it since it is interesting and engaging. I discussed many interesting things throughout the paper such as: For decades, many surfers had watched the waves break at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu, thinking that the waves were too big to be surfed and that it was certain that you would die if you attempted to ride them. According to Rodney Dooms, the waves at Waimea Bay break 200 yards out, which makes simply getting to the waves a challenge. Though in 1957, Greg Noll paddled out and was the first to surf Waimea Bay earning the nickname Da Bull. To this day, Waimea Bay is still the most well-known, big wave surfing destination in the world (Green). It was necessary that I related my research paper to my overall senior project as well, which I believe did effectively since the three parts of my project tied into one another significantly. Overall, this project was successful since I earned a 100% on the final presentation to the panel of judges for the entire senior project that I completed. For many students, including myself, there was an immense amount of joy when we finished the project, since the completion of the project was required by the county to graduate. College Genre A genre that I will become familiar with throughout my undergraduate studies as an engineering student is writing executive reports. An executive report serves the purpose to give a complete summary of a technical report. Technical reports on the other hand, would give a detailed summary of an engineering project, and would typically exceed twenty pages. An executive report would cover all the main points of the technical reports, but would not be written with much detail. When an engineering firm creates an executive report, it is primarily focused on informing the firm managers of the recent completion of a project as well as

Green 4

informing the clients of the particular project. Due to the audience of executive reports, the writing cannot be overly technical, and must be written in easy to understand language. Even though executive reports are primarily composed in professional settings, I will have to write in this genre occasionally during my studies at UNC Charlotte. The classes that I will have to write executive reports in include, Senior Design and Junior Design, where I will have to complete entire engineering projects with a group of student engineers. In the text Design of a Low Cost Portable Combustion Data Analysis System the author of the text, which was most likely the project manager, divided the executive summary into three main sections. The executive summary was on a project that developed a new system to test emissions on commercial vehicles. The introductory section of the summary, discussed the flaws with the current system to test emissions, and how the engineering firm approached the problem. The summary made it seem as if the old system was obsolete, and an upgraded system was needed immediately. The engineering firm stated Measuring tailpipe emissions alone is not efficient during the development phase of a new vehicle model. The following section then provided a conclusion to the project, and a brief description of the emissions testing apparatus that was developed. It specifically detailed that the new system was of better qualify than the old system, and that is was more cost efficient. Throughout the article, it was evident that improving the overall cost of testing emissions was very important, and it was one of the top priorities of designing a new system. It was stated that the old system for testing was Costly and not efficient for testing, and the new system was a Low-cost alternative. The final section of the summary, suggested future enhancements that could be made on the system. These enhancements could improve the overall quality of the emissions testing system, but could not be incorporated into the system at the present time. In this recommendations section of the

Green 5

executive summary it was suggested that future designs of the system needed To improve the user interface for performing the analysis Of estimating nitrous oxide emissions from vehicle cylinders. This genre of writing is most often found in the field of engineering, though it can be found in other professional fields. The genre does not contain specific rules that all engineering firms have to obey, but each individual engineering firm creates their own guidelines by which executive summaries must be written by. When an executive summary is written there are many disadvantages mainly due to the fact that they are relatively short in length and usually do not include any pictures, graphs, or tables. This prevents the summaries from being detailed and in many cases, important information must be left out. On the other hand, executive summaries can be advantageous since they can inform someone about a completed engineering project in a few paragraphs. They also are beneficial because they can inform those without an engineering background about a specific project. The purpose of Design of a Low Cost Portable Combustion Data Analysis System was to inform the managers as well as the clients of the completion of an engineering project. The executive summary was to be written in a non-technical and concise manner. I believe this was successful in fulfilling the purpose that the author intended, because it clearly gave an overview of the entire engineering project. By reading this summary, someone who was unaware of this project could gain a complete understanding of how and why the project was completed, and what was achieved throughout the project. Conclusion The analysis of both a research genre and an executive summary genre have many similarities and differences. The significant similarity between the two genres, was that both

Green 6

genres follow strict guidelines and rules such as MLA formatting. These genres typically are written very formally, and do not allow the author to insert much personal style into the writing. These genres differ in various ways as well mainly since executive summaries are found primarily in professional circumstances, while research genres are found mainly in textbooks and other non-fictional pieces. While an audience reads a research genre, the information typically is communicated like a story, which is much different than an executive summary. In contrast, executive summaries do not read quite as easily as research genres, and this is because executive summaries compress a large amount of information into a few brief paragraphs. As time progresses people are continually going to be curious about past events, which is the reason why research genres will always exist. Analyzing research genres, allows society to examine past events, and learn from those event which can be beneficial to predicting what will happen in the future. An example of this, is the United States government predicting economic changes, by examining past events. Similar to research genres, executive summaries will also continue to exist since engineering firms will always strive to find new, innovative designs for products. Due to this fact, engineering firms will always need to write technical reports, and write executive summaries as well. If I was to provide suggestions to writers, who engage in these genres frequently, I would suggest that writers should provide pictures, graphs, and tables. By adding these details to executive summaries and historical pieces, an immense amount of information can be communicated in a visually appealing way. Since the audience of both of these genres are typically people who have limited knowledge in the specific subject, the use of graphs, pictures, and tables, are quite beneficial since the information is communicated in a simple manner. Since the information should be communicated simply, I would advise that the writers of these genres,

Green 7

write in non-technical language that anyone can understand. While reading these genres, I have had multiple experiences where I have not understood the information due to the overly technical language. This is probably due to the fact that the writers of these genres are used to writing technically and speaking technically, so it is difficult for them to communicate the information in an easy to understand way. By analyzing both a high school and college genre, I have been able to view the similarities and differences between the high school and college in general. It is evident that the work that is completed varies considerably, since in college many of the assignments are completed in a professional manner, which pertain to each students specific major. These two genres are also similar in that they both follow strict guidelines, by which the assignments must be written by. This may imply that teachers and professors, want to give assignments that are easy to grade, and require minimal amount of time. Throughout this assignment, I have learned many things about analyzing new genres, which I will have to do on numerous occasions during my studies at UNC Charlotte. I have found that when writing in a new genre that it is beneficial to examine other pieces of the same genre prior to writing. I have also realized throughout this assignment, that anything can be analyzed as a genre such as a coffee cup, or a billboard. Everything around us, that includes pictures or words, implies a message, and it is up to the audience to determine what that specific message is, since the message can be interpreted in many ways.