Marylou Mercado

Writing 1
Zack De Piero
April 13, 2015
Identifying, Describing and Analyzing a Genre: WP1
More than often, identifying and knowing genre plays a key factor in being able
to critically analyze a piece of rhetoric. Each genre displays unique conventions that
make a genre, a genre. One popular genre that media has been covering a lot lately has

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:26 PM

Comment [1]: More specific title?

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:26 PM
Comment [2]: Yep!

been the fore coming 2016 presidential elections. These political articles are becoming
more popular as election season comes up. In more recent news, the announcement of
Hilary Clinton seeking the democratic nomination for presidency in 2016 has been a hot
topic. Media outlets like the Washington News, US weekly Online and Politico Online all
have covered this topic that everyone has been talking about. These three media outlets
effectively have the similar purpose to inform their readers, but with a twist to cater to
their different audiences using different styles and techniques.
Each mainstream media had a different approach to breaking the news of Hillary
Clintons announcement. For starters, US Weekly had their own special way of
announcing the news. Their articles head title read Hillary Clinton Announces 2016
Presidential Bid: Celebs Like Clay Aiken, Amy Poehler, and Lena Dunham React!
(McRady) Just by the title one can analyze that this is not a very political, serious story.
As expected, the article is more for entertainment reasons, since it is an entertainment
magazine. One key factor is the audience it is tailored for. People who are really
concerned on the latest political news will not go to US Weekly, a magazine centered on

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:27 PM

Comment [3]: Marylou, Im not quite sure
what specific genre this paper is about OR
what youre arguing here. Whats the twist?

Remember: your reader is most likely going
to be expecting a thesis statement at the end
of your Intro (or occasionally 2nd
paragraph) that clearly detail what
point/argument/stance theyre taking and
what evidence theyre basing that on. Right
now, I dont know where youre taking me.

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:27 PM
Comment [4]: Its a good idea to get very
specific in topic sentences of pararaphs
theyre essentially idea anchors for the
paragraph. They help the reader to
understand---yo, this is whats coming up in
the paragraph.

So: whats coming up in this paragraph?

the lives of celebrities, not necessarily news. Even the first picture in the article did not
even have a picture of Hilary Clinton; instead, it has pictures of the celebrities listed in
the title. Following that was a screenshot of Amy Pohlers tweet expressing her support,
followed by a GIF. The rest of the post continues with screenshots of celebrities tweets
expressing their support. The story has minimal actual text or information on her
announcement. Their strong use of popular social medias and visuals shows they are
trying to appeal to people who are more interested in entertainment than in actual politics.
People who are more interested in entertainment would more likely be reading US
weekly since it is an entertainment source. In no way does it express Hilarys political
platform or information on her campaign. Their purpose was to let people know that
Hilary Clinton has announced her presidency but in a more unorthodox way that would
get people who usually not concerned with politics to still read the story.

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:27 PM

Comment [5]: Youre losing me just a bit,
Marylou. Take a step back and think: OK,
what am I trying to accomplish in this
paragraph? Once you answer that, consider
whether all the details/ideas/sentences in
the paragraph directly relate back to that
goal.

The following article used a different approach that the US Weekly post. The
heading for the NYmagazine article read Why Hillary Clinton Is Probably Going to Win
the 2016 Election. Already a clear bias has been presented. Hillary Clinton is probably
going to win the presidential election. The United States has polarized into stable voting
blocs, and the Democratic bloc is a bit larger and growing at a faster rate. (Chait) Again,
it is important to consider who is writing the article and who the audience is. For starters,
the author of the post, Jonathan Chait, is an open democrat. Also, he writes for the New
York Magazine, which caters to mostly people from the region. Since New York is
considered a democratic state, the readers he is appealing to are most likely democrats as
well. In this way does context and audience play a crucial role in the writing of this
article. The article visually shows conventions of a typical informative, political

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:27 PM

Comment [6]: Agreed. This is a very
important idea too which can shape genres.
Its worth considering whether you think
this is important enough to promote to the
topic sentence. (That is, if this is what you
think the paragraph is/should focus on).

document, unlike the US Magazine article. It is numbered to organize the information

and uses graph to display its facts. They do so because they are trying to convince the
readers that she will win. Many authors use this technique to convince its readers of their
argument. You would likely present evidence to convince general audiences (including
an instructor and fellow students) that the issue merited their attention and concern.
(Lunsford The author of this article knows this so he presented the necessary evidence to
appeal to his audience. The article begins with the announcement that she will be
running for president so it serves a similar purpose that other articles. However, this
article takes a different approach on the way the go about it.

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:29 PM

Comment [7]: Id advise you to refrain
from using free-floating quotes (ie,
sentences that start and end with a quote).
The reader is probably going to be left
wondering, Who is saying/citing this, and
how/why is it relevant? Wheres it coming
from? Try to introduce the quote and give
it context.

The final article is from Politico.com. This article portrays the more common
conventions of a political article. It starts off with a simple, straightforward caption:
Hillary Clinton formally announces 2016 presidential run, followed by the video where
she announces her race for president. The video is very straightforward and to the point.
Already, one can see that this is a more formal, serious article. The article continues with
facts, statistics and general news about Clinton and her political platform. Again, context,
style and audience play a big purpose in this. This website is clearly a strictly politics
website, so the audience must be people who are more interested and involved in politics.
Another thing that this article does is use a lot of sources and quotes. Since the article
caters to all political parties, the authors of the article show no clear bias. In fact, they
even show some input from Hillarys contender Rand Paul. Senator Rand Paul, another
Republican presidential contender, also jumped in, jabbing at both Clintons use of
private email and the foreign money that has freely flowed to the Clinton Foundation.
Its going to be hard for her to say shes for womens rights when shes accepting money

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:29 PM

Comment [8]: This is another super-
important thing worth elaborating on and
putting upfront and center.

from sort of stone-age sort of regimes that really abuse the rights of women, said Paul on
CBS Face the Nation. (Karni) There purpose here is to simply inform its readers by
using clear political conventions and telling their stories. These are included with, but not
limited to, statistics, information on platform, facts and credible sources. This article
shows the more typical convention of what someone would expect to be a typical
political article.
Being able to identify this genre is really important. It gives you the capability to
know what to look for in a genre and how they can be similar and differ. This allowed for
more adequate understanding of the context of each articles and knowing what is best
suited for you. For example, a conservative republican probably will not be a big fan of
the NY magazine article. Often, articles have similar conventions, however, they do have
some key factors that differentiate them. Therefore, by being informed of genres and their
different conventions, would help a person know that this article will not be for them.
All these articles had a similar purpose, which was to inform of the latest
information on the presidential election that is coming up. The one thing they differed in
was the way they approached it. They knew they had to tailor to different audiences
which altered their tone and style. We saw this in the conventions of a less serious article
(US Weekly) where they used celebrities, lots of pictures and a informal tone against the
more serious one (Politico) where they used facts, quotes, and lots of text to create a
formal tone. These conventions effectively made the articles more appealing to their
intended audiences.

Zack De Piero 4/17/2015 2:28 PM

Comment [9]: This is pretty vague and
casual, Marylou. Make your statements
count. Try to make sure each
sentence/thought/idea is packing a punch.

Work Cited

Chair, Jonathan. "Why Hillary Clinton Is Probably Going to Win the 2016 Election." Daily
Intelligencer. 12 Apr. 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Karni, Annie. "Hillary Clinton Formally Announces 2016 Run." POLITICO. Web. 15 Apr.
2015.
Mcrady, Rachel. "Hillary Clinton Announces 2016 Presidential Bid: Celebs Like Clay Aiken,
Amy Poehler, and Lena Dunham React!" Latest News. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.