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Beck Livengood

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1102

8 September 2023

Reading Response for “Make Your ‘Move’: Writing in genres”

Genres are a way to group things based on commonalities between multiple subjects.

More specifically, for this class, genres are groupings of different ways of writing based on

similarities in the formatting, formalities, medium used, etc. For example, holiday cards are a

genre that I use, as most people, to get the point across that I recognize a certain holiday in the

light of somebody else, even more so if the card is custom-made/written. This could be a

birthday card, Valentine’s Day card, or even a get-well-soon card depending on the day one is

celebrating.

Some moves for a holiday card would include the introduction of the specific holiday.

For example, writing the thing that is being celebrated on the card like: “Happy 21st Birthday,”

“Happy Anniversary,” or “Merry Christmas.” This helps the audience/reader/receiver know what

thing is being celebrated. To accommodate that, a majority of cards say who it’s from, like:

“From Darrel,” Best wishes, Kylie,” or “Love Nana.” This helps the audience understand who

the card is from, especially if the card is not personally handed to the receiver[s] in question.

Other than that, another move could be the sentence or information inside of the card usually

relating back to the type of holiday, this has more flexibility, however, depending on if the

message is long, short, an inside joke, or an old memory. There are more moves than these by the

way, but these are the main ones that I wanted to highlight.
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Features, on the other hand, will differentiate depending on who you are writing the card

to or what the holiday/celebration of the card is. For example, the writer might use specific

vocabulary dedicated to that holiday. Like in Christmas cards, we tend to use words that have a

Christmasy connotation to them like: merry, jolly, gift, Santa, or even elves. These words,

usually, have a Christmas-like connotation to them that helps get the message across to the

audience. Another feature could even be how much you write/share. If the writer doesn’t really

know the receiver of the card that well they might not write too much, maybe just a basic move

of mentioning the holiday. Although, if the writer is writing to there best friend or direct family

member, they might be inclined to write a little more. For example, writing a personal, shared

memory between the writer and their mom, whether it’s for Mother’s Day or their birthday.

Reading Response for “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community”

Intertextuality and the concept of discourse communities are related because discourse

communities use intertextuality in their writings. These writings could include references or

ideas that relate to the topic at hand from the past, possibly building on those past ideas. A

discourse community determines what is acceptable through past ideals spoken about in past

writings. This would include the morals and ethics of a certain discourse group, like how

plagiarism is not acceptable for the students of UCF. Their discourse community has decided this

is not acceptable because of, possible, past occurrences and the board or leaders of UCF wanting

to put an end to plagiarism. As for regulation of it, multiple peers that are a part of the discourse

community review the text in question.

As for Porter and his writings, I believe that Porter knows that his whole text can’t be

original. Yet, he mainly just wants to bring it to light that almost nothing will really ever be
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original. This helps me understand that intertextuality is a part of writing that cannot be removed

or that text cannot be written without intertextuality. I, too, think that it’s okay to reference

things and events, but to not blatantly plagiarize them, although possibly use these pasts text to

benefit myself and what I’m writing about.

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Works Cited

Jacobson, Brad, et al., “Make Your ‘Move':Writing in Genres”, Writing Spaces

Porter, James, “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community”, Rhetoric Review, Vol 5, No. 1,

1986