Report on My Interviews

Conducting these interviews was very informative to me because of the insider information that I gathered. It would have been challenging to get the information that I did anywhere else than out of the mouth of the people experiencing this work themselves.

1.    What are the most significant or interesting genres that you learned about from your interviewees? Please identify at least THREE specific genres from your discipline/field of study that your interview subjects discussed writing within. 

The most interesting genre that I learned about from my interviewees are the personalized instant messaging systems that their companies have. They are built to create more privacy and direct communication within the company. Another significant genre is email. Email is essential in the business world because it is formal yet quick and can connect anyone at any point in time. The final significant genre is PowerPoint. This is significant because it is the way that official presentations are given to both clients and within the company and allows for easy editing and improvements.

2.    How do these genres differ from one another? Think about things like genre convention, content, purpose, audience, message, and context as you describe these differences.

Each of these genres have different conventions that they follow. The IM system is more casual since it is trying to get information to people as quickly as possible. The email is more formal, but does not have many restrictions on what you decide to write. The PowerPoint is the most confined by the conventions because it is needed to present information professionally and needs to be easily understood. The email and PowerPoint are more formal and to professionally convey information while the IM system is meant for quick messages to colleagues.

3.    Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is challenging and/or difficult about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

What is challenging about writing in the instant messaging system is that you cannot save the message. If you accidentally close out of the window, the message is gone and must be sent again by the sender. The email needs to be clear enough that it can be understood quickly to increase efficiency, therefore the sender must be sure that the receiver can answer the question without confusion. The PowerPoints are many slides long, like over 100. This makes it challenging because they need to put all this information in there, but often times a client will look at the first two slides and make up their mind without reading the other 98. You must prioritize how the information is relayed.  

4.    Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is exciting and/or rewarding about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

What is rewarding about writing in each of these genres is when the final goal is accomplished. All of this work and conveying information to different parties finally pays off and the reward of payment as well as satisfaction is the real excitement in these professions.

5.    Where in mass media - popular, academic, and/or social - can examples of this genre be found? If genre examples cannot be found within mass media easily, where can genre examples be found/located?

There are very few places, if any, where these genres can be found. The one place that may have some broad examples are academic journals and even then it is hard to find. The reason is because business cannot be shared with the public. The whole point of business is that it is a competition and releasing information disregards the advantage of doing any work because competitors have access to the information you just worked for. Contracts prevent any information to be released and therefore these genres are impossible to find.

 

Abraham, Zennie. "Johnny Manziel Cleveland Browns QB NFL Draft Interview"
05/09/14 via Flickr Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License