Billiar 1

Elizabeth Billiar
Professor Knudson
UWRT 1102 MW 11:00-12:15
5 April 2015
Writing Log
Over the course of for consecutive days I kept track of everything that I wrote in order to
create the graph displayed below.

Writing Log

Class Notes

Other Notes

Social Media

Texting

The following terms are critical in order to properly analyze a writers work. A mode is a
channel of communication, such as oral, visual, digital, or print. A medium is a tool a writer uses
within the channel to deliver a message. Lastly, a genre is a form of the medium used for specific
situations. For example, a writer creates a documentary about abused dogs. The mode (the
channel) is the documentary and the medium (the message) is to prevent abuse of dogs as well as

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support for aid groups by purchasing a bumper sticker (the genre). However, it is important to
note that all of the terms discussed above are influenced by social contexts.
Another important aspect of this is a composers persona. This includes the stance he or
she takes, the tone, the vocabulary used, the voice, and the style. All of these make up the image
he or she portrays in the text. A persona is influenced by previous texts, the audience, and the
purpose, medium, and genre of what he or she is composing. Chapter 1 of Everythings A Text,
proposes the theory of David Bartholomae and Patricia Bizzell argue that a writers persona is
socially constructed, which means that the literacy situation shapers the composers persona.
A majority of my writing composition was that of text messages exchanged and social
media posts between family, friends, co-workers, as well as others. Although, these drastically
differ in context. When texting my boyfriend and friends this writing was very informal with
improper grammar, oftentimes misspelling, and lots of abbreviations, compared to that of texting
and e-mailing family and co-workers that often with proper grammar and vocabulary. Social
media was often a mixture between the two since my viewers included people from all groups
discussed above.
Another aspect of my composition was that of school work, which includes assigned
papers and projects, notes, and homework. All notes were taken in cursive with somewhat proper
spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. Class work notes were often jotted in short hand for their
own purpose was reference by myself to comprehend and understand. A majority of my
homework was for Statistics 1222, thus no proper English composition was needed since it was
all numbers. However, my assigned papers for UWRT 1102 and study guides for CHEM 1204
were all MLA format styled papers with strict emphasis on proper grammar, vocabulary, and
spelling. Additional notes included short hand notes that included to-do lists, monthly calendars,

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and reminders to myself. These notes were often quickly written either on Post-It notes or typed
into the app PocketLife, a calendar on iPhone devices. These were often quickly written with a
few words, oftentimes abbreviations, in a bulleted list.
My writing style changed dramatically from one situation to the next depending on the
context and audience of my composition. The general mode of communication towards friends,
family, co-workers and others was through that of technology by text messages, e-mails, and
social media. Otherwise, most writing was that of shorthand notes written for class on paper for
my own personal reference or MLA format styled papers for assignments that were due directly
to professors. Writing composition differs dramatically based upon the composers persona, the
stance he or she takes, the tone, the vocabulary used, the voice, and the style to make up the
image he or she portrays in the text. A writers persona is influenced by previous texts, the
audience, and the purpose, medium, and genre of what he or she is composing. By completing
this vignette I was able to analyze my own personas throughout my different aspects of writing.