College Composition / Unit 18 CMP 0440 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Matching Register to Genre
The idea
Register, the level of formality, should match the genre and its readers.
In practice
Work in order. First, identify the genre: research paper, report, proposal, personal essay, email, review. Second, recall its conventions for formality, point of view and tone. Third, mark words and constructions that are too casual for a formal genre, such as slang, contractions where the instructor discourages them, and phrases like "a lot of" or "kind of." Fourth, mark constructions too stiff for an informal genre. Fifth, revise toward the genre's register while keeping the language plain and clear. For example, "The study kind of shows that sleep helps memory a lot" becomes, in a report, "The study shows that sleep improves memory."
Where people slip
Raising the register does not mean adding long words. OWL's academic voice advice is the same as the Handbook's: be clear, use active voice, and avoid jargon.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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