Carolyn Miller Reading

The author of this reading is Carolyn R. Miller. She was a professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communications. This reading was published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 1984. After reading this reading, I think that the primary audience of the text is other scholars who are also studying similar subjects in English. Due to how dense the reading is, I came to the conclusion that this couldn’t be for just regular students.

The main purpose of this reading was for the author to address the topics of genres. He believes that there is a correlation between genre and rhetoric. The author of this reading believes that for a reading to be classified as a genre, you must look at the reading thoroughly and determine what kind of discourses the reading falls in. The author of this reading wanted to show that the connection between the different genres and Rhetoric. The author talks a lot about the discourse communities and how these are important when talking about genre.

The author of the second reading is Elizabeth Wardle. She is a professor at Miami University in Ohio. Based off of the density of the reading, I would say that this reading is based for students. One of the most important arguments that Wardle touches on in this reading is how every single thing that you write has some sort of genre. She really emphasizes this point of everything having a genre because it has to be placed into some sort of category of writing. The purpose of this reading is to teach others, especially her students, into knowing the importance of genre.