Georgia Walters

Intermediate Composition

M2  Reflective Analysis 

15 September 2020

When I first received the assignments and writing pieces for Module 2, I honestly underestimated how difficult it would be to create my “This I believe” piece. But I eventually learned that there was much more to an activist piece than just simply writing down what you believe.

Once I had labeled my activist piece as a personal opinion piece, I realized that I needed to do more research on how to properly write an Activist piece. After watching and reading other writer’s pieces, I learned that there are certain ways a writer should write, depending on who their audience is and what they are writing about. The article, “Who Is Your Target Audience? Use This Simple Trick To Figure Out If They Actually Exist“, stated that “It’s easy to fall into the habit of writing what you love or writing to impress your peers or your editor. That might make for good writing… but it won’t necessarily attract readers”. They continued to speak about how exactly to find your target audience, and how to write in a way that catches their interest. In order to convince my audience to agree with my opinions, I would have to use the correct forms of writing for them to even consider reading my piece. My targeted audience were those who had or currently going through the healing process of losing a loved one.

When I had first started writing about my belief that time heals, I originally only wrote about a personal story of mine that could relate to the topic. Although my personal story showed some of my reasoning for my beliefs, I still needed more for my audience to agree withy views. To do that, I did further research and ready other writer’s articles on how time can heal our emotional wounds. Once I finished my research, I cited from valid sources that also spoke on my subject. By adding sources to my reasons for my beliefs, I was able to give my audience more reasons to have interest in my piece. I used more a more personal way of writing to my audience instead of making my piece formal, but I also made sure to make it informative.

While working through module 2, John Swales’ article, “Approaching the Concept of Discourse Community.”, really helped me learn how to better write and understand the writing and reading pieces that were assigned to us in this module. A quote from his piece that helped me the most during my assignments was, “A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about their goals” (Swales). His way of describing discourse communities was much easier to comprehend for me compared to when I had learned about discourse communities in my English course the year before. His article helped me gain a better grasp on the proper terminologies to use with certain audiences, how to give relevant information and facts to the audience, and how to make the writing good for the reader, but still keep it as your own personal way of writing.

When I had originally began this assignment, I thought I would fly through it with ease because I had recently done assignments about discourse communities in my first year English course, but once I read through the assessed readings, John Swales’ “Approaching the Concept of Discourse Community”, and my classmate’s writing pieces, I became more informed on how to speak to my target audience and how to properly create my piece for the Activist.

Overall, I believe that Module 2 has given me the opportunity to know how to find my target audience and how to keep them interested in my writing. It has taught me how to make my writing in my own personal style, but still keep it as good, informative writing for my targeted audience. After working on the module two assignments I feel that I am able to write my own personal writing pieces for my targeted audiences in whatever discourse community I am in.

Works Cited

Swales, John. “Approaching the Concept of Discourse Community.” ERIC, 28 Feb. 1987, eric.ed.gov/?id=ED286184.

Writer’s Digest. 2020. Who Is Your Target Audience? Use This Simple Trick To Figure Out If They Actually Exist. [online] Available at: <https://www.writersdigest.com/publishing-faqs/does-your-target-audience-exist-use-this-simple-trick-to-figure-it-out&gt; [Accessed 20 October 2020].