Genres in T/P Writing

In my internship, the genres of writing I have encountered are varied because of the unique nature of my internship. I am assisting with the creation of a game based on professional writing and this actually includes many different genres of writing. The one genre I have been primarily focused on recently is instruction. While we have not explicitly written the rule book, otherwise known as the instructions, we have created over half of the cards for the game and these act as mini instructions due to the nature of the content on the cards.

As Anis Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff explain in their article “Rhetorical Genre Studies,” “genres…conditions of use change—for example because of changes in material conditions, changes in community membership, changes in technology, changes in disciplinary purposes, values, and what Charles Bazerman describes as systems of accountability (Shaping 61)—genres must change along with them or risk becoming obsolete.” This quote is particularly relevant because one does not generally think of playing cards are an instruction manual of sorts. Changes in community membership (from builders to gamers, for example) are just one way in which this genre is dynamic.

In her work, “Genre as Social Action,” Carolyn Miller writes that a “rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance or the form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish.” This is significant to understanding the genre in my internship specifically because instructions are solely intended to inspire action.  If we take these parameters into consideration, we can see how writing cards in a game is similar to writing instructions. Each card gives the player directions and enables them with a sort of action and this is similar to writing instructions because the cards have to be clear and concise. For the majority of these cards, we only intended one specific action or ability, but a player could easily interpret multiple meanings if we are not specific enough with our wording and punctuation. In the game, misinterpreting the cards can lead to cheating or an unfair gameplay. In assembling furniture, for example, misinterpretation can cause the reader to break their product or even injure themselves from faulty instructions. This relationship between writer and reader is subject to change based on context, so the main objective when writing instructions is to avoid any opportunities for misinterpretation.  The commonality between playing cards and manuals allows them to be defined as the same genre.

Sources:
Bawarshi, Anis and Reiff, Mary Jo Rhetorical Genre Studies

Miller, Carolyn Genre as Social Action