Initially, I only associated genre with books, such as science fiction, fantasy, etc. In this course, I learned that the term genre also applies in writing, such as memos, proposals, etc.

In writing, we define genre as a form of writing we utilize in our work. Our work can differ in structure, writing, language, and other aspects; thus, we categorize these different ways of conveying our writing into genres. Rhetorical elements like audience, exigence, and media could affect the genre of our work .

In this class, we mainly utilized five genres of writing: Memo, technical description, lab report, engineering proposal, and the self-assessment portfolio (this website). We also did minor work on genres like instructions. In several of our assignments, we reflect on the definition of the genre we attempted in said assignment and determine if the assignment fits the structure of said genre (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Genre of a memo defined in my memo reflection.