Journal 5 Geraghty

• Writing to me is a call-to-action, whether it is to put a plan into motion, evoke change in others, or simply capture emotions at a point in time. Writing and composing are about creating art that sparks art through the use of words and design. There a cycle that writing is a part of that includes things like purpose, distribution, genre, and materiality. There are a set of conventions that need to be both followed and challenged.
  My prior experience with writing focuses on journalism. Most of my writing has to remain unbiased and formal. However, I find joy in pushing the limits and conventions of that genre. Often times when I think about writing, that is the genre that comes to mind and that has a tendency to blind me of other genres and the conventions of those. Something this project helped me think in relation to writing was emotion that writing evokes and even the emotions that evoke writing. Journalistic writing tries to eliminate that, however that is still a very valid convention of genres like biography and fiction.
  
  Key Terms related to writing:
  1. composition- the literal act of writing within the constraints and conventions of genre.
  2. conventions- the set of rules that genres set forth to help unify similar pieces of writing
  3. genre- categories that writing can be divided into in order to help classify one piece of writing in opposition to another
  4. exigence- the "call-to-action"/ purpose for writing
  5. materiality- the medium in which the writing is placed. This plays a large role in the effectiveness of the distribution and impact of the piece of writing
  6. distribution- a piece of writing is only effective if put in the right hands
  7. medium- the mode of writing, similar to materiality