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Adequacy is Key
Dear Reader,
Moving to the USA and adapting to the linguistic and cultural barriers here has
not been easy. Throughout this year I’ve come to terms with some unfortunate facts,
the most important of which was an tough lesson to learn: no matter how hard it is to
accept some things, adaptation and acceptance are the easiest way. The most obvious
concrete example of this enlightenment of mine can be pointed out in changes I have
One of the hardest conventions for me to adapt to is, in fact, that of clear and
concise writing. Short, easy-to-read sentences are the norm here, and, as I’m sure
you’re already aware of, I don’t like that. When reading some other person’s paper, I
constantly catch myself rolling my eyes to the banality and repetitiveness of their
sentence structure, barely applying any adjectives to their stripped nouns. No matter
how many times I told myself to try and be as concise as possible, I would always end
up hating my first attempts, consequently completely deleting them and starting over.
However, throughout this year I’ve also learned that if you never try you’ll
never improve. When it comes to my writing style, I really don’t think there is
anything wrong with it, but rather, that in the context I present it under, it is not
adequate. In this case, adequacy is key: the case isn’t against my writing style as
much as it is about learning new ways to adapt my sentence structure and write in
another language. My mother has always told me, “Once you write well in one
language, you can write well in all”, however it would be more correct to assert that
in such a scenario you have potential. Potential that is necessary to writing well in a
different language. Potential that is buried inside of you, but needs to be released.
In other words, it is not useful to try retaining all of the writing conventions and
simply translating them to a new language. One must first understand the significant
genre: to connect with your audience, you must use the correct forms of variable
sentence structure, the correct ways of saying, down to the very words that make up
the lexis of such a language. In the words of Dirk, “Your goal is to recognize these
shifts in location and to be aware of how such shifts might affect your writing.”1
These words resonated with me. “Learning about genres and how they function
is more important than mastering one particular genre” –he goes on saying. By
subdivisions, I can now grasp the differences of my English writing style with that of
Italian, and I can focus my approach to that of the “English genre”, or rather, how to
write in convincing English, clear and concise as it is meant to be in its purest form.
Reading through my Writing Project 1 once more, I noticed that I’ve learned so
much through this course, even though I considered myself a pretty decent writing
even before taking this class. The paragraphs were long and intricate, and, I have to
admit, it was quite heavy to read. To improve my WP1 I mostly chose to reduce the
periphrases. I also revised the lexis I used in WP1 and tried to come up with easier
essay. Here, my main concern was the format of the document, rather than the writing
style itself. Properly placing footnotes and learning how to adjust the side margins of
Some stylistic choices I left in my WP3 were long sentences paired with single
spaced text within the translation. Had I been given more time, I think I would’ve
elaborated more on the ending, but I am quite content with how my Writing Project
came out. Regarding the introduction of the course-recommended readings within the
text, I chose to analyze Dirk and Swales’ impact on my writing style and
helps a group of driven individuals come together and work as one, introducing me to
All in all, I believe these writing projects have definitively helped me improve.
The readings were also useful, as they were mainly a source for inspiration to start the
writing. In the words of Bunn, I would often read about a genre and ask myself
The concepts of “discourse community” and “genre analysis” along with the
approach to writing. So many stylistic choices, along with new idioms and grammar
rules have not only allowed me to write all my assignments with satisfactory results,
Sincerely,
Francesco Moulson
1 Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genres”, Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing 1, 2010
2 John Swales, “Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings”, Cambridge
University Press, 1990
3
Mike Bunn, “How to Read Like a Writer” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing 2, 2011