Ellie Stewart

Writing 2

Writing Project 1

Was There a Twitter Before 2006?

Imagine you just read your local newspaper. Done? Now imagine checking your twitter account.

Did you notice any similarities? Newspapers have several different articles within. There’s news reports,

a sports section, columns, editorials, etc. Some articles, although they are both in the newspaper, are

different genres. Some are different genres because they serve a different purpose to its audience, they

include a different tone, and they include different information to meet a different goal. Now tweets,

there’s not just one type of tweet: personal accounts can voice their own sappy, humorous, relatable or

trendy tweets. Meanwhile, a professional account can post an informative and formal tweet about issues

that the public might be interested or concerned about. These different types of tweets can also be

considered different genres because, once again, they have different purposes and contain different

information to meet different goals. Why are we looking at tweets and newspaper articles? Well, there’s a

correlation: a newspaper article is an antecedent genre of a tweet, meaning that tweets evolved from and

are similar to newspaper articles. We are going to take a look at two genres of tweets common on Twitter:

personal tweets and informational tweets. Then, we are going to compare them to their antecedent genres.

By doing so, we can see how genres of literature apply to something as common and short as a tweet, and

how genres (like newspapers) have evolved over time with technological and social advances.

First, we’re going to evaluate how we can differentiate between a personal tweet and an

informational tweet. Tweets aren’t labelled “CAUTION: PERSONAL TWEET” or “THIS TWEET IS OF

INFORMATIONAL CONTENT”; tweets don’t have titles, so we can’t tell what they’re about until we

read them, but each tweet has conventions, or characteristics, that allow us to categorize them. The

following are conventions for a personal tweet: A personal tweet is generally short, normally a maximum
of two sentences. They very commonly have grammar, capitalization, and spelling imperfections. These

grammatic “errors” aren’t necessarily there because a person doesn’t know how to spell, but it’s almost a

strategy to show that a tweet isn’t super serious- that it is funny and light-hearted. They include a lot of

trendy slang and sometimes emojis. Content-wise, personal tweets can be humorous, someone’s feelings

about what makes them happy or sad, feelings on a social trend, etc. The “author” of a personal tweet can

be anyone: no one needs a high school degree to publish their thoughts to millions on the internet. The

purpose of a personal tweet is to be entertained, they are emotionally and comedically relatable and what

fellow twitter-users can relate to. To use some examples from my own twitter feed that I had “liked”

(these aren’t tweets that I tweeted myself), I saw “I deserve all the love I put out and I won’t entertain

anything less.”(@queenblackwell), “looking for a serotonin dealer. dm me pls serious sellers

only”(@DemetriusHarmon), and “in 2020 we only accept apologies in cash or changed

behavior”(@brendonisdead). From these examples, you can see that personal tweets vary in subject, but

all share the purpose of relating to readers humorously or emotionally. Also, you can see they are very

laid back in their grammatic structure- I included them as I saw them on Twitter, no changes to the

grammar, spelling, or capitalization. These similar conventions allow them to be categorized into the

same genre.

On the other hand, informational tweets are tweeted by a legitimate organization or person in

power that is trying to inform the public on an event, issue, or updates on something. Because

professional organizations have a certain reputation they must uphold, their tweets tend to have better

punctuation, capitalization, grammar, spelling, etc. This is an example of rhetorical situation; because the

organizations/people that tweet informational tweets are well-known and should be trusted, they tend to

tweet in a more sophisticated and correct manner. Also, the content of their tweets is a factor in upholding

a professional reputation, so the content of an info-tweet will be, of course, informative and usually more

sophisticated. Twitter also recognizes these professional organizations with a blue checkmark by their

account names showing that the account/person/organization is “verified”. This verified check shows that

a professional account is who they say they are- seeing this checkmark is a way of knowing the tweets
from the account are credible. NASA recently tweeted about their Artemis program that wants to send

another man and woman on the moon by 2024 (@NASA) and a recent tweet from CNN described how

firefighters are making progress in the Saddleridge Fire (@cnnbrk). (I chose to paraphrase these tweets

because they are lengthy, as opposed to personal tweets). Although their tweets are about different topics,

they have similarities from which we can group them into the same genre. They are both formally written

with correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation (unlike personal tweets). Both tweets are produced by

verified accounts, proving the information is credible. Both tweets are written about more sophisticated

issues that the public may be concerned or interested in. Lastly, both tweets serve the same purpose of

informing the public with factual and legitimate evidence.

I know it could be easy to put personal and informational tweets in the same genre. They’re both

tweets right? They’re both posted on Twitter aren’t they? Well, yes, they come from the same platform,

but it’s their content and purpose that differentiates their genres. In Kerry Dirk’s article, “Navigating

Genres”, he states “…knowing what a genre is used for can help people to accomplish goals, whether that

goal be getting a job by knowing how to write a stellar resume, winning a person’s heart by writing a

romantic love letter, or getting into college by writing an effective personal statement.” (Dirk, Navigating

Genres). Because the goal of an informational tweet is to inform readers and a personal tweet is used to

relate emotionally, they have different purposes and include different ways of writing and conventions to

fulfill these purposes. Therefore, they are two separate genres of literature.

To tie in how newspaper articles are related to tweets, as an experiment I interviewed my

grandmother who has never had a Twitter account and asked her some questions. To my surprise, she

knew more about Twitter than I expected, and she opened my eyes to the idea that the concept of Twitter

had already existed before the emergence of the app. I asked if she knew any past pieces of literature

similar to tweets and she suggested newspapers. My immediate thought was “No way, tweets are way

more personal than a newspaper article”, but if you think about it, a newspaper is basically a compilation

of tweets, just expressed on paper and in a different format. A specific note my grandma pointed out was

that newspapers do have opinion columns and “Letter to the Editor” columns where anyone in the
community can send in their opinion to the editor and it will be published in the paper so others can read

and relate to it- adding some personal content with the same purpose and concept as a personal tweet.

Because of the similar purpose, we can consider an opinion column/”Letter to the Editor” column as an

antecedent genre of a tweet. Although personal tweets are shorter and not as formal as a “Letter to the

Editor” column would be, we can still consider a newspaper article an antecedent genre of tweets because

of the similar purpose. Plus, the differences between articles and tweets are due to the adaptations to

technological and social advances we have endured since the newspaper era, not to serve a different

purpose. Therefore, tweets are basically shorter opinion columns shared on a larger-scale.

Magazines can also be considered an antecedent genre of tweets. For example, there are lots of

magazines: Time Magazine, The Economist, People Magazine, Rolling Stone, etc. Magazines cover

worldwide topics about politics, discoveries, celebrities, and lots more. The purpose of a magazine is to

inform readers on a particular topic. Isn’t this similar to the conventions of an informational tweet? Also,

authors from magazines and verified Twitter accounts both must have some type of qualification to share

such information. Magazines hire writers who acquire information through first-hand sources and Twitter

shows when an account is verified to prove that information is coming from a credible source. Although

tweets are forced to be shorter because of the format of the app, they still serve as an informational source

to the audience, are formal like magazine articles, and are appropriate for its audience; the sole difference

between them is the technology that allows tweets to spread more quickly and the length/format of tweets.

These similarities between informational tweets and magazines with their purpose, credibility, and

educational/informative content allow us to identify magazine articles an antecedent genre of

informational tweets.

In conclusion, genres of literature are all around us, even on Twitter, and continue to evolve and

adapt as technology advances. Although tweets are fairly new in society, their purpose has been alive for

years and years. People have voiced their opinions in the newspaper for decades- only technology and

Twitter made it easier, faster, and trendy. People have read up on politics, news, and environmental issues

for generations, although it was only available on paper in the past, but now it’s applicable through
Twitter. Despite the goal we are trying to reach from our reading (to be entertained or to be informed)

there has always been a genre to fulfill that goal. The only difference between tweets and their antecedent

genres is the adaptations made to meet the changes of society and technology.