Reading Response 2

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Chryssa Monteiro
Professor Gardiakos
ENC1102
27 January 2023
Reading Response for “Make Your “Move”: Writing in Genres” and “Intertextuality and
Discourse Communities”
Genres and intertextuality are two major concepts used in writing and discourse
communities. First starting off with genre, it’s essentially different categories of writing or
different writing formats, for lack of better words. Examples used within the text “Make Your
“Move”: Writing in Genres”, from Writing Spaces, were wedding invitations and student
absence emails. Both of these have two completely different genres, formats. They each have
certain things that are required to make them unique to that genre, these would be called moves.
A move is basically a part of a genre that has a purpose for the audience who reads it. These
could be as short as a sentence, a few words within a sentence, or even paragraphs long.
Wedding invitations must have a part that actually invites the person to the wedding, that’s the
whole purpose of it (Jacobson, Pawlowski, and Tardy 217) . A student absence email must state
its purpose that the student will be absent on said day (Jacobson, Pawlowski, and Tardy 219). A
new example to explain the features of certain genres would be personal statements. These are
used for college applications and should include information that tells the college why you
should be admitted, why you. A personal statement has multiple moves that are quite important.
One move would be to explain why you chose this school and how it can lead you to what you
aspire to be. Explain to the school what attracted you that makes you feel like they’ll be able to
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lead you to success better than any other. Another move that would normally be included in a
personal statement would be some kind of story that adds depth to you as a person. People may
seem quite shallow if they don’t have anything to share other than superficial, generic facts about
themselves. A personal story allows the school to see what are some things that have added on to
your character. One last move that would normally be seen within a personal statement would be
your skills. The purpose of including some of your skills would be so that the school can see how
you would be an asset to them, how you could contribute. There are multiple different genres and
each one includes its own set of modes, which all of them allow you to communicate in different
ways to the audience. Such as, with a student absence email, you are communicating with your
professor about not being in class, or with the personal statement you are communicating with
the school what it is that makes you stand out from other applicants.
What goes hand in hand with genre would be intertextuality. This is a concept in writing
that basically can include a multitude of sources. In a more simple manner, intertextuality is the
idea that a piece of text includes ideas from various people/places. James Porter used an example
about the Declaration of Independence that can perfectly explain intertextuality. Thomas
Jefferson wasn’t the only name signed on this important document. There were various other
signatures on it because, although he may have written it, that does not mean all the ideas were
his. He incorporated John Locke’s theory as well as the English Bill of Rights, which neither is
originally from him (Porter 36-37). The intertextuality comes into play here because this is
essentially what it is, one piece of text that was formed with multiple ideas from other people.
Thus, Jefferson wasn’t the only one to sign it because credit must be given where it is due, and
that would be to the other’s who provided him with their own ideas. Porter includes
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intertextuality into his own writing when he includes the names of other people, trying to show
the audience that this text he has written was not solely his doing, ideas were woven in from
other people. Now, intertextuality plays a role in discourse communities as well. Discourse
communities determine what is considered acceptable based on what information it is that they
follow. Information that they have researched and sifted through to see what fits and what
doesn’t. An example of a discourse community and their guidelines would be the art industry,
more specifically abstract art. Everyone knows that abstract art isn’t meant to be something that
is recognizable, it’s just a visual expression of who the artist is. There are guidelines that sort out
abstract artists. Some of these being that, if your art has characters in it and/or things that don;t
have organic shapes of their own, you would most likely not be considered part of the abstract art
discourse community. Your art would belong in another community, such as pop art, because of
the constraints put on abstract art to keep it that way. Intertextuality comes into this community
specifically when it comes to what the artists actually produce. A painting can be inspired by
other artists' paintings, meaning that it's not a completely original idea. In the text by Porter there
is a phrase that relates to this saying how “... the creative writer is the creative borrower…”
(Porter 37). This relates to any discourse community, even artists, because that goes to show how
even though one may have an original interpretation from something, it’s not their own original
thought or idea. For abstract art, if someone wants to join this community, the artist can feel
inspired by others, but they have to have their own voice without overpassing the constraints.
Intertextuality seems complicated but, in my opinion, is quite simple to understand. It’s a
connection between multiple things. A text can be original, but there’s always a works cited page
at the end because not every single thought was original. The words within the text were inspired
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by those of others. With that being said, I agree with how Porter explained intertextuality to be
and how he incorporated it within his own text.
Works Cited
Porter, James E.“Intertextuality and Discourse Community”. Rhetoric Review. Vol. 5, No. 1
(Autumn, 1986), pp. 34-47
Jaconson, Brad, et al. “Make Your “Move”: Writing in Genres”. Writing Spaces. pp. 217-238

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Intertextuality seems complicated but, in my opinion, is quite simple to understand. It’s a

and how he incorporated it within his own text.

(Autumn, 1986), pp. 34-47

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