What, Exactly, Are You Writing?

We’ve talked here before about writing styles, and also about Styles in writing. But I don’t think we’ve talked yet about different big-picture styles of writing – different formats, if you will – for conveying your ideas to someone else. So let’s nail this down.

Let’s say you want to write a business letter. I learned way back in my high school typing class (yes, in fact, it was called “typing” then, not “keyboarding” – and I thought I told you to stay off my lawn!) that a business letter has a specific format. Your address goes at the top, either centered or right-justified; then you double-space and put the date, centered; then triple-space and type the name and address for the person you’re sending the letter to; and so on. A variation on this is the open punctuation business letter, which I’d never heard of until my fellow minion, T.D. McKinnon, mentioned it last week. Continue reading “What, Exactly, Are You Writing?”