Entry 1 Style Guide

In class on Wednesday, our professor had us break into groups to discuss an article within our field.

Our goal was to discuss the following:

1) who the intended audience is
2) identify purpose/goal
3) style and tone of the writing

The article I looked at with my partner was about new moms and the use of face negotiation theory. Face negotiation theory is a communication theory that I learned about in my Special Topics class last semester. The theory goes into how people chose to save "face" pertaining to certain situations. I found it very interesting because it talked about women's attitudes towards motherhood and seeking acceptance.

We decided that the intended audience would be new moms and/or those who are studying something involving face negotiation theory or parenthood. The purpose/goal was to inform readers about results of a study as to how new moms use face negotiation theory to save "face" and why. I found it particularly interesting that these new moms claimed they do not seek to maintain "good mother face" around friends or strangers yet, when they admitted to seeking acceptance and approval from others regarding their parenting style. The last thing we were asked to discuss was the tone and style of the article itself. The article also talked about how the new moms will say they're doing good or fine when in reality they could be struggling and not be "good." Some new moms will not admit to this or to any kind of emotional turbulence. This article does a great job of showing women's identities involving motherhood and what it means to be a mother. As far as style is concerned, the article is set up with subheadings to keep all the information organized since it is a pretty lengthy article. The article also is set up with a decent size font to make it easily accessible to most people. It is set up in a particularly complex and active style. I believe the attitude in which the piece is written by the author is not meant to be insulting in any way and in my opinion did not come off this way.

From this article, I learned some new little tricks when working with a lengthy article that has a lot of valuable information to be put into it. I also gained knowledge about rhetorical awareness using purpose, audience, stakeholders, and context of a piece of writing. This article also dealt with my field of communication and also something that interests me regarding face negotiation theory.

If this article sparked an interest, it can be found at the following link:
http://www-tandfonline-com.pitt.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/01463370802448246