Before you came to college, you probably spent much more time writing informally than writing formally. Think about all the time that you’ve spent writing e-mails, Facebook and blog comments, text messages, and tweets. Now think about the time that you’ve spent writing papers for school or work. The informal style that you use in writing an e-mail or text message can become a problem when you try to write a formal research paper. It is important to be aware of when it’s OK to be sloppy or use abbreviations and when you have to be meticulous. When you write research papers in college, you should assume that your audience is composed of instructors, researchers, and other serious students, people who will make judgments about your knowledge and abilities based on your writing. It’s never OK to be sloppy or casual when writing a formal paper.

Being aware of the differences between formal writing and informal writing will help you build appropriate writing skills for college work. How would you write an e-mail to friends telling them about the volunteer work you did this past weekend? How would you write that same e-mail to a potential employer who might hire you for your first job after college? How would you write about volunteer work in a research paper?

Consider your audience when you make a public presentation of your work. Taking your work from research to writing to delivering it while standing before a group of people is a step you will likely take in your first year of college. You will likely take a course in public speaking soon, or maybe you are already taking one. You need to understand the people that you’ll be talking to. Ask yourself the following questions:

The final section of this chapter will help you take your work one step further from research to writing and making a speech.