Always pay close attention to the genre, or type of writing, assigned. A genre is tailored to a specific purpose and audience, with its own set of agreed-upon expectations and conventions for style, structure, and document design:

Sometimes an assignment specifies the genre—an essay, a lab report, a research proposal, a policy memo, or an executive summary. Sometimes the genre is yours to choose, and you need to decide if a particular genre—a poster presentation, an audio essay, a Web page, or a podcast, for example—will help you communicate your purpose and reach readers.

It is helpful to think of genre as an opportunity to enter a discipline and join a group of thinkers and writers who share interests, ideas, and ways of communicating with one another. Understanding a genre makes writing easier in some ways, because you don’t have to invent a way to organize or format the document: Many people have written grant proposals, for example, and you can learn about the format and genre expectations by studying sample grant proposals.