"Slang Does the Trick"

Summary: In the book They Say I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein there is a section called "Ain't So/Is Not,"that talks about using informal language in your writing and when to use it. Your academic writing should flow easily and be relaxed but that does not mean you have to use scholarly words and phrases the whole time. It depends on what your writing about and who your audience is. You can should be able to use everyday conversation in your writing. You can also use slang words or combined languages but it is still recommended to use big words, long sentences and complex sentences. An informal language can help relate the target reader and you can connect with them on a personal level. They give an example of a title of a book that combines scholarly worse with slang words. The title of the book is Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research and it was written by Andrea Lunford and Robert Connors. The title makes the reader understand and relate to the subject they are writing about. In conclusion know your audience and be a little more relaxed with your writing but just don't go too over the top.

Response: I completely agree with the authors. I believe that if it is appropriate to your writing you should always make it feel more like a conversation. If you use everyday phrases and words that you might use it might make you point come out more clear. I love when writers put a little slang or accent in their writing it makes me more interesting in what they are talking about. If i was the target reader, which is a college student in her twenties, it would be perfect to be a little informal. On the other hand if i was a middle aged college science professor that is looking for accurate facts and scholarly writing I would probably want to reframe from using slang or mixed languages. I would use informal writing on my personal essays or an essays that I wanted to make people laugh. Most of the essays I write today are in my english class and we share them with our piers and our professor. If I were to judge my classmates and my professor I would be safe to assume that it would be ok to be a little informal as long as my essay made sense and flowed with ease. I want people to understand the messages I'm trying to get across and sometimes slang does the trick.