Read and Response for April 11th

Resume Article Response

By: T. Shane Peagler and Kathleen Blake Yancey

“ To illustrate this argument, he briefly outlines the resume as a genre of social action, arguing that the key is to balance the impulse for personal expression with the needs of a socially constructed world.  It is useful to think of writing not as entirely socially or individually motivated, but as a mode of discourse particularly suited to learning how to manage information, ideas, conventions, and intentions.” (Peagler & Yancey, 153)

I thought that passage was very interesting because it provides a thoughtful prospective on writing.  It says that writing is not just motivated by people but is a way to keep a record everything that goes on in the world.  By learning how to write we learn the basic skill that the majority of our country uses for communication which is essential to a person’s success in life.  A resume is one of the most important forms of communication and writing a person can do   because it determines whether that person is going to get a job or not and be able to support themselves.  We use our resumes to manage our information on background in relation to work and education and communicate that to the employer in such a way that is most appealing to them.  In regards to the first portion of this passage, it says that the key is to balance the impulse for personal expression with the needs of a socially constructed world.  I thought that this meant that our personal expression is only limited by ourselves and the way we perceive what is except able in the world around us.  We tailor our writing to what is socially appealing to make our readers more into whatever it is we are trying to get across.  Especially in regards to writing a resume, we must take in account our reader and what they want out of their possible employee.