Forms of Rhetoric: Journaling (Part One)

Introduction to Journaling

I very much enjoyed our last mini-series on Giving a Presentation, so I decided that we’d do another one: this time we’re focusing on Journaling.

Journaling as a way of writing is excellent for documenting the world around us, to remind ourselves of significant events, and to share our thoughts with other people. They can be private or public and they come in a wide range of genres. For simplicity’s sake, I have taken four main genres which I have experience in that I will discuss over the next couple weeks.

Although keeping a daily diary is probably the most common and well-known form of the journal, I am omitting it from this mini-series because a) we will analyze the daily diary under Part Five: Blogging, and b) I think there is a lot more to be said about these other kinds of writing, which you may not be as familiar with.

Throughout our Journaling mini-series, we will look at how to write in these four genres, notable published authors who have written in these styles, the purpose of keeping these different kinds of journals, and the advantages and limitations of each of these styles of journal-writing.

In this mini-series, we will look at the following:

Part One: Introduction to Journaling

Part Two: Nature Writing

Part Three: Travel Writing

Part Four: The Dream Diary

Part Five: Blogging

If you have any requests for further information about any kinds of journaling, be it one of the above four genres or a different genre entirely, please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to address your requests within this mini-series!