Professional Authors vs. Everyday Authors, Formal vs. Informal writing.

         Professional authors                               Everyday authors

Goes through a publisher	Publishes by themselves
Spends years writing a book	Spends hours writing a post
Has multiple iterations	One big tweaked post
Has to build on multiple ideas	Can spin an idea in their own way
Has to cite sources, lest they get ignored by publishers	Can get away with not citing sources

  

             
          Formal writing                                          Informal writing

Multiple iterations of an idea	One big long ramble, no drafts
Has formal citing	Has informal citing, or no citing in the writing
Has to weigh pros and cons of an idea	Can get away with providing one side of the argument
Needs to use full words, provide acronyms with context	Can use acronyms and shortened words
Needs to use cut and dry language	Can be full of slang

            

1)      How did these differences come to mind?

Having had experience with both formal and informal writing, supplemented by what I read in Everyone’s an Author, it was pretty easy just to jot down a quick list.

2)      How did you find those that didn’t first come to mind?

I just used personal experience to differentiate between the two, and Google helped a little bit. 

3)      Why are these important, or are most writers and/or writing really more points on a continuum rather than strictly one or the other?

I think it is more on a continuum than a fine line, because every audience is different. If it’s a science committee, you are generally going to be as cut and dry as possible, but if it’s just a blog post about fried chicken, you are going to keep the syllable count under 5. If you were writing about how to do something, you can put it together like you were talking with friends, but still have lots of good information and do your research to prove what you are trying to say, sort of splitting the writing between the two categories.

4)      How can being aware of these differences help you in your own writing situations?

It can help so we don’t look like idiots in front of important people with our writing, but we can still remain accessible to our peers. It can also help by showing that we care enough about something to perform a sort of formal writing, but not so formal as to alienate casual readers. 

(edit: My tables are all jacked up. Can't quite figure out how to fix them. Oh well.)