Throughout the semester, I wrote blog posts about living in Italy and traveling as a college student. These blogs offer insider tips and personal experiences to prospective study abroad students to prepare them for life in Europe. When writing these posts, I focused on communicating with my audience of busy college students by separating the information into short paragraphs, often through a listicle format, and keeping my tone friendly and informal.  

​

In addition to being practice for targeting a specific audience, these blog posts improved my skills and understanding of concepts from PWR class like you-attitude. When I write informative pieces, my instinct is to write in an academic tone, but I have learned how to focus on the audience rather than the information. When drafting and editing, I enhanced my informal writing by adding more interjections directed toward the reader and sharing information in a conversational tone. For example, in my "Study Abroad Survival Guide: 5 Tips To Navigate Your First Month In Sorrento" blog post, I originally wrote the sentence The Sorrento locals are exceedingly friendly and always greet customers as they enter shops and restaurants. I changed this academic tone to a more friendly one by using you-attitude in you will always be greeted. These blog posts showcase this different writing skill set that I have learned about in my PWR classes but rarely used in past experiences.

​

I enjoyed writing these pieces because I was able to answer questions that I myself had wondered before flying to Italy. Helping ease the minds of students while honing a more unfamiliar style of writing for myself made me proud of the work I completed and had me wanting to write more.