For my last assignment in my English 1A course I was told I must convert my academic essay on inequality to a blog post on inequality. At first, that seemed like the easiest essay assignment I had ever received, I would just cut out a few sentences here and there and add a few pictures. On second thought, I realized it was a bigger task than I had anticipated. After I had begun it ended up taking me hours until I was finished altering my essay to fit blog form, and here are the reasons why:
Difficulties
I started in on my essay about inequality in the economic and educational systems of America. I began to select sentences and hit ‘backspace’ until they were completely gone. After I was done chopping down my essay I went back and read it. That’s when I realized my essay now sounded like it had been written by someone with narcolepsy. Every few sentences it seemed as if I had fallen asleep and forgot to complete my thoughts. I understood that I would not be able to just rid of sentences without getting rid of thoughts or points which were essential to my essay.
I was also struggling with making my academic essay sound more casual. How was I supposed to make a super complex and academic topic seem more informal? I started to wonder if I would have to change my topic on which I was writing about because I was at a stand-still. I had no clue how to make my long sentences into shorter more casual thoughts. So I started to think about when my words are most informal. I started to think about when I converse with people in person. In no way did I ever really talk about things in an “academic tone”, but instead I was very direct and informal with my words. I would think of the shortest and simplest ways to get my point across, and that is how I would talk to someone face to face. But how would this help me in my blog post?
Solutions
I thought about two different options in regards to shortening my academic essay. First, I contemplated the idea of leaving out a few key points in my argument over inequality in both educational and economic systems in America. I started to play with this idea in my head. I cut out a few arguments and removed points from each topic of discussion and then I went back and read it over leaving out those points I had cut. It did not take me long to realize this was not the way to shorten my essay. My arguments had become weak and empty. I left out so many key points that a five-year old could destroy my argument. So I thought of an alternative way. Instead of weakening both topics of debate I would instead focus on just one topic of discussion. I decided to only write about inequality in the educational realm of America. This served me well. I was able to complete my argument and make it strong while maintaining the attention of my audience by having a more reasonable length of writing.
In regards to the task of making my writing more informal, I began to think about the 
discussions I would have in day-to-day conversations. I would talk a lot about politics and problems in America with my family and friends, and never did I really talk in a complex or formal tone even though the topics I would discussed were complicated. So I tried to adapt the way I spoke to the way I was writing. It was not that my thoughts had to be less complete, but rather my language had to be more appropriate for my time and place of discussion. I had to adapt my language to my audience. As I did so, I would read my sentences out loud and see if they would be suitable for how I would talk to someone in person. This really helped to guide my language and ideas throughout my blog post and my essay began to fit the identity of a blog.
Conclusion:
As a business major, I did not go into my English class with great anticipation. I could not see how writing essays would help me in my field of study. The usefulness of this course did not occur to me until the blog posting. I realized that these writings I was constructing were all directed to different audiences. My academic essay was directed toward my teacher who was expecting a highly academic tone. On the other hand, my blog post, although also being graded by my teacher, was expected to have a language for a broader audience. I started to see how this was going to help me in my business endeavors. Since business is world wide I would have to learn how to communicate with a wide range of audiences. I will eventually need to know how to talk to CEO’s or just inexperienced interns. This is why the transformation of my essay into a blog was so useful. It forced me to know how to express my thoughts to different audiences in different complexities of language.