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Fanqi Jia
Roberta Wolfson
Writing 2
2 June 2016
Charity in Different Genres
Love and peace is a common goal and wish all over the world. Whereas there are some
places short of strength to achieve this goal by themselves, charity is a necessary way to help
people around the world and to balance ragged situation. Currently, charity is a popular topic not
only in political area, but also in literature community, where different genres related to charity
derive. In How to Read like a Writer, Mike Bunn says that an effective genre is in fulfilling
[the] purpose and/or reaching the intended audience (10). Different types of texts satisfy various
audiences reading interest, and can even influence their actions and ideas. Regarding to the topic
of charity, lyrics of songs and newspaper article are most popular genres in literature world.
Charity songs are those created by influential celebrities voluntarily as commonweal to support
refugees. Its lyrics usually express sentiments to infect audiences moods to care more about
charity sincerely. In contrast, the other type of popular genre, newspaper articles, usually include
recent realities to let people get more information simply. The comparison of conventions
between the informal writing lyrics of charity songs and the formal writing newspaper articles
will show that charity songs focus more on encouraging contributions in charity, while
newspaper articles focus more on providing authentic information about charity, showing that
different genre supports its own themes and attracts different audiences upon various
conventions.

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To arouse audiences empathy to help refugees spontaneously, lyrics in charity song usually
use many first and second pronouns to promote charity. Most charity songs are directed to people
who will potentially contribute into charity. Therefore, the first and second pronouns will shorten
distances among people to encourage more people to care about each other by participating in
charity. Generally, in charity songs, the lyrics use first pronouns just like friends chats to gather
people as a group to care about charity together, and use second pronouns to emphasize the
necessary of each individual in charity to rouse peoples consciousness and empathy to help
others. Take Michael Jacksons We Are the World as an example. Its lyrics use many pronouns
like We You Me as subjects and objects. For instance, there are several lyrics saying that:
Theres a choice we're making;
Were saving our own lives.
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me. (Lines 14-17)
In this song, the first pronoun, we, refers to anyone who have already been in charity, and the
audience listening to this song together as a group. The second pronoun, you, refers to each
audience individually, whose cumulated power can contribute to charity hugely. This convention
of lyrics conveys an idea that the contribution to charity depends on each single person, and
encourages each of audience that stepping forward to do a tiny contribution may create huge
improvement in charity. In this way, the promotion of contributing to charity is spread towards
more people, and refugees will have more possibilities to be helped.
The other specific figure different from newspaper article in lyrics of charity songs is its
repeated format in phrases and sentences. The repeating format in lyrics makes the song easier to

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remember and spread over, so it attracts more people to care about charity and refugees. For
instance, in We Are the World, there are many lyrics repeating the format that we are like:
We are the world;
We are the children.
We are the ones who make a brighter day,
.
We're saving our own lives. (Lines 11-12, 15)
This repeating part is easy to spread, and also is set as the chorus part in this charity song.
Therefore, this is also the most famous part that most people know about it. Overall, there are
few difficult words in repeating parts in charity songs, so that it is easy to remember and spread
to more audiences to know about the need of charity. Also, repeating lyrics in charity songs are
always in positive and active tones, such as descriptions and hints of best hopes and predictive
better future. Such format will subconsciously let people feel that their actions may make significant
changes in charity, so that it will attract more people to care about charity. As more people hear such

charity songs, the chances for people caring about and contributing to charity to help refugees are
increasing, which reaches the goal of charity songs, promotion.
On the contrary, newspaper articles have completely different conventions. The first
convention to reach this aim is that newspaper articles in charity always describe a detailed
process of an event by using all third pronouns under a neutral tone. Readers of newspaper
articles always want to gain useful and authentic information. Therefore, most newspaper articles
in charity topic are aim to convey readers an accurate event or useful information related to
charity by telling a truth instead of appealing or promoting. For example, Fung in the Why
Ubers donating $1 million to charity from The Washington Post, says that Uber will be

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making its donation on behalf of former military officials including Gates, Gen. James Mattis
and Adm. Mike Mullen all of whom sit on the advisory board for Uber's veterans program,
UberMilitary. All charity information in this newspaper article is listed by name directly
without vague pronoun references. The accuracy of newspaper articles directly influences
audiences recognitions and comments to charity events because newspaper articles may be the
first-hand resource for some people know charity events. Therefore, newspaper article should
guarantee its objectivity without any personal preference statement. A third pronoun is the most
straightforward and clearest way to illustrate information to readers. Thus, a neutral tone with a
third pronoun format in newspaper articles helps people to know about charity information
objectively and accurately.
The other significant convention of a newspaper article is its narrative language style. In
order to provide more complete and precise information to readers, a newspaper article is
consisted of many details in a logical order. In a charity news, to clarify events, an article always
narratively describes the whole process of the event with specific background, date, names and
value of money or stuff. The example from the article of The Washington Post, Why Ubers
donating $1 million to charity, which includes all information above, says that Uber is
donating $1 million to veterans groups after the ride-hailing company said Thursday it had
signed up its 50,000th veteran as a driver for the service last month (Fung). The specific date,
specialty words and appropriate time tense help audiences identify and recognize the event in
general accurately in a newspaper article. These terms from a serious reality are never described
in normal words due to the requirement of preciseness in narrative language. In addition, a
newspaper article state the detailed subject in order of time to increase its reliability of the truth,
and also to refresh peoples consciousness about charity. As a result, newspaper articles can

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always convey most reliable information about charity and its relative events to readers through
this narrative style.
In a word, different conventions between two different genres in charity, lyrics and
newspaper articles, result from their different audience and purposes. In a charity song, the lyrics
needs to attract and promote more people to care about charity and contribute to it, so it includes
conventions of appealing words and repeating formats. In a charity news, the newspaper article
just needs to transit a detailed reality to readers accurately to help them get to know correct
information about charity, so it requires a neutral tone and narrative language as conventions.
Getting to know different kinds of genre skillfully and applying for them at the right time, an
author can create outstanding works to achieve his or her original purpose of writing for sure.

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Work Cited
Bunn, Mike. How to Read Like a Writer. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 2
2011: 71-86. GauchoSpace. Web. 11 April 2016.
Fung, Brian. "Why Ubers Donating $1 Million to Charity." Washingtonpost.com. The
Washington Post. 7 Apr. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Jackson, Michael. We Are the World. Azlyrics.com. AZ Lyrics, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.