“How does the style of writing differ between analysts and common

fans in regards to their viewpoints?”

Introduction

The community that I have chosen to research and discover more about is the National

Football League fan and analyst community. The league has many different fans from many

different teams that like to make sure their comments are heard by the other people in the

community. This also includes the analysts that make a living out of finding and then sharing

information about each individual team and even individual players that play in the National

Football League. This is a community that I personally am a part of because I have loved

watching football from a young age, and still love it to this day. This puts me in the fan category

of this discourse community. Since I am a part of the community, I felt it would be interesting to

discover how other peoples’ writing styles were different compared to what part of the

community they are involved in.

To do this, some research was needed to see how the different groups wrote and how

this style of writing changed or affected their literacy. The first secondary source that I used to

help me understand the styles of writing and how they are different in each group was about

Erin Andrews’s interview with Richard Sherman after he made a game winning play against

Michael Crabtree. This article really showed how the fans can rally behind a certain thing that is

happening in the league and run with it. It also gave me a great chance to look at the

comments the fans were saying to give me more evidence in my research. The secondary

source that was used described how when people text or type things out on social media, they

tend to use something called textisms. This is when people shorten words or change them

slightly so that they do not have type as much. People use this technique because some

platforms only allow so many characters to be used per message or people are just being lazy.

This article dives into this technique to see if it affects peoples’ grammar or spelling literacy. It
finds that the use of textisms do not substantially change peoples’ literacy when it comes to

spelling or grammar, so the fans that use this a lot do not have too much to worry about. The

last secondary source that was dissected states a very similar result as the previous one. It

explains how the grammar of the people using shortened or slightly altered words is not affected

in a negative way. People just do this so that they can fit all of what they want to say into a

certain space without their message being lost along the way. This is done in a more informal

setting like a comments section of a blog or on a social media post where grammar is not

looked at as something that is necessary. After looking at all of these articles, it is safe to say

there is a difference in regards to the writing style between the fans and the analysts. The fans

write in a much more informal style of writing where as the analysts write in a formal style of

writing.

Before this research was conducted in this particular study, there was not any other

research specific to this topic. That includes the types of writing styles used by analysts, fans,

or even a comparative of who uses which style. While researching, one would think there would

have been a past article the has been published by a professor somewhere that would explain

the difference between formal and informal writing to people. Because this was not provided, I

had to try and discover the difference on my own. This was a task that needed to be

accomplished or the research would have never been able to be done. The articles that were

found for this research made this investigation more fluid, though. These secondary sources

used in this study worked well together due to the fact that they fill all of the holes in the

demographic that was being studied. There are the two analysts with pretty similar styles, the

average fans that are speaking in the comments section because that is there only place to be

heard, and the fan that is actually trying to be informative apon what he is talking about and

seems very knowledgeable. These four groups do not leave very many, if any, fan or analyst

out of the study. This makes the research that has been done more credible and accurate.
Methodology

The three primary articles that were chosen were because they all represented different

parts of the community, together, they encompass the entire community. The article by Adam

Schefter was chosen because he is a sports analyst that only speaks by the facts and does not

usually express his opinion on the situations he is speaking about. This means he will represent

the analyst part of the community strongly and give an accurate representation of their writing

style. The next source that was chosen is an Instagram post by Stephen A Smith. Smith is well

known for making his opinions known, but he also reports the facts straight from teams. He is

technically an analyst, but he is also a fan. People that watch his interviews over the years,

know which teams he is a fan of and which teams he hates. He is a representation of when

both sides of the community are combined, but he is still an analyst first. He reports based off

of the facts, but the people that are responding to his instagram post do not do so. These

people that are responding are mostly fans. This source covers both sides of the community in

one spot. The last article was chosen because it was written by a fan. I can now differentiate

between the two sides and describe the styles in which they write.

When researching, there were two main methods I used to analyze the text. The first

one was to look to see what kind of information was being given. For example, was the writer

providing only fact, or was the writer giving opinions or speaking very vaguely. This is also

known as the compare and contrast method. I have a specific question in mind and then

looking at each sentence individually to answer that question. The second method that was

used was “Searching for missing information.” When reading through the sources, was I left

with more questions than I had before reading it, or were all the answers given to me by the

time I finished reading? To then further understand the sources, I used the ideas of the

rhetorical situation to understand the primary source. This is because if I understand who the

rhetor is in each situation, I will understand the reasoning for their style of writing. As the rhetor

changes, so will the issue. This is because the exigence will change depending upon the topic
that is being written or spoken about. No matter who the rhetor is, the audience will not change

because they are all trying to reach as many people as they can within their communities.

As I was researching, I did not have many issues. The only real limitations that I

experienced was while searching for my secondary documents. This is because there were not

many articles that had to do with the NFL. There were also not many articles that had to due

with the differences between formal and informal styles of writing. To maneuver around this

issue, I had to find articles about the individual parts and come to my own conclusions after

reading through them.

Results

While going through all of the primary sources and breaking them down into information

that makes sense in describing how the communication and writing differs between the sports

analysts and the National Football League fans, it was evident upon which one used a more

formal approach to their writing style and which one used a more informal approach. Looking at

each primary source that was studied individually, Adam Schefter wrote his article as a

professional sports analyst. In this specific article, he is describing how the New England

Patriots are filed tampering charges against the Houston Texans. They did this because of how

the Texans went about trying to hire Patriots, director of player personnel, Nick Caserio, as their

general manager. Like this article and every other article he writes, Schefter gets paid to make

sure that the people know what is going on with the day to day events throughout the NFL.

Because of this, he has to make sure that every person that reads what he is saying gets the

same message out of it as he intended. This means he has to describe things in detail, and

sometimes he even has to educate people upon certain topics they might not be aware of. All

of this is the reason that he writes in a formal style, that can not be misconstrued by anybody

and makes sense to whoever reads it, no matter their background. In the second primary

source, Is a little bit different. Stephen A. Smith posted about the matter of Melvin Gordon
wanting a new contract, worth a lot more money and for a longer amount of time. He personally

stated that he does not think this should happen, but backed up that opinion with a plethora of

facts. Like Schefter, Smith is reporting to such a large group of people that he has to make sure

everything that is said can not be turned into something else and then get fired or face criticism.

For that reason, he chooses to write and speak more formally, even though sometimes he might

get loud. This can be seen through the lack of informalities used in his communications and the

content in which he speaks. On the other hand, the fans that commented on this same post,

communicated the exact opposite. They wrote with atrocious grammar, poor spelling, and a

large amount of abbreviations. This one source alone could alone answer the question at hand.

The third source that was used in answering the research question, Ross Terrell explains what

the expectations for the Atlanta Falcons are, what they have changed, and what they still need

to change. Being a fan and posting to a fan blog webpage, Terrell does not have to worry as

much about his formality. He is not getting paid for his work like the other two analysts, so he

does not have to worry as much if there is criticism from what he has to say. This means he

can be a little more informal with the way he writes. This is shown when reading his article

because it is full of speculation and opinions, but even with this, it still sits more on the formal

side of writing. These three sources make is very obvious that there is a clear difference

between the writing style of the fans and the analysts. The analysts try their best to write in a

formal style while still making it easy for their readers to understand what they are saying. The

fans tend to be a little bit more mixed in their styles depending upon the platform that they are

portraying themselves on.

Analysis

The first primary source written by Adam Schefter, is informing the National Football

League fans about the tampering charges that the New England Patriots have filed against the

Houston Texans. In this article, Adam Schefter would be the rhetor because he is the one that
wrote the article. In this article, the issue, otherwise known as the exigence or reason for

writing, would be the Patriots filing the charges against the Texans. This is because without this

happening, Schefter would have never written this article and there would be no story to

express to his audience. That audience that he is writing to in this article, and many other of his

articles, would be the NFL fans. The medium that all of this is being portrayed through is an

article on ESPN.com. This is all working together to get the facts out to the fans in the most

efficient way possible and to as many people as possible. One of the methods used while

researching this source was to look for specific things that were missing after reading the article.

For example, if I came out of reading the article asking more questions than before I read it. In

this case, after reading through the article, I did not have a lot of questions. I only had one.

“How will this case proceed?” That is exactly what the rhetor wants the reader to think after the

article because the reader will be more inclined to read the rhetor’s next article that has to do

with this same subject. The other technique that I used in the dismantling and analyzing of this

article was to compare and contrast each individual sentence. In doing so, I found that most of

his sentences were facts of what exactly happened in the particular situation. This is due to the

fact that he is an analyst and has to provide the facts for the fans to make opinions about. If you

look were now to compare this article to the secondary sources, you would see that the use of

“textisms” and other forms of informal writing that were described by Rosen, Chang, Erwin,

Carrier, Cheever are not seen in this article (2010). This is because Schefter used a much

more formal style of writing while trying to get his points across. As seen in Grant-Davie’s

article, rhetoric can cause a message to have two different meanings to two different people,

and this is exactly what Schefter is trying to avoid in his writing (1997). By not using

informalities in his writing, the reader cannot misconstrue what is trying to be said and they will

understand the exact meaning of the message trying to be given across.

The next primary source in this research is an instagram post by Stephen A Smith. In

this post, Smith is talking about a situation revolving Melvin Gordon wanting a new contract from
his football team, and Smith does not think he will get what he wants. In this post, the rhetor

would be Stephen A Smith because he is the one that is talking throughout the video and

explaining his thoughts on the matter, but in the comments section, each individual fan that

writes what they think about the post is the rhetor for their individual comment. For Smith, being

the initial rhetor, his exigence is the fact that Gordon wants a new contract and there is

controversy around the matter. It is something that he can talk about and express his thoughts

on because it is a matter that is in the middle of being handled. For the fans that are

commenting, their exigence would be Smith’s post and what he is saying about the topic itself.

If Smith did not make a post about this topic in the first place, the fans would have never had the

opportunity to make a comment on the topic, nor would they have even had a reason to do so.

This situation is described perfectly by Grant-Davie. This is because in Grant-Davie’s article, it

is described that two different groups or people can be in the same discourse community, but

they can have entirely different exigence for being there (1997). Here, it is not in question of

why they are in the community itself, but instead, why they chose to communicate on this post.

In the case of the audience, Stephen A.’s audience is everyone that follows his instagram

account because those are the fans that care about what he has to say and will even see the

post. The fans actually have two different audiences. The first one is Stephen A. Smith

because they are hoping he will see their individual reply to his post, and the second audience

would be the other followers of Smith’s. In the end, both rhetor want to reach as many people

as they can with what they have to individually say. Now, for both types of rhetors on this post,

the medium is pretty much the same. Their medium would be instagram, but to be more

specific, Smith’s medium would be his personal account and the fans’ medium would be the

comments section of Smith’s posts. While researching this article, I looked to see if it seemed

like it was missing something. First, I looked at what Smith had to say. When Smith spoke, he

first gave the reasoning as to why one might think Gordon would get a new deal, but then he

rebutted the reasonings with facts as to why it will not happen. He used facts in his reasoning
and did not leave the reader with any questions after he was done. I then looked for the same

thing in the comments by the fans. The fans were either saying things that had nothing to do

with the facts that were being given or they would speak in short choppy sentences with no

clear message. After investigating this method, I then looked back at Smith’s post to dismantle

each sentence he said to compare them. He opened up the post with an opinion, but after that

every sentence spoken was a fact. In the comments section, on the other hand, the fans were

just saying irrelevant things or opinions. Out of approximately 100 comments that I read, there

was only about 15-20 that were relevant to the post and made sense, and most of those posts

used shortened words, bad grammar, or incomplete sentences. After breaking down the post

into different sections, it is now possible to compare it to the secondary sources used to assist in

the research. While looking at Smith, just like Schefter, it was more about looking for what was

not there. Smith lacked the use of “textisms” and other forms of informal writing that were

described by Rosen, Chang, Erwin, Carrier, Cheever which makes one believe that he is using

more of a formal approach to his reporting (2010). On the other hand, the comments section

was riddled with improper use of grammar, spelling mistakes, and other things are commonly

seen in informal styles of writing (Wood C., Kemp N., Waldron S., 2014). That could also be

because the platform in which they are writing has a word limit, or it could be that they were so

excited to get their opinion out fast that they did not pay attention to the mistakes that they were

making (Page J. T., Duffy M., Frisby C., Perreault G., 2016). In the end, it is evident that in this
case, the analyst, Stephen A. Smith, used a formal approach to his communication whereas the

fans used a much more informal style.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzy80_ahnQH/?igshid=1vd6rxx1extml (link to the

instagram video of Stephen A. Smith speaking upon this matter)

The third and final primary source used to assist the finding was an article written by a

fan. Throughout the article, he expresses how he feels his team will do this upcoming season.

In this article, the rhetor would be the author, Ross Terrell, who is an Atlanta Falcons fan. His

reasoning for writing this article, exigence, is the fans have a lot of expectations for their team

going into the new season and want to see them do well, so Terrell wrote this article to express

what he thinks they need to do to make sure they have a successful season while stating the

things that they have already done different from last year. Terrell’s audience for this article

would have to be other Falcons fans. This is because it was published on the Falcons fan blog

webpage. This is a place for the specific team’s fans can go and express themselves to other

like minded fans. This fan webpage would be his

medium upon where he posted and where people can

go to read what he has to say. This makes it easier to

reach his ideal demographic that he was targeting by

writing the article in the first place. While using my two

methods of researching, I first looked for anything

specific that was missing, or if I still had questions after

reading his article. It is hard to say that he is missing

specific information because he would pose questions

and then answer them himself. In the end, there were

not any questions that immediately came to mind other

than, “How will the Falcons do this season?” and, “Will

they be able to fix these problems that have been pointed out?” After this, I then looked at each

sentence individually and compared them. While writing this article, Terrell used a lot of his own

opinions or speculation. He only used facts about one-third of the time, making him less

credible of a source as an actual sports analyst, but he was still able to make the article

interesting and keep the reader until the end. While comparing this article to my secondary

sources, I did realize, like the professional analysts, he lacked the “textisms” and other forms of

informal writing that were described by Rosen, Chang, Erwin, Carrier, Cheever (2010). He also

did not have grammar, spelling mistakes, and other things are commonly seen in informal styles

of writing (Wood C., Kemp N., Waldron S., 2014). These two facts lead me to believe that he is

writing in a more formal style, but it is not nearly as formal use of communication as Schefter

and Smith because those to analysts focussed on the facts and made sure the reader was

highly informed without speculating or constantly giving their opinions.

Conclusion

Throughout this entire research process, we have been trying to figure out one main

thing. How does the style of writing differ between analysts and common fans in regards to their

viewpoints? While doing this, we have dove into three different primary sources that focused on

different aspects of this community. One article was written by a sports analyst that finds out

information pertaining to the community and shares his findings for a living. The next source

was a post from a sports analyst that also gets paid to share with the community the information

that he finds, but in this source, we also had fans that commented on their thoughts about the

post and made their voices heard. The final source that was investigated was written by a fan

that does not get paid to share his messages, but felt he needed to make his voice heard. By

choosing these three sources, all of the bases of the community have been covered as to not

ostracize any particular section of the community.

 After researching this community thoroughly and investigating its different parts, it is

evident that there is an affirmative answer to the question we have been trying to solve. At this

point in time, it is safe to say that there is an evident difference between the writing style of the

analysts and the fans that love the sport so deeply. The tendencies that have been witnessed

are as follows, the analyst tend to write in a formal style of writing whereas the fans tend to write

in and informal style most of the time, but they sometimes choose to formalize their writing to a

degree. Of coarse, there is still a lot of work to be done to prove these claims one hundred

percent factual. This is because the research that has been done to get the information that has

been provided is on such a small scale. These conclusions were summed up from only three

primary sources and three secondary sources to prove to the stated claims. Another way this

question can continued to be researched is by finding a talk page where fans go to

communicate with other fans on a normal basis. By doing this, it can be seen how fans

communicate with each other and if they still tend to use an informal style of communication.

One last way to continue this research other that finding more primary sources to investigate

and looking at a fan communication page would be to look at one specific topic that fans and

analysts might be talking about and compare exactly how each one respond to that one topic

and how they go about explaining it.

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Page J. T., Duffy M., Frisby C., Perreault G. (2016). Richard Sherman speaks and

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Schefter A. (June 13, 2019) Sources: Pats file tampering charges vs. Texans. Retrieved

from https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/26959092/sources-pats-file-tampering-charges-vs-texa

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Smith S. A. (July 11, 2019). Will Gordon Get A New Deal? Retrieved from

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzy80_ahnQH/?igshid=1vd6rxx1extml

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https://bloggingdirty.com/2019/07/04/pressure-atlanta-falcons-2019/
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