Diary
Generic structure
- a series of entries, written on a regular basis but not necessarily every day
- entries are dated; the place of writing is also given in some diaries
Subject matter
- a chronicle of events that have occurred in the writer's life since the previous entry
- the writer's reflections and comments on life,
- personal emotions, fantasies, hopes, plans
Cohesive ties
- dates at the start of each entry establish a time frame, provide a means of headlining and linking each separate piece of writing
- entries often contain reference to information already mentioned in a previous day's writing
- many sentences start with, or contain, the personal pronoun I
Vocabulary
- Reflects the writer's age, background, historical period-but uses mainly words that are common in ordinary conversation
- verbs are a mixture of 'doing' and 'thinking', showing what is happening in the writer's life, and how she or he thinks/feels about it
- may use contractions and abbreviations (e.g. 'pleuro' for pleurisy)
Grammar
- writer speaks in first-person singular (or occasionally plural)
- audience is sometimes addressed directly-second person pronoun 'you' sometimes signals this (note that some writers speak directly to the diary as their audience, e.g. 'Dear Diary, you will see I haven't written anything for. a month')
- elision (omission of words not absolutely necessary) is common-as in '( I ) had a lovely dream'; 'Two hundred and six out of fifteen hundred [are] dead' '[There are] not enough men left over to cut wood'
- sentences generally in the form of statements; where questions appear they are addressed to the unseen audience
- some variety of sentence length, but many are short and simple
- mixture of verb tenses-past, present and future - as writer recounts what has already happened, describes current situation, looks ahead
Paragraphing and punctuation
- entries vary greatly in length (compare those of 17th June and 9th July)
- longer entries are broken into short paragraphs
- simple punctuation (full stops [periods], commas, capital letters, dashes)
Spelling and letter pattern
- standard spelling
- handwritten entries-some of these have been reproduced as they appeared in the original diary
Layout
- date (and maybe place) appear as headline at top left of each entry
- date underlined to give it prominence (note that when a diary is published, this underlining is usually converted into bold type or a different font)
- a line may be drawn underneath to indicate the end of each entry