Understanding Discourse Community and Its Importance Right away I agreed with this essay because I do feel I speak differently to different people. Honestly, I thought right away that I will curse when I am with my friends but I would never do that around a parent or a teacher. It is not something that I even think about I just do it. It is like I act a way when I am with a parent and I act another when I am with friends. So this essay did help me realize that I can put this difference of audiences into my writing. I need to focus on who I am writing to when I do papers for school. In a way I guess I already knew that because when I text to my friends I say whatever I want and when I write emails or papers I focus on what I am really saying. Then the essay talked about discourse communities and said it is when a group of people all have knowledge on the same topic and talk in a certain way that I may not understand. Right away I had a connection. My boyfriend knows all about cars and so when we go to car meets he will talk to other people all about cars and I have no idea what they are talking about. They are speaking my language but since I have no knowledge on cars I don’t understand what they are saying. This made me realize that since I usually never know what they are talking about, I need to start explaining more to people what I am talking about instead of just assuming they have knowledge on the topic. This could especially help me with papers because it will help