Strikingly, when we turned to electronic texts of various genres, we saw that these sat in the middle — mixed between speaking and writing, sharing some mode characteristics of the one, and also characteristics of the other.
In general, speech is much more repetitive than writing which leads to a lot of self-correction. This is true in a broad, general perspective yet sufficient examples exist of formal spoken language; radio, television, legal circles.
The written mode tends to include and explain references within the text, as writers must ensure that there is no unintended ambiguity.
Writing is long lasting while speech is ephemeral.
Sentences and parts of sentences are linked together not predominately by and, but by other linking words such as but, yet and so which not only link bits of text but give us an idea of the logical unfolding of a text. To remember these characteristics, we tried to generate our own mnemonics — memory devices like acronyms or memorable sentences with shared initials.
How we convey all this information in relatively few words is one of the main grammatical differences between speech and writing, especially between informal conversation and formal writing.
There are different types of styles that people use every day, and your style makes you different from everybody else.