Writing in the workplace (long)

[Paula.Gillespie@marquette.edu]

About a week ago, Jon Olson and I were talking about priorities for
teaching writing for the workplace.  He raised the question of whether it
would be good to teach grammar first rather than large structures of
organization.  I wrote to my daughter Leigh Pike (whom many of you met at
NWCA this past fall) and asked her about writing.  She is a systems
engineer for a huge bank, and she does all the writing for the group she
works with.  Here was her answer to my question (with the "Dear Mom" and
the "I love you" at the end removed; those were just for me).

I thought that some of her comments would stir some interesting
differences of opinion and some good discussion.  

Paula Gillespie

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 08:28:46 -0400
From: Pike <pike3@hotcoco.infi.net>
To: Paula.Gillespie@vms.csd.mu.edu
Subject: Re: Question about writing

I talked about your question with Allan [her boss's boss] and he and I
feel exactly the same. 

Where I work there are two groups:  those that notice and care about
grammar and those that do not.  People that care about grammar think
that if your grammar is poor you sound like an idiot.  However, we take
English as a second language into consideration as we rush to judgement.

Most people do not write lengthy proposals.  Most writing is short (one
page) memos, usually in e-mail form.  People who write well are given
all of the assignments to write long documents.  If you can't write, you
don't get those assignments more than once.

Allan says that if a document is poorly organized he simply won't read
beyond the first couple of pages.  I agree.

It is my opinion that grammar should come first, because everyone writes
memos and e-mails.  Structure and organization are the icing on the
cake.  If your grammar is bad, you'll never be given a chance to write a
document so lengthy that structure and organization really matter.  
Besides, long documents may be written by a team, with different groups
submitting chapters, so the organization is predefined.  Finally, long
documents are reviewed and walked through by teams, and a paper's
structure will be addressed then if it is bad.

We have a published Project Management Process (PMP). The longer
documents that we write for every project have outlines defined in the
PMP.  You do not have to use the PMP format, but if you are lost you can
always fall back on the PMP outline.

Allan and I agree on one final point:  poor grammar does not limit your
career.  If your grammar is poor because you really are dumb, then it is
your dumbness that will keep you from advancing, not your grammar.  If
you have a lot of other valuable skills, people will overlook your
rotten grammar.  Those that care about grammar will talk about your
documents behind your back, but that is about the worst of it.  The
topic might come up as management discusses your potential for
advancement, but it is not likely to be a career-limiting factor.

I'll give you two quick examples.  [and here I removed the names she named
and substituted names of my friends] Bobbie used to be the Executive Vice
President in charge of applications (computer program)  development for
the entire Global Retail Bank.  Her boss reported to the CEO.  (She
recently made a lateral move so that she doesn't manage my area anymore,
but she is in the same EVP rank as before.)  Neal is our current CEO. 
Allan mentioned his pet peeve that neither one knows the difference
between "I" and "me".  They both say, "Bob told Joe and I..." 

A much more serious offense, in my opinion, is that Bobbie never uses
capital letters in any of her internal communications (memos in e-mail
form).  This drives me absolutely crazy.  I think it is extremely rude. 
She has taken a lot of complaints about it, but she brushes them off by
saying she is simply too busy to bother with the shift key.  I hate that.

I'll be curious to hear if what I described is what you expected.