RE: Writing in the workplace (long)

[Katherine Fischer <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>]

> Thanks, Barry.  You're helping me understand the rhetorical situation I
> find so tricky:  I, the university professor, know what you need as a
> developing writer; you, the workplace professional, think you know what you
> need, but you're wrong.  
[snip]
> their minds about what they need.  --Jon, Penn State, jeo3@psu.edu


Like Barbara, I do a lot of consulting and workshops at the request of the
local business community.  Often, those who call to hire me to come
on-site or to ask more about our workshops begin with, "the grammar and
punctuation in this office is terrible.  Can you help us with that?"
Invariably, in the workshops and in the workplace, I don't find "grammar
and puncutation" are nearly the problems that lack of organization,
wordiness, and clarity are in their writing.  I don't think I know their
problems in writing better than they do, but I think we use a different
lingo to describe what those problems are.
	For example, punctuation.  The person on the phone tells me
"there's commas all over the place" as I imagine commas dripping off their
bank statements, commas oozing out of their fax machines, and commas
teetering on the rim of the boss's horn-rimmed glasses.  But once I go on
location, I usually find, as many of us do with student writing, that if
clients will get rid of the extra words and phrases and useless
repetition, they'll also wipe out most of their comma problems.
	When I go to the opthamalagist, I might tell her, "it's my vision.
Things are just so darn dark and small.  It's a tumor, for sure."  But
when she checks out my eyes, she'll agree I'm having vision problems but
not becasue of a tumor.  "Katie, you're past 40.  You need bifocals."
Same thing, I think, as what we do in the workplace as teachers of
writing.
	In this discussion, someone wrote that the writing we do in
colleges and our classrooms is often quite similar to that in the office.
Of course, good writing is good writing, but I do find that much of the
kind of writing we do at the university is remarkably different than what
folks need at the workplace.  Bottoms up is the rule there, the most
important stuff first -- none of our artsy "building up" to the point or
constant elaborations.  There are difference -- whole different
purposes and audiences -- and I think it's healthy to recognize them.

Katie
          /\       
        / /\ \     Katherine Fischer                            
      /   \/   \   Writing Lab, English Department
     | ________ |  Clarke College       
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