Genres in Technical/Professional Writing

Genres

     There are numerous genres in the field of technical/professional writing. Many of these categories are rather ambiguous in nature and some genres are difficult to place into only one category. “For genres to function effectively over time, Berkenkotter and Huckin surmise, they ‘must accommodate both stability and change’” (Rhetorical Genre Studies) without being flexible enough to allow changes, yet stable enough to maintain some form of structure, genre categories are useless tools. Though the classification of genres has proven to be challenging and even difficult at times, we still continue to search for a method by which to classify. As Carolyn Miller so insightfully writes, “The urge to classify is fundamental,…” adding that “…classification is necessary to language and learning.”(Genre as Social Action).

    

     The best explanation I have read concerning the task of creating functioning categories of genre again comes from Miller who argues that a genre must be categorized not by its form but rather the action it is used to accomplish, stating that “…if genre represents action, it must involve situation and motive, because human action, whether symbolic or otherwise, is interpretable only against a context of situation and through the attributing of motives” (Genre as Social Action).

Application

     In my own internship I have been primarily writing in the genre of “instruction manual” though I use that categorization as a broad term to cover what I am writing. My current project is a workflow document to be used by future interns as a sort of guidebook to this particular internship. Though I am writing my document in a very informal tone, it still needs to maintain the characteristics of any good instruction manual; it must be clear, and accurate, and above all it must be user friendly. As with any type of document the end user should be the main concern of the writer. This document needs to have an easily understandable layout that allows readers to find the information they need with ease in order to be useful.

     As I said, I feel that instruction manual my not be the precise term for this category because typically in this genre it calls for more formal and objective language than I am using in my document however, as discussed above, genre definitions have to be somewhat open in order to be functional. Because this definition covers the majority of the same elements as I am using, I have stretched the definition to accommodate a small change. My workflow document is a good example of how genre definitions can have elements of stability as well as elements of change and still exist and fulfill that “fundamental” urge to classify.

Works Cited

Bawarshi, Anis and Mary Jo Reiff. “Genre Research in Workplace and Professional Contexts.”

---. “Rhetorical Genre Studies.”

Miller, Carolyn. “Genre as Social Action.”