Genres in Tech/Prof Writing

                While being an intern/assistant editor for the Writers’ Slate there are some genres that I do come into contact with and have to work with. One of the main genres is the one that represents action. In Genre as Social Action, Miller says, “that genre represents action and the action must involve situation and motive.” One of the things that the Writers’ Slate interns pride ourselves on is consistency between the transitions from one intern to another. So something that previous interns did to make this easier was making templets for the next person to use. These templets are a simple design to them that is very cohesive. The main design is a fountain pen in between two book pages. This design is shown on the acceptance letters we email to the writers and also is in the design of the issues. The color scheme is also a sublet feature to the cohesiveness that flows through all of the different forums.  The action of the previous intern that took this formatting on helps the rest of us that come after them because now I am able to make sublet tweaks, like making a special design to fit a story, but I am still able to stick to the color and design themes.

                Another genre that is present in technical/professional writing is change. In Rhetorical Genre Studies, Bawarshi and Reiff talk about how, “genres are dynamic because as their conditions change – for example because of changes in material conditions, changes in community membership, changes in technology, changes in disciplinary purposes, and values… -- genres must change along with them or risk becoming obsolete.” This is a huge part of the Writers’ Slate because the writers we publish are always changing and so are the ages of the writers. A writer can be published multiple times through the Writers’ Slate however it is unusual for them to be published in back to back issues. So, each time we pick works to go into the issue I am going to be interacting with new people. Another change that I encounter is submissions from other countries. Since the Writers’ Slate is an international online publication we receive submissions from all over the world. This requires us as inters to be flexible and able to make the necessary changes to format a piece of work properly into Americanized formatting.

                Working for the Writers’ Slate has been very eye opening to all of the different rhetorical genres that as technical/professional writers we might have to work with. This internship has already been very valuable in teaching me new ways of approaching and adapting to these specific genres. I think that this knowledge will help me greatly in a future technical/professional writing job.

Sources:

Bawarshi, Anis and Reiff, Mary Jo Rhetorical Genre Studies

Miller, Carolyn Genre as a Social Action