Genres in Technical/Professional Writing

Although my role in this internship called for very little writing, I did still have to handle the occasional emailed conversation between myself, my supervisors, and the writing contestants of The Writers’ Slate. This email “genre” of writing (as Carolyn Miller calls it in her article “Genre as Social Action”) is extremely common today both in and out of the workplace, and is certainly not limited to technical writing professions. However, as Anis Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff explain in their article “Rhetorical Genre Studies,” no genre is limited to its most common uses. The genre of emailing in the workplace, then, is not limited to the “typified rhetorical actions” (as Miller calls them) of asking for a supervisor’s approval or seeking a coworker’s feedback. In the case of this internship, the seemingly mundane genre of workplace emailing required more specialized typified rhetorical actions in order to meet the needs of our publication.

For example, although I did regularly undergo the routine typified rhetorical actions of emailing my supervisor in order to update, inquire, or ask for more direction, I was also assigned the task of sending congratulatory emails to Slate contestants whose entries we selected for publication. In order to avoid rewriting the same information in each email, however I created a “congratulations letter” template in Microsoft Word. The template allowed me (and will allow future interns) to simply replace a few key items in each letter: the name of the contestant, the title of their submission, and the dates of selection and publication. This template minimizes error and prevents the hassle of having to rewrite or copy and paste the same information in every email. Instead, we can simply alter the key items listed above and attach the Word document to the appropriate email.

There is one other genre of writing that I did have the privilege of undertaking when Dr. Franklin, the Slate editor, trusted me to step in and act as the guest editor for the 2014 Contest Edition. After fulfilling the responsibilities of editor, intern, and designer, I got to write a Letter from the Assistant Editor. For this particular publication, this genre of writing called for an explanation for my love of English studies, along with a few choice thank you’s to those who influenced my education and helped me to become a Writers’ Slate member.

In their article “Genre Research in Workplace and Professional Contexts,” Bawarshi and Reiff examine ways in which novice learners are “initiat[ed] into the community” of a genre. From my own experience at The Writers’ Slate, I can answer quite simply. For the “congratulations letter” templates, I revisited assignments from my own undergraduate Technical Writing courses. In these courses, we discussed and practiced with similar genres of writing in various professions (including magazine writing and editing, grant writing, and instruction manual writing). As for the Letter from the Assistant Editor, I looked to past editions of the Slate in order to examine the recurring rhetorical elements of Dr. Franklin’s tri-annual Letters from the Editor. 

In every respect, I feel that I have learned a great deal about these writing genres throughout my experience at this internship. However, it is just as Carolyn Miller states: “genres change, evolve, and decay.” Armed with this knowledge, I anticipate entering new professional contexts with an open mind in regard to the genres of writing I have yet to encounter.

Sources
Bawarshi, Anis, and Mary Jo Reiff. "Rhetorical Genre Studies" and "Genre Research in Workplace and Professional Contexts."
Miller, Carolyn. "Genre as Social Action."