Genres in Technical/Professional Writing

When I began my career as a technical/professional writer, I didn’t think a typical technical/professional writing position would involve much creative work; that is, I assumed it would be mostly cut and dried manual writing. However, my internship with The Writers’ Slate has challenged that assumption, and I believe that has been beneficial for me. Outside of email correspondence with students who are being published and my supervisor, I do not write large chunks of text, nor do I create documents that scrutinized for their readability and accessibility; my primary job is to take the students’ work from the submission and transfer it into an online document that is easily accessible and not overly cluttered. Despite this, I use Millers’ genre of email writing quite often as it is my main form of correspondence; I also use a stylesheet, which relates to Barwashi and Reiff’s idea of a workplace genre because it is tailored specifically toward a person who knows how to manipulate the program it is used for.

The most important task for interns with The Writers’ Slate is correspondence with students who are being published and our supervisor. Because the students often forget certain bits of information that are required for publication (grade level, school location, etc.), I often have to reach out to those students in order to obtain that information. However, because I am working for an organization, it is essential that I follow a certain protocol when emailing them; this is where the typified rhetorical actions of emailing are important. In my experience, students often respond quickly and professionally when I email them asking for more information. I believe this is because of the level of professionalism that is established through the emails, especially because of the letterhead template a previous intern crafted. This letterhead creates a sense of importance and impresses upon the student that their work is important enough to receive an official acceptance letter or request for more information. If this information was asked for or sent via a plain email, it might not be as well-received.

As a result, a workplace genre is created; interns are able to view the style sheet, letterhead, and PDFs of previous editions of the Slate in order to create consistency and professionalism. Stylesheets are inherently workplace focused; a person must have knowledge of the project the stylesheet is written for, how to use the program it is necessary for, and how to use the information in the stylesheet to create a document that is recognized as being related to previously published documents. However, these impress the fluidity of the medium; because software is always developing, stylesheets can be updated to include information that is helpful in using new technology or implement new techniques, which creates a sense of constant change. According to Bawarshi and Reiff,

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.

The Writers’ Slate is a good example of change in technical/professional writing. Since the first intern, Mr. Alex Shepard, took on creating the Slate, it has been allowed to evolve and adapt to each intern’s personal style; this is obvious in the contest edition. The last issue of the school year, the contest edition is the one in which interns are free to exercise their creative control. With our supervisor’s permission, we are able to add color, images, and change the layout of the publication as we see fit. Since it has become published via an online medium, this has changed the Slate immensely; it has the ability to add color images or imbed hyperlinks, a capability that is excluded from print publication. Throughout its lifespan with interns from Pittsburg State, The Writers’ Slate embodies the concept of change in order to avoid becoming obsolete.              

                Becoming familiar with technology and seeing first-hand how it can change a publication is essential for any technical/professional writer. Fortunately, my internship with The Writers’ Slate has prepared me for this and even encouraged my own changes to the journal as time has passed. It is also a lesson for technical/professional writers; exploring different genres and mediums in order to evolve is encouraged for our profession. Without the knowledge that I have gained in this internship, I feel as though I would be vastly underprepared in a future career, because it is entirely different to learn about change in a genre and having to actually implement and manipulate change yourself.

Works Cited

Bawarshi, Anis, and Mary Jo Reiff. "Rhetorical Genre Studies" and "Genre Research in Workplace and Professional Contexts."

Miller, Carolyn. "Genre as Social Action."

Defining Technical/Professional Writing

          A person from almost any field of academia could obtain a degree in professional writing, and finding a definition for a field with this amount of flexibility can prove to be a challenge. Many argue over the semantics and inflection of the term technical writing, with some focusing on the technical aspects while others focus more towards writing. As Jo Allen says, "...We cannot seem to agree on the parameters of the discipline" (70). I would argue that you cannot view these two parts of the term separately, but instead need to analyze them together. If you only analyze a single term, you are losing a great deal of context that makes the field of technical writing so dense for those who jump into it. Yes, you could choose to view the field as a specific and restricted form of writing, or as a technological form of writing, but this blanket statement takes away from the strengths of the field: cooperation.
          The field of technical writing the melding of two separate disciplines, one involving technology and the other involving humans. The technical aspects allows humans to go beyond simple literary and physical analysis, but the technology would be pointless without the human element of writing. As Carolyn Miller said in regards to Aristotle's notions that science is beyond human intentions and emotions: "The most uncomfortable aspect of this non-rhetorical view of science is that it is a form of intellectual coercion: it invites us to prostrate ourselves at the windowpane of language and accept what Science has demonstrated" (18). Science and technology do play large roles in the technical writing field, but classifying technical writing as exclusively technology, as per David Dobrin, is undercutting the limits of human knowledge and understanding. On the reverse, however, simply having humans write would not classify a piece of technical writing. This bare necessity would more than likely just classify as writing, or possibly literature. Technology gives extra tools to those who choose to write technically, and human imagination and emotion gives shape to this cold technology while putting forward information in a context where it can be understood by a mass audience.
          My internship with Integrity Home Care and Hospice provides a unique perspective into this notion of balance between the technical and the biological. To put it bluntly, a computer with the right programs and processing power could do the entirety of my job. I take numbers from one system, combine them with numbers of another system, and then put forward the final results into a sheet that will be sent up the chain to people with more power than myself. However, a computer that would be capable of this feat would not be able to understand what it's doing. I understand that my information is being translated to be interpreted, and as such I can manipulate formatting, add images, and otherwise follow common elements of style in order to present the information to people who can then understand it and spread it. A computer would simply layout the information as cleanly as possible in several rows of 0s and 1s, and a human by themselves wouldn't be able to handle this level of information on such a large scale or on such a short time frame. Beyond moving and presenting data, I also write instructional materials on these processes. These manuals are designed for those with no knowledge of the processes, and are geared for those who will follow me in my position so that I don't have to physically train them. Computers do not have this awareness, and certainly couldn't create a training manual geared towards an audience. It's a weird symbiotic relationship between man and technology that makes technical writing unique, and that is why people from both a technological and a humanities background can succeed as professional and technical writers.