When most people think about “writing,” they think of the sentences, the choice of words, proper punctuation and grammar, how sentences are clustered into paragraphs. But writing is far, far more than that.
When teachers of business/technical writing classes think about their subject, they usually think in terms of generic genres—types of writing like email, memos, good-news letters, bad-news letters, blog posts, infographics, social media, the proposal, the process report, the analytical report, the résumé and cover letter, etc., etc. But workplace writing is far, far more than that.
We formulated a radically reader/user-based approach to workplace writing founded on the model of a conversation (see our textbook, Mastering Workplace Writing--https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Workplace-Writing-Harvey-Lillywhite/dp/0692520082) back in the mid-1990s, a model we’d been developing since the mid-1980s.
As we ask the question: How do you teach people to write well in the digital age? we think this new approach to workplace writing is finally beginning to change the conversation about workplace writing. Here are five ways we’re making a big difference….
As Stanford professor of organizational behavior, Robert Sutton, says, “The gap between knowing and doing is larger than the gap between ignorance and knowledge.” I’ve felt relatively successful in creating a systematic (systems-based) approach to workplace writing that students find extremely useful and say that they embrace (here’s what they tell me: http://qcgwrite.com/studentgallery). Although they’ve understood the concepts, their first writing efforts don’t always reflect them. They seem “to know,” but they are challenged “to do.”
Here’s how I help them bridge that gap…by reading, a lot, and very analytically.
The college students in my writing classes are, by now, digital natives. Writing, for them, is something done on a phone…or maybe a tablet/laptop. These students clearly don’t know the standard comma rules. The evidence shows that they know what a comma is, and they obviously see them in some of the more officiated writing online. We know they know what a comma is because they usually sprinkle them, sparingly, through the college essays they’re required to write. But they were not taught the standard comma rules, as I was in the second half of the 20th century, and they don’t care. Should they? Should we?
If you learn to punch up your punctuation, proofreading, and paragraphs; spit-shine your sentences; and touch up your typing, you may feel better about your writing, but until you go up in your helicopter and get a panoramic view of what writing really is, your writing may not become much more efficient or effective….
Lots of people think they know all they need to know about writing. But do they really know how to KISS? ....
While auditors and audit teams must always strive to make reports accurate, objective, and timely, audit reports must finally be useful and highly readable. A useful report presents busy decision makers with instrumental knowledge that helps them make important operational decisions....
Writing an audit report is not an art; it is a craft. Audit report writing is not a job for writing savants, people born with some ability to communicate in writing as some people seem born to express themselves musically. Let's say that one more time: audit report writing is a craft; it can be learned and has been learned and learned very well....
I claim that workplace writing is 90% about content and 10% about presentation, in the same way a cargo ship is 90% about the cargo and only 10% about the ship. Of course, if the ship itself (the 10%) sinks, the 90%—that valuable content—is lost. Our conversations, by the way, are also 90% about content.
You should totally be checking your documents for adequate content before you worry too much about the particulars of presentation. So, what criteria/standard should you use to evaluate the adequacy of content in any workplace document?
