You can use the following overview to preview or review this chapter. Be sure, however, to read the chapter itself, which includes additional information.

To see links to all the chapter overviews at this website, choose Chapter Overviews from the Resource Library menu.

PRIMARY LEARNING POINTS

This chapter discusses the following guidelines.

• Communication is one of the most valuable subjects you will study in college.
• Writing at works differs from writing at school.
• Writing at work aims to bring about change.
• The two qualities of effective on-the-job communication are usability and persuasiveness.
• In a reader-centered approach to writing, the writer thinks constantly about the readers.
• The interaction between the communication and its readers is dynamic.
• Because effective communications create change, they also have an ethical dimension.

OVERVIEW

Your Communication Skills Will Be Critical to Your Success

Studies have shown that you will spend much of your time at work writing and speaking. On the average, college graduates on the job can expect to spend 20% of their on-the-job time on writing. That is one full day out of every five.

Importantly, your success at work will depend largely on your ability to communicate effectively. And since communication is so critical in the workplace, your writing and speaking ability will be a major factor when your employer evaluates your performance.

Writing at Work Differs from Writing at School

This book assumes that you already know many things about effective writing (knowledge you have taken from your various writing classes while in school). It also assumes that if you have not already had experience writing on the job, you may need to learn some new skills in order to write effectively there. This assumption stems from understanding that work-related writing and school writing differ.

The following points indicate that a writer's purpose and attention to audience are among the differences between writing completed for school and writing completed for work:

• Serves Practical Purposes
  As a student, you write for an educational purpose. Instructors ask you to compose term papers, prepare laboratory reports, and take written exams to help you learn the course material. At work, your readers will include co-workers and customers seeking information and ideas they need as they pursue their own practical goals. The writing you do for work will guide and influence their decisions and actions.
  
  This difference in purpose impacts the strategies you use as you write. For example, in school, where your purpose is to show how much you know, one of your strategies is to say as much as you can about your subject. At work, where you will write to support or influence other people's actions, your strategy should be to include only the information your readers need—no matter how much more you know. Including information that your readers do not absolutely need will only hinder your purpose of guiding or influence; it creates too much information they have to swim through in order to reach the point of the piece of writing.
• Addresses Complex Audiences
• Addresses International and Multicultural Audiences
  In school, your audience consists of mainly one person: your instructor. At work, you may write a single piece of communication that addresses a wide variety of people, including, possibly, people from different countries. This variety demands that workplace writers become consciously aware of the different audience members and their individual needs. Additionally, when writing at work, you may often address readers from other nations and cultural backgrounds.
• Uses Distinctive Types of Communication
  Workplace writing includes a variety of communications not often produced in school. Each type of communication has its own conventions, which you must follow to write successfully.
• Employs Graphics and Visual Design to Increase Effectiveness
  Unlike the writing you do in school, workplace writing doesn't rely solely on words; tables, charts, drawings, and other graphics can increase the effectiveness of your communications.
• Requires Collaboration
  Co-authorship constitutes working with a team of writers to produce a piece of communication. Another term for this sort of writing process strategy is collaboration. For example, a group of people may plan, draft, review, and revise a document together. A one-page document may even have several people working on it. Also, even though one person may plan, draft, and write a document, he or she may consult other people to review or revise it, and this is an example of collaboration as well. Co-authorship is very common in the workplace.
• Shaped by Political and Social Considerations
  Every writing situation has social dimensions. For example, some sort of relationship exists between the writer and his or her readers: manager and subordinate, customer and supplier, co-worker and co-worker. Also, every company has a certain "style" or "culture," which reflects the way the company perceives itself and presents itself to outsiders. For example, a company may be formal and conservative or informal and innovative. Think about when you walk into a company and all the employees are wearing navy blue suits and their cubicles are plain and unadorned. On the other hand, you may walk into a company where the employees are wearing khaki shorts and sandals while working in cubicles decorated with family photos and blinking Christmas lights. Writers should bet that the writing styles of those two companies will differ, and it is the responsibility of the writer to adapt to those styles.
• Shaped by Organizational Conventions and Culture
  Different organizations have different writing customs. On the job, you will be expected to understand and reflect the style of your organization in your writing.
• Must Meet Deadlines
  Workplace writers should never miss a deadline. Consequences for missing deadlines can be very severe. For example, if a writer is preparing a proposal in hopes that a client will choose to work with his or her company, and that writer misses the deadline, it may not matter that is a great and well-written proposal: if the document is late, it may not be considered.
• Produced with Advanced Computer Technology
  In many instances, workplace writing is done on computers. Desktop publishing programs allow writers to draft easily, create an effective layout, check spelling and grammar, and many other functions. Also, computers serve as a vehicle for electronic correspondence - electronic mail (e-mail) is very common in the workplace. You might be using computers to write while in school - you will undoubtedly use them to write at work.
• Sensitive to Legal and Ethical Issues
  Under the law, most documents written by employees are viewed as representing the position of the company. This is a good reason to have a document carefully reviewed before sending out the final draft.
  
  At work, you will sometimes write communications that could affect the happiness and even the health and well-being of other people. For example, you may write a proposal for a new product that could cause physical harm—at least if not handled properly. This scenario could cause you to consider your values as they apply toward workplace writing. It is important that you consider what your values are. It is also important for you to decide if you will bring your values to work.

Writing at Work Aims to Bring About Change

Writing at work is often done to accomplish something. Writers should think about, during the planning stages of a document, what it is that this piece of communication should accomplish. Writing often has a practical purpose: you write to make something happen. When you write, you act. You exert your power to bring about a specific result, to change the current state of behaviors, to implement a plan.

Qualities of Effective On-the-Job Communication: Usability and Persuasiveness

Effective on-the-job communications must possess two qualities: usability and persuasiveness. Usability refers to a communication's ability to help readers do what it is intended to help them do. Persuasiveness is a communication's ability to influence readers' attitudes and actions.

The Main Advice of this Book: Think Constantly About Your Readers

As you write, think constantly about your readers. Think about what they want from you and why. Think about how you want to help or influence them and how they will react to what you have to say. This may require that you step outside the role of writer and into the role of your target audience in order to project how your readers will react to your document. It may also require you to actually go and talk to possible target audience members in order to get feedback on your writing and its effectiveness. What matters is how your readers will respond. That's the reason for taking the reader-centered approach described in the text. This approach focuses your attention on the ways you want to help and influence your readers and teaches specific writing strategies you can use to achieve those goals.

The Dynamic Interaction Between Your Communication and Your Readers

The detailed suggestions about workplace writing presented in this book are based, in part, on what researchers have learned about how people read. The following highlights three of their most important findings: readers construct meaning, readers' responses are shaped by the situation, and readers react moment by moment.

• Readers Construct Meaning
  Instead of receiving meaning from written words, readers derive meaning by applying their own experiences and interpretations to the words. For example, imagine that someone has asked you to explain the meaning of the following statement made earlier in Chapter 1: "When you write, you act." First write down a sentence that answers the request. Then try to find a sentence in the book that exactly matches yours. Most likely, you won't be able to. The sentence you wrote is not one you remembered from the text. Rather, it expresses the book's meaning in your own words, based on your own experience and interpretation of the text.
• Readers' Responses are Shaped by the Situation
  Readers' responses are shaped by their purpose for reading the communication, their perception of the writer's purpose for writing the communication, their personal stake in the subject discussed, and their past relations with the writer. A key issue is that in order to predict how a reader might respond to something you are writing, you must understand the reader's situation.

• Readers React Moment by Moment
  It is important to realize that readers react moment by moment. When we read a humorous novel, we chuckle as we read a funny sentence. We don't wait until we finish the entire book. Similarly, people react to each part of the memo, report, or proposal as soon as they come to it. A person will respond differently under one set of circumstances than another. What you say in one or two early sentences can affect the outcome of an entire communication. To write effectively, you must predict your readers' likely responses to your message and design your communication accordingly. To do that, you must keep your readers—their needs and goals, feelings and situation, preferences and responsibilities—foremost in your mind throughout your work on a communication.

Communicating Ethically

Ethical considerations are crucial in designing effective communications. When things happen, people are affected; therefore, if your document brings about change, people will be affected.

The three major sources for guidance concerning ethics are:

• Professionals in your specialty have probably developed a code of ethics.

• Employers may also have developed an ethics code.
• You have your own sense of values.

REVIEW

1. How do writing at work and writing in school differ?
2. What two qualities are necessary to effective technical communications?
3. What do you need to know about how readers read to make you are a more effective communicator?