what is business writing?
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What is Business Writing?
© 2015 Karen L. Thompson Department of English University of Idaho
It’s not what these people are doing.
Although typing is involved, and you can be happy doing it – well, maybe not this happy.
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At the University of Idaho
• Students majoring in English can choose from several Program emphases. One of these is the Professional Writing Emphasis.
• We also offer a minor in Professional Writing through the English department open to all majors.
• English 313: Business Writing is one of our 300-level course offerings in Professional Writing.
• Each course uses a broad definition of Professional Writing as well as a narrower definition specific to that course.
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Broad Definition ofProfessional Writing
• The scope of professional writing covers any written or oral communication—other than that produced or circulated as art.
• It increasingly includes multimedia products such as podcasts, screencasts, slidecasts etc.
• These products whether written or oral are created for a variety of purposes both internal and external to businesses and organizations.
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Professional Writing Genres:– academic writing essays, project reports, journal articles,
grants to conduct research, oral presentations,
– corporate, government, and organizational internal and external communication such as letters, written and audio / video reports, emails, proposals, forms, oral presentations, marketing products etc.,
– representative texts, such as codes of ethics and service charters; corporate and government newsletters; and public notices and leaflets and more……
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Our other 300-Level Professional Writing Courses Offer a More Narrow Definition of Professional Writing
• English 316: Environmental Writing• English 317: Technical Writing• English 318: Science Writing
• The next slides will help you understand the differences in these courses.
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English 316:
Environmental Writing
• Emerged from the need to express our relationship to our environment and to understand how language shapes this relationship in terms of ourselves and others (public policy).
NOTE: because environmental writing has this dual focus, it also includes art texts.
• Students who take this course tend to be majoring in environmental science, natural resources, and wildlife management but it is open to and taken by many other majors.
English 316 is offered through our Semester in the Wild Program
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English 317:
Technical Writing
• Emerged from the communication needs of inventing and using technology, so it has a user-centered design focus.
• Students who take this course tend to be engineering, science, and technology majors but it is open to and taken by many other majors.
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English 318:
Science Writing
• Emerged from the need to communicate the results of scientific research, so it has a focus of disseminating those results to both expert and lay audiences.
• Students who take this course may be majoring in biology, chemistry, food science, plant science, animal science, and geological science but it is open to and taken by many other majors.
• NOTE: this course is cross-listed with JAMM318 and we offer it in alternating semesters with them.
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English 313:
Business Writing
• Emerged from the communication needs of commerce, so it has a focus on interpersonal communication from both within and without a business or organization.
• English 313 emphasizes writing that fosters positive workplace relationships.
• Students who take this course tend to be business, finance, and accounting majors but it is open to and taken by many other majors.
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These categories are not mutually exclusive.
Technical Writing
Science Writing
EnvironmentalWriting
Business Writing
• When a business writer analyzes data and presents it in a report, it is similar to scientific writing.
• When a science writer submits a request to purchase software, it is business writing.
• When a technical writer gives a presentation to a group of potential investors, it’s business writing.
• When an environmental scientist studies how audiences perceive messages about climate change, it is a form of technical writing (usability).
• Etc. etc. etc.
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Multimedia
Audio
Video
Interactive
Professional writing is created in all media forms and delivered in a variety of platforms.
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Business Writing Forms (Genres)• Correspondence:
– letters, memos, email, texts, telecommunications etc.
• Presentation:– oral presentations, video slide and screencasts, podcasts etc.
• Collaboration:– charters, strategic plans, document specifications etc.
• Proposal:– project, marketing, problem/solution etc.
• Employment:– resumes, cover and follow-up letters interview techniques etc.
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Central Principle of the Course
• A central principle that informs English 313 is the concept that business writers are engaged in knowledge work.
• Researchers who study successful knowledge workers have identified skills that characterize what they do.
• These skills turn on the ability of writers to understand workplace writing as a problem-solving process.
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What it Means to Approach Writing as a Problem-Solving Process.
• The project deliverables in this course (and on the job) are important, but if you learn how to produce them as tasks, you will not learn how to write well because the solution to a problem in business writing is never the only available one.
• Writers must constantly interpret writing situations, including the cultural practices of the business or organization you work for, and weigh possible responses to effectively meet these situations.
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Your Aim is To Develop Transferable skills
If you saw the movie Taken, you know that the character played by Liam Neeson used transferable skills to get the bad guys and rescue his daughter.
We won’t be doing anything as exciting as that, but we will be working to help you further develop your oral and written skills.
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Therefore, throughout the course you will• Study concepts that are transferable to many
different writing situations and apply these concepts to complete each project’s deliverable (i.e. end-product).
• Think of these transferable concepts as sets of writing skills you are placing in a toolkit that you can draw upon after you leave the course to make effective choices in any writing situation.
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Writing Today
• Business writers must meet the needs of diverse audiences not only locally but, increasingly, in global contexts.
• These contexts are complicated by social, political, cultural, economic, and moral/ethical concerns.
• Successful workplace writers know how to analyze and navigate these complex writing situations by making effective rhetorical choices.
• And that’s why rhetoric is your new best friend.
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What is rhetoric?
The classical definition of rhetoric is the use of language to persuade.
Persuasion can be positive or negative, but in common usage, rhetoric has increasingly been defined negatively.
And, there’s a reason for that.
Plato and Aristotle from School of Athens by Raphael Sanzio (1509)
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Negative definition of rhetoric.
Because the art of persuasion can be used for --- let’s just say—not necessarily noble ends, the word rhetoric has a pejorative (negative) meaning.
This negative meaning is often associated with political rhetoric, where language is used to defeat another candidate throughdistortions, misinformation, or outright lies.
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Modern definitions of rhetoric.
A more modern definition of rhetoric acknowledges that it informs whatever we do with language.
It is how we use language to elicit any number of responses from diverse audiences and for a wide variety of purposes.
There’s just one more thing you need to know before starting the first project.
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I don’t really want to read that report from you.
Don’t take this wrong but no one in the workplace wants to read what you write.
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• Solve problems,• Gain a better understanding of something,• Make effective decisions,• Plan work they and others will do, and• Create a paper trail for business and legal purposes.
Workplace readers will NEED to read what you write to:
This helps me.What a great writer!