reading notes

Notes on C. Barabas [CB], "Technical Writing in a Corporate Culture".

The easy questions:

When was it published?
1n 1990. It's part of a series called Writing research: Multidisciplinary Inquiries into the Nature of Writing. Marcia Farr, the series editor, thinks that the book is about “literacy”.

What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Anyone who is interested in the "burgeoning" field of research on writing. MF (ed) notes that a field is a "multidisciplinary entity" focused on a set of important questions about a central concern: in this case, literacy. A discipline shares "theoretical and methodological approaches which have a substantial tradition behind them":

"If research on writing evolves into a more unified discipline, rather than remaining a multifaceted field, much will be lost from the rich multiplicity of traditions which now contribute to it" (xvii).

So much for disciplinarity. However, Barabas notes that the work is intended for a more circumscribed "heterogenous" audience: tech writing researchers, teachers and practitioners (p. xl).

What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing? Qualitative mixed-methods research: survey, dbi, ta, context-based experimental studies. CB notes that her methods are different from most research in the field of composition because it:

1) Focuses on interrelationships of writers, texts & readers (not in isolation)
2) Content-based
3) Real-world
4) Uses indigenous criteria for effective writing

(!) We don't get to the actual research until part 3.
(!) Not lots of references to the field of tech comm.
(!) Due to corporate nondisclosure rules, CB has to "contrive" the examples for her book. She notes that this is why LatourandWoolgar and KnorCetina chose to focus on drafts of published, company-sanctioned works.

The tough questions:

What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Research in comp. and literacy had started to ask questions about real-world writing and writing in context, but we still didn't know very much about it.

What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
TWCC is an inquiry into "what it means to write well in a corporate setting", where criteria are unclear and ambiguous. She wants to compare this to "our most cherished assumptions about writing and good writing" to make us more aware of differences btw real-world and academic settings.

What is the epistemological background? Huh. The shift to the reality of writing as it functions in the world of context(ie not in archives). Bazerman and Paradis also make this point. CB claims that this research cycles back to the function of writing at its origin, "ten millenia ago".

What is the argument?
Here are the shortcomings of comp: the emphasis on structure over substance, content and functions. The requirments and standards of writing in corporate settings are different, and teaching students to be "good academic writers" may inadvertently make them "poor real-world writers". Academic criteria linger in real-world writing, causing problems for (college-educated) real-world writers.

These are some strong claims here. It's nice that CB suggests that tech comm can tell comp. something. I think a consequence of the heightened specialization that defines tech comm apart from comp/rhet is that tech comm can't tell comp/rhet anything anymore -- tech comm has to stick to its own territory. Tell Ruth: This is a good argument for having resistant tech comm grad students (ie me) read in comp for the QE.

CB also clames that much other real-world writing research is based on a priori academic assumptions.

What evidence does the author bring?
A history of the interest in real-world writing, some research on sci and tech writing and the study.

What perspective does the author take?
CB is interested in the dissonance between academic and real-world writing.

What perspective is under-represented or missing?
How useful is this disctinction between academic and real-world writing? Zappen notices that scientific and technical writing have a lot in common depending on context. Can the same thing be said for academic and real-world writing?

Side Notes:

(!) "In our teaching of research and writing, we have gone a long way out of our wayb by ignoring the connection between writing and communication" (p. 5) .

B offers critiques of the 3 models from business / tech writing. (!) "What other skill-related disciplines, I wonder, have developed theories of proficiency by studying the abberant behavior of students?" (46).

(!) Students trained in the cognitive process model tend to take their writers on a "vicarious, cognitive journey". When they grow up, their real-world reports are structured inductively with extraneous info.

(!) It's hard to create meaningful nonacademic contexts when students know they're in an academic context.

(!) Writing is a context -- CB notes that a firm's upper won't streamline proposal writing practices, because the all-night cram sessions are exhilirating. Note: The middle-and-lower-level employees are NOT exhiliarated.

Most corporations need, but do not have, communication policies.

(!) This book seems to follow the cognitive model. I know what CB thought that made her write it (ie the dissonance between comp and corporate writing), the background for her model and her critique of earlier model. She might lose me before I get to the results.

(!) CB laments that the art of CYA is not covered in textbooks. Metis?

Corporate writers in some R&D organizations write "idea papers" .

In the organization studied by CB, only poor writers call their progress reports stories. This conflicts with something I read in Anderson, Brockman and Miller about stories.

CB concludes that the following shapes writing intentions:

1) General conceptions about comm, tech comm and what goes in a tech report.
2) Concepts that distinguish data, result and conclusion.
3) Awareness of general company expectations and guidelines.
4) Awareness of immediate directors' and supervisors' expectations and guidelines.

Academic tech writing traditionally only touches on 1 and 2. CB calls for guidelines in industry, real-world and direct contact between tech comm pedagogy and industry and covering stuff not usually dealt with in textbooks. She does not go so far as to suggest ways that students can uncover the tacit, organization-specific guidelines -- i.e. guerilla research techniques for figuring out the expectations.