ENG 412/512 Writing in the Workplace, Spring 2011, Online
Instructor:
E-mail:
Phone:
Office:
Office Hrs:
Barry L. Thatcher
bathatch@nmsu.edu (best way to communicate with me)
646-1529 (office). 312-4467 (cell–please text).
English/CBW #118
1:00-2:30 TTH or by appointment
Description
This course introduces students to professional communication in all its variety, emphasizing
both theory and practice. Students will first ground themselves in the major issues, theories, and
genres of professional communication, using a comprehensive textbook. Next, students will
individually research a major professional communication issues through research. Finally, each
student selects a field of study or genre in a workplace setting and carries out independent
research, documenting the genre of writing in this area. A field, for example, can be medical
writing, environmental writing, online tutorials, instructional materials, policies and procedures,
decision-making reports, web writing, technical specifications, grant writing, risk assessment,
translation and localization, sales communication, proposals, legal writing, political writing, and
many others. In addition, I would like to involve five or six students to help me carry out a
research project documenting the differences of one professional communication genres around
the world such as résumés. We will seek to jointly publish this research.
Texts
Anderson, Paul V. (2011). Technical communication: A reader-centered approach. 7th edition.
Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
PBWiki Coursepack readings
PBWiki essays and presentation files from students
Objectives
In the exploration of key theories and applications, students will become familiar with the
following theoretical and practical issues of workplace communication:
Rhetorical model. How are the author, audience, and reality mediated by the
communication act, genre, or established field? What definitions of the author, audience,
reality, and communication act/genre are assumed by these rhetorical theories or models?
PRIOS (purpose, reader, information, organization, and style). Using the PRIOS
grading criteria listed below, how does the reading discuss the relations of these five
components? Is one component emphasized more? Are all five in the same order as
described in my grading criteria? Are the five balanced and inter-related well?
Rhetorical situation. How does the reading define and operationalize the rhetorical
concepts of exigencies, constraints, and audiences in typical rhetorical situations? For
example, how influential is the genre, the communicator, or the context in determining or
encouraging the type of communication? Some genres such as resumes are fairly rigid
because the communicator has little space to deviate from established genre parameters.
Other genres such as websites may lend themselves to more uniqueness for the author,
while other genres such as technical specifications or instructional materials require close
adherence to the rhetorical constraints of the context. See course back readings Bitzer and
Vatz for better definitions of these terms.
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Academic and nonacademic writing relations. Historically, the rhetoric and poetic
have engaged in a dialectical relationship, with one usually dominating the other for
specific social, historical, and cultural reasons. This is usually seen in the tension
between literature and rhetoric. However, in the field of rhetoric and professional
communication, this rhetoric-poetic binary also manifests itself in the privileging of
academic writing versus professional writing. Often, academic writing is seen as
humanistic, while professional writing is scientific or objective. In other words academic
writing assumes a privileged almost poetic position, and in that position, professional
writing is seen as the necessary, but evil, other. Which part of the academic versus
nonacademic writing binary is privileged in this theory and why? And what does the
privileged part say about the relationship between academia, the non-academic world,
politics, and society?
Invention/Techne, Stasis and Kairos. Invention means how does the author come up
with good things to say i.e., source of inspiration? Stasis means what initiates discourse?
Kairos is a classical Greek rhetorical term that means appropriateness and wisdom in
timing the communication act. All three terms tell the communicator what and when to
communicate. Is the initiation of discourse dependent upon the genre, the context, the
communicator, or something else? How are channels of communication and hierarchy
involved with initiation of discourse?
Communication-Brain-Society. What is the relationship among the communication,
decision-making patterns, genre, and the “reality” of the writing context? In other words,
what roles or functions does communication carry out in the organization or context?
Does the communication simply mirror reality or the mind or vice versa? Does language
constitute the brain? If so, does the author simply assume that mental structures are the
same thing as discourse structures? Does the communication refract the mind and
reality? Or does it reconstitute them? How closely does communication reflect, refract,
or reconstitute social, cognitive, or procedural patterns in this context?
Logos/Epistemology. What counts as established knowledge and what roles does writing
play in its establishment? Is the theory language centered because it presupposes that
language is the center of all knowledge creation? This extreme position is usually taken
by scholars who favored theory over practice. Or is it logocentric in a Derridian sense
because it assumes a truth is out there and authors are compelled to seek that truth and
represent it in writing? This extreme position is usually taken by scholars who favor
practice over theory. The more mature or sophisticated view of logos looks at how
writing complexly mediates the relations between reality and knowledge?
Pathos/Expression. How are emotions valorized with this professional discourse
theory? How is pathos dependent upon the rhetorical model or situation?
Ethos/Ethics. What counts as authorial credibility and ethical (morality)? How is ethos
dependent upon the rhetorical model or situation?
Collaboration. what teamwork models are presupposed in the rhetorical theories? How
does communication influence these teamwork models? See the readings on
collaborative models.
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Channels of communication. How does writing become channeled in certain
organizational structures, means of communications, or hierarchies? How can writing
influence these hierarchies and channels?
Technology and Relations of orality, writing, and electronic communication. How
are these four media grounded in specific rhetorical models and situations? In other
words, does orality seemed to respond to a different set of exigencies and constraints as
opposed to writing or e-mail? Is the theory language centered in that the whole world
revolves around writing? Does the theory or reading account for how different cultural
and rhetorical traditions use these for media differently?
Intercultural thresholds. How much does the reading assume U.S. values, not
understanding how writing relates to other cultures? These values include: I/Other, rules,
context in communication, status, power distance, language/technology, source of
values/harmony (see heuristic and CP reading).
Assignments
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Daily PBWiki responses (30%). For each class period, students will either pick one of the
issues explained in the objectives section and write a 300-500 word discussion of how the
issue is developed in the class reading or online report for that day, or students can respond to
other student’s response in 300-500 words.
Professional communication issue analysis and online oral report (30%).
Genre analysis of a professional field and online oral report (40%).
Grading
The final grade and all assignments will be evaluated according to this scale: 93-100=A, 9092=A-, 86-89=B+, 83-85=B, 80-82=B-, 76-79=C+, 73-75=C, 70-72=C-, 66-69=D+, 63-65=D,
60-62=D-, 0-59=F. All grades are posted online through Blackboard.
These five categories are the grading criteria for the two writing assignments (PRIOS):
Purpose
• How well does the document achieve its desired outcomes?
Reader (rhetorical situation)
• How effectively does the document address the readers’ cognitive, social, and
emotional needs?
• How effective are the writer’s role and stance in relation to the readers?
• How sensitive is the document to the reading circumstances?
Information/Creativity
• How well does the information address readers’ concerns, needs, and questions?
• How credible and ethical is the information?
• How creative is the development of information—going beyond the lazy necessities?
Organization
• How well is the information organized for the readers?
• How effective is the page design?
• How effectively does the document draw on conventional genres?
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Style
• How effective is the author’s voice and style for this writing situation?
• How appropriate is word choice?
• How well does the document follow standards of grammar, mechanics, and usage?
Ethics and Plagiarism
You have to do your own work and appropriately identify work that is collaborative, borrowed, or
copied from other sources, including your own work from other classes. Obviously, when you
use graphics, works, words, citations, or even ideas from other sources, you are under the legal
and ethical obligation to identify these sources according to citation norms. If you have any
questions, please contact me. Using work that is not yours and not appropriately identifying it
will usually result in an F for the course.
Professor
Barry L. Thatcher. Associate professor of rhetoric and professional communication, New Mexico
State University. PhD, Rhetoric and Professional Writing, Purdue University. M.A. English,
North Carolina State University. B.A. English, North Carolina State University. Born in Idaho;
lived in South America for four years. Research areas: U.S.-Mexico business and technical
communication; Spanish-English writing; border health and environment communications; and
intercultural rhetoric.
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