Business Writing

ts fast and clearly. This guide is a handbook every office needs, covering new media like e-mail, avoiding common mistakes, and overcoming writer's block. "Words at Work" belongs at every desk beside the dictionary.

Many employers complain about the poor communication skills of many young people seeking employment; and many people in employment are handicapped by the poor quality of their written work. While bad spelling, ineffective punctuation and faults in grammar create barriers between the writer and the reader, good English makes the reader feel at ease. The benefits of being a good writer at work are: Managers need to be able to communicate in order to get ideas across. If they cannot, they will be unable to make their viewpoint heard and they will be unable to influence customers, suppliers and colleagues as desired If you can write well, you will find that your views are given prominence over those of others. Effective communication, and that includes writing, is the key to career success and advancement This book is for those who have difficulty in getting thoughts into words or their ideas across, as well as those who are satisfied with their writing but are ready to consider the possibility of improving it. It is all about the ways in which writing at work is important - helping the reader to observe, remember, think, plan, organise and communicate.

In this study, Jim Henry analyzes eighty-three workplace writing ethnographies composed over seven years in a variety of organizations. He views the findings as so many shards in an archaeology on professional writing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

These ethnographies were composed by either practicing or aspiring writers participating in a Master's program in professional writing and editing. Henry solicited the writers' participation in "informed intersubjective research" focused on issues and questions of their own determination. Most writers studied their own workplace, composing "auto-ethnographies" that problematize these workplaces' local cultures even as they depict writing practices within them.

Henry establishes links between current professional writing practices and composition instruction as both were shaped by national economic development and local postsecondary reorganization throughout the twentieth century. He insists that if we accept basic principles of social constructionism, the text demonstrates ways in which writers "write" workplace cultures to produce goods and services whose effects go far beyond the immediate needs of their clients.

This anthology brings together voices from industry and academia in a call for elevating the status, identity, value, and influence of technical communicators. Editors Barbara Mirel and Rachel Spilka assert that technical communicators must depart from their traditional roles, moving instead in a more influential and expansive direction. To help readers explore the possibilities, contributions from innovative thinkers and leaders in technical communication propose ways to redefine the field's identity and purposes and to expand the parameters of its work. The chapters included here all point toward new directions for greater growth and influence of the field. Contributors depart from traditional ideas and solutions and discuss new and in some cases radical points, provoking further thought and discussion. Its exploration of fresh territory uncovers new research topics and directions, and provides an examination of both internal, industry-academia relationships and external relationships between technical communicators and other professionals. In its entirety, this collection represents an inclusive vision for the future, targeting such wide-ranging issues as creating effective professional organizations, disseminating research to diverse audiences, transitioning to more influential job roles, exerting leadership in usability, and creating hybrid identities and collaborative programs between industry and academic to support them. The diverse voices from industry and academia will inspire readers to think differently about the discipline's identity and direction, and to build on the ideas they find herein to effect change within their own spheres. As required reading for academics and professionals in technical communication, this collection is a critical step in reshaping and reinvigorating the technical communication field to ensure its survival and growth in the 21st century.

Competitive Communication offers the first full-length treatment of the classical art of rhetoric with applications to the day-to-day needs of modern managers. Based on the belief that clearly reasoned persuasion is indispensable to professionals who must convince others of their points of view, this text reveals implicit, competitive dimensions of communication to those familiar with contemporary business practices. Concentrating on argumentation--which is viewed both as a process of inquiry and as an act of persuasion--the author reviews principles of reasoning that were central to an age generally credited with having developed the first complete treatment of the art of communication. With Aristotle as guide, Eckhouse demonstrates how the enthymeme, a logical device central to Greek theories of persuasion, is also of powerful relevance to the modern business world. Complementing this discussion is an examination of classical ethos, or credibility, as it is created in language and used to strengthen core arguments modern managers must make. Also offered is an extensive examination of classical fallacies--common pitfalls of argument and debate--which provide early warning signals for those about to enter argumentative danger zones. Ideal for undergraduate and graduate business students, as well as the working professional, Competitive Communication offers an invaluable guide to what is probably the most important ability working professionals can develop in todays business world.

Breadth and balance in content are the primary attributes of this practical guide designed to equip undergraduate students for the broad range of writing tasks involved in contemporary public relations practice. A myriad of writing tasks are examined, those undertaken for print and electronic media as well as those that arise in the business component.