There are several forms of technical writing. Each form is important to business success and influences their viability and success. Those unfamiliar with how effective technical writing can improve a company’s performance and overall satisfaction of its employees and vendors, often overlook that importance. The data are clear – companies that focus on effective communication succeed. Rich Maggiani, a communications consultant in Essex, Vermont asserts that the return on investment for communications focused companies is 57% higher than those exhibiting poor communications skills. He further states that those companies who lose sight of effective communication can lose up to 15% of their market valuation (Maggiani). Organizational studies further solidify that not only is profitability improved, but also employee retention is improved (Watson, Wyatt & Company). Let us explore some of the ways that technical writing as communication can be effective tools. Throughout this exploration, we will look at three distinct methods of technical writing that businesses use to communicate. The first technical writing method we look at is proposals. A proposal is the persuasion document that brings to life a project or entices new clients to employ services. The effectiveness of a proposal is highly dependent upon its assembly. The proposal is the first real communication between parties that establish a desire to work together to achieve a common goal. This goal could be a simple business-to-business transaction or a complex plan to develop a spacecraft for deep space exploration. The proposal might outline the submitter’s expertise, time lines for completion, cost of the project and resources the submitter will use to make the project suc... ... middle of paper ... ...improves morale and increases profits. Essentially all business success is owed to technical writing, especially effectively those written effectively. Works Cited Gerson, Sharon J. Gerson and Steven M. Technical Writing: Process and Product. Fifth Edition. Prentice Hall Education, Inc., 2006. Maggiani, Rich. The Most Successful Companies Communicate Better. n.d. PDF Document. 10 January 2012. . Rose, John David. Rescuing capitalism from corporatism: greed and the American corporate culture. AuthorHouse, 2005. Tomlinson, Ray. The First Email. n.d. 10 January 2012. . Watson, Wyatt & Company. "Effective Communication: A Leading Indicator of Financial Performance." Communication ROI Study. 2006.
Sam Dillion wrote “What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence” for an audience of college students, employees and corporate people. In his article, Sam points out that companies are spending a lot of money annually on remedial training. According to Sam, the writing problem appears in e-mails, reports and texts. He is informing his audience to brush up on writing skills before entering the corporate world, in order to avoid remedial training. Companies like to hire employees with excellent writing skills but many of employees and applicants fall short of that standard.
Bovée, C. L., & Thill, J. V. (2012). Business Communication Today. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.
The article “Is Writing an Essential Skill for Engineers” by James Koelsch discussed how having the ability to write and communicate is a very important quality for all engineers to possess. The author used multiply techniques in trying to persuade the reader as to why successful engineers must be able to write, as well as be able to communicate to others. Koelsch started out by using anecdotes, talking about his own personal experience with learning about writing and communication in his college years, which he used to relate to his audience because his audience seems to be engineering college students. Likewise he used a few different examples on some professionals’ views on how they
Smith-Worthington, D., & Jefferson, S. (2011, 2007). Technical writing for success (3rd ed.). Retrieved from
Technical Reasoning: I will intensify my Technical Reasoning to be more successful with my writing by examine the the assignment to the fullest. I will also stick with the task until I can figure out exactly what is required of me to complete my final reflection
When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten discusses the rise of corporate power in America. “Increasing corporate power result in an enormous transfer of power, wealth, and resources from the public to the private sector.” There is a huge connection between the government and large corporations who work together in order to make a profit. “It is the corporate interest rather than the human interest that defines the policy agendas of states
Cardon, P. W. (2014). Business communication: Developing leaders for a networked world. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
As the discussion of good writing evolved in class, I began to wonder what made good business writing. I thought about the purpose in writing both within a particular company and between different companies and organizations. I decided that most writing in business is meant to be either informative, persuasive, or a combination of both. Whether informative or persuasive in nature, I have decided that most good business writing is very similar to other good writing. I have chosen to focus on three elements that contribute to good usage in business. They are:
Many scholars agree that technical communication, although considered a professional writing genre, could still be defined as separate from the communication used by business professionals (e.g. professors, business people, doctors, lawyers, etc.) To begin to understand writing in the workplace, one could start by defining what collaboration in the workplace is. Scholars Burnett, et al. describe collaboration in the workplace as communication that occurs across project groups, departments, divisions and other social configurations. This communication serves as a process that allows peers, specifically co-workers in this instance to interact and work together to achieve shared goals, both before and after the production of a text or document. Collaboration is important in the workplace because it enables social interaction amongst coworkers and encourages workers to communicate, help one another, and form productive relationships. Effective collaboration in the workplace has been proven to produce a happier, more productive
Mary Ellen Guffey, Kathleen Rhodes, Patricia Rogin. Business Communication: Process and Product, Sixth Canadian Edition. Ed. Anne Williams. Sixth Canadian Edition. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2011. EBook. 11 April 2014.
Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone
Technical communication is most likely going to be the most difficult part of my professional career as a computer scientist. Writing for this field is similar to other fields since programmers are expected to be able to write documents that are easily understandable by the software users, and are readily usable with technical details for professionals. Programmers must write many documents directed at the non-technical audience which consists of text within programs, read me files, help files, manuals on software use, presentations for clients, and many more. Documents directed towards colleagues would consist of comments in code, memos, software documentations, software specifications, status reports, presentations, and multiple more types. Programmers are expected to be able to write to all audiences these many different types of documents; however, any student entering the professional world will undoubtedly find it to be a difficult task to learn to write to each type of audience.
While selecting my major for my epic return to college, one genre of writing that would have never crossed my mind for consideration is that of a technical and scientific nature. It is so easy for the general public, as well as myself, to understand and appreciate writing that serves to entertain. Often, when we consider technical writing, we find ourselves yawning before even opening such a document. However, after interviewing Kaye Borchers, a technical writer for Choice One Engineering, I realized just how wrong this preconceived notion truly is. While Kaye also moonlights as an editor for her peers and a creative writer in her spare time, I was most intrigued by her professional career choice and found it surprising that technical writing shares a great deal of qualities with other styles of writing. Her insight on this particular style indicated that it is a necessary and fascinating genre that requires a multitude of versatile writing skills.
Having an adaptive writing style is an indispensible tool in every writer’s kit. No matter what the topic of discussion, a writer must possess the ability to convey a meaningful message to the audience they are addressing. The challenge lies in converting discussions from an academic journal or technical research document to a level understandable by that general audience to which you are addressing. In this paper, I will discuss how I approach choices of vocabulary, sentence length, and sentence structure when adapting a piece of technical or specialized writing.
Shea, Gordon F, Training & Development, (1992) A Case for Clear Writing, 46 Issue 1, p63, Retrieved September 28, 2004 from the EBSCOhost database