Technical Communication Chapters 1, 20 and 22

Having read the assigned chapters in the textbook, I am struck by a couple of paradoxical observations.


First, in Ch. 1, the author stresses the difference between writing for educational purposes and business writing. They have almost diametrically opposed purposes, with educational writing tending to be highly verbose with expansive discourses on sometimes obscure topics. Business writing, on the other hand, tends to be concise and to the point. The result was an educational format discourse describing why we will learn to write in just the opposite manner. The juxtaposition struck me as odd and a little amusing.


Secondly, the author stressed the need for clarity in technical and/or professional writing, while at the same time presenting the reader with somewhat confusing examples. Take the three examples of business letters shown on page 531 in the textbook. The three examples represent the first and subsequent pages as well as the envelope. It would have been far less confusing for the three examples to have been from the same letter, instead of three different letters. I also noted on page 533 that the last bullet points dealing with special memo-writing considerations dealt with a comparison between writing memos and letters. There was no clear delineation between when discussing letters and when discussing memos. If I were to read that point out of context, it would have been very confusing.


The criticisms aside, the information in the textbook appeared to take a no nonsense common sense approach to professional communications, despite its unintended amusing dichotomies.