I've been trying to stay away from this discussion as I find myself to
be too close to its subject. However, all the inspiring messages I've
read for the past couple of days literally "push" me into this
discussion.
I still have difficulty seeing university writing as "leading nowhere"
and not being "authentic" and workplace writing as having "real" goals
and consequences. My graduate students, who have been reading Worlds
Apart with me, also have trouble with this vision. I think that writing
practice is so situated -- regardless whether it is school or workplace
writing -- that such generalizations are hard to make.
I am not going to refer to classroom practices in this message -- my
view is that "authenticity" of classroom writing depends on courses and
how they are taught. I am more concerned with the argument about
"authenticity" and "real implications" of workplace writing. In my
former life as an engineer and in my recent life as a writing consultant
to high-tech companies and government, I often observed (and sometimes
was personally involved in) writing situation that led nowhere and had
no purpose above and beyond showing the boss that the writer was doing
something rather than wasting time and money. How about workplace
reports that are used for evaluation only -- how are they different from
papers students write for evaluation purposes? How about project reports
that report on work that has never been done -- reports that lie with
the only purpose to justify the writer's salary and continuous
employment? Should we pretend that it never happens in the workplace? Of
course, these are extreme situations, but we need to keep in mind that
there many situations in which workplace writing is not as "real" as it
seems. I often see my students' writing as a much more "authentic" and
"real" than the documents I used to come across (or asked to
produce/edit) in various workplaces.
I am not trying to diminish the important differences between school and
workplace writing -- I agree with many conclusions drawn in Worlds
Apart. I'm just trying to show that the sharp distinction between school
and workplace is in fact much more "blurred."
Natasha
--
_____________________________________
Natasha Artemeva
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1S 5B6
Tel.+1 (613) 520-2600 ext.7452
Fax +1 (613) 520-6641
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.carleton.ca/~nartemev/index.html
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