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Marcy, > On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, Graham Smart wrote: > > > The seminar will look at how writing is used in the workplace/professions, > > rather than try to teach how to *do* professional writing. However, I > > will be asking the participants to do some on-site research looking at a > > particular genre in a professional/organizational setting of their > > choosing; they'll each be examining some socio-cultural aspect of a > > genre and then writing this up, hopefully as a conference paper or > > publication. > > In any case, it might be useful to draw a distinction between the kind of > writing Tania identified, and that Russ called "gun-for-hire" writing, > and the kind that's normally done by people in the course of their > profession, even though they aren't primarily identified as *writers* per > se. In the first case, writing often involves a complicated series of > relationships with "content specialists" -- the people who are expert at > what the gun-for-hire is writing about -- and possibly editors, too. In > the second, while those relationships may form, they aren't necessarily > an integral part of the work. For sure! I myself do see Professional Writing as encompassing both "career writers" (e.g., technical writers, documentation specialists, speech writers, etc.) _and_ people such as engineers, lawyers, medical researchers, etc. who write in the course of their work -- not to say that I think there's any one correct or most viable definition for PW. Graham ********************************** Graham Smart Assistant Professor Department of English 324 Heavilon Hall Purdue University West Lafayette Indiana 47907 Office phone: (765) 496-1593 Home phone: (765) 496-2373 e-mail: [log in to unmask] **********************************