# Technical Academic and Corporate Writing Sub Forum now open



## dolphinlee

I suppose I could claim to be one of the most published authors on the site. My work has, over the years, been printed tens of thousands of times. 

Unfortunately school worksheets are rarely regarded as worthy of mention in the writers' world. 

At the start of my career I had to use a gestetner machine to make my worksheets. This involved 'cutting' a master by typing onto it using a real typewriter. Then the master was put onto a drum and copies were printed off. Next came the Banda. At first the only choice was blue, but over the years the choice increased until my worksheets were multicoloured and a lot more interesting. Nowadays worksheets are produced on a computer and emailed through to the reprographics department. Things certainly have changed over the last thirty years. 

During this time I learned many things. I learned never assume that your audience understands what you are talking about.   I learned that it is important to cut words down to a minimun because most students are lazy. I learned that spacing is important so the worksheet is not intimidating. But the biggest lesson I learned I learned because I taught a girl who was almost totally deaf. 

Beth was in the top set for chemistry. She had a special set of earphones which were radio linked to the microphone around my neck. It took a little while to get used to this, but eventually it didn't bother me anymore. Sometimes if a student was really irritating me I would pop out to the prep room,  ask the lab assistant to get out the cattle prod, after he handed me the imaginary prod I would tell him exactly where  where I was going to use it on the student.  When I returned to the room Beth was often sitting in her place, her shoulders bouncing up and down. It didn't matter how many times I forgot to switch the microphone off, or what I said, none of my words were ever repeated to the other students. I really like her for that. After all this juicy information would have earned her entry into many of the groups that rejected her.

Beth was really intelligent, though her language was limited because of her deafness. All her teachers were required to make special worksheets  that contained all the work but written using simple language.  Within two weeks of her arrival in my class I noticed that a lot of the students  had copies of her worksheets in their exercise books. When I asked them why, they told me that Beth's sheets were better, they were simpler to understand and a lot less frightening.

From then on, after I had written a worksheet I went back through it swapping out the more difficult words and cutting down the length of my sentences. Interestingly enough I saw an overall increase in my students grades. 

Even today I  try to use the simpler more common words. 


*I suppose that I need to ask a question to keep this thread going. 

What is the most important lesson you have learned for technical, academic or corporate writing? 
*


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## Cran

I remember the gestetner; like typesetting by hand into multi-column trays, it was still in use when I started.

I don't know about the most important, but the first lesson I learned was to ask for the style guide.


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## Jason

I started with the Banda in graduate school - but I was one of the older "returning students" .

Tongue slightly planted in cheek:  The most important lesson in academic writing was to get out!  Yes, get out!  I am writing a series of books on brain based learning.  The first is an overview of the science and current popular thinking in the field, the second teaching methodology and the third classroom management.  I made the very clear purposeful choice to abandon any semblance of academic writing so that the books MIGHT be read by teachers.  My experience with academic writing is that it is fraught with grammar police and small thinking.   

All of that said, back to what Cran said, ask for the style guide.  Learn correct citation rules.  Get a good grammar editor.  Fall over asleep after writing three paragraphs.  Wait for the droves of readers to beat you to the ignore.


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## The wolf

I learned that as long as I keep it simple and polite I have a good chance to get my point across.


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## Jason

Yes, simple and polite - good points.  I read things out loud to see where I stumble - that usually means it is not clearly written or needs better punctuation.


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## Mudgeon Ramblings

I learned that no matter how clear, how simple you write a memo some people will either not understand it or pretend  that they dont. It use to drive me crazy. I would spend so much extra time making sure that an average 100 IQ individual would  understand what i was saying and then I'd get an immediate question on something that was unequivocally stated in the memo GRRRRRRRRRR!


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## Kieran S

In my experience, it's critical to get the buy-in of the manager, or whoever you're doing the technical writing for. Lots of people don't see the value in writing an academic or technical report in a readable manner - they're happy to leave it in impenetrably long sentences of business-speak.

You're on a hiding to nothing if the buyer/employer thinks all you're doing is a fancy spell-check. If possible, and in a diplomatic way of course, one way to show your value is to present an example of their text before and after. Explain that it's not about dumbing down the text, or about correcting their writing (people are fairly sensitive about that!). You're really just getting them onside by walking them through what you've done and how you've done it.

So, in my humble opinion, it's the people who are hard not the skill/technology


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## aj47

I'm taking a technical writing course as part of my degree program.  Our first assignment was to write about why we're in the class and what our expectations are.  I'm pleased with my submission because I treated it like an essay.  

My strength is poetry, not non-fiction.  I hope to strengthen my non-fiction skills.


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## Plasticweld

If this sub forum offered home work I would be interested.  I have no burning topic or message I need to get across but would enjoy learning the skills. 

Annie if you posted your homework maybe I could also use that as an exercise. While I wrote estimates for my online motorcycle business for 12 years and was successful, I think it had more to do with the nature and timing of the business than my skills.

I have started a business blog but doubt that qualifies


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## InstituteMan

The homework idea brings to mind one of those old school experiences. I had a professor once who taught us how to write patent claims by starting with an attempt to describe the essential requirements of a three legged stool, in a way that doesn't assume you know what a "leg" or a "seat" is (because, hypothetically, we were describing the very first stool ever, a vast improvement over rocks and logs). It's a lot harder than you think.


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## qwertyportne

astroannie said:


> I'm taking a technical writing course as part of my degree program.  Our first assignment was to write about why we're in the class and what our expectations are.  I'm pleased with my submission because I treated it like an essay. My strength is poetry, not non-fiction.  I hope to strengthen my non-fiction skills.



Good point, Annie. My experience was the opposite: 25 years as a technical writer so when I retired I took a poetry course. Every now and then, while composing a poem, I tell the tech writer in me to sit down and shut up... 

Only thing I can add to the thread is the order in which I presented the information to my reader. I researched the topic from the specific to the general, then wrote my proposal or report from the general to the specific. 

For example, if you are writing a report as to the feasibility of constructing a cement plant on the Mississippi Delta, you write your conclusion at the beginning of the report, then support it with increasingly more specific details. Upper management, at least in my business, didn't want to wade through all the details to get to a conclusion. They'd read the first part of a report, then assigned their specialists to verify its accuracy and relevance.


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## rairose

Just to clarify, what sorts of projects are you referring to as "academic writing"?  I ask because I consider myself an academic writer, but many people think of homework help when they hear this, while others think of scholarly journals, course materials, etc.  Thoughts?


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## Cran

rairose said:


> Just to clarify, what sorts of projects are you referring to as "academic writing"?  I ask because I consider myself an academic writer, but many people think of homework help when they hear this, while others think of scholarly journals, course materials, etc.  Thoughts?


Short answer: Yes.

Addendum to Short Answer: This sub-forum is too small and under-utilised to consider being picky about definitions any time soon. If a piece of writing has any connection with anyone's idea of academia, school texts, peer-reviewed journals, or the Nobel Prize, it's "academic writing". 

Even though non-fiction is the broadest subset of writing, the largest employer of writers, and the more likely way any writer will put food on the table, it is the least discussed and least understood among people who want to be, or think of themselves as, writers.

Of the many forms of non-fiction we can or do dabble in, technical, academic, and corporate writing are distinctive in that they have, and to some extent share, specific rules and conditions over and above the general rules and conditions that apply to effective writing.


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## Yumi Koizumi

_"Even though non-fiction is the broadest subset of writing, the largest  employer of writers, and the more likely way any writer will put food on  the table, it is the least discussed and least understood among people  who want to be, or think of themselves as, writers."
_
Amen, @Cran. This is what has given me hope/confidence that I may well find readers in my niche-a niche I'm actually quite proud to be an innovator in. 

And there are aspects of this kind of writing that I'll bet most people would be surprised to hear about. One is 'presentation', a word that can mean anything at all you do to communicate your concept, idea, proposal, etc. There is a vast amount to understanding the psychology of listening/learning, body language/feedback, interruptions (snipers, sharks, spies, etc.), and even how to craft narration and graphics/animation/interaction.

And to me, it is all _terribly_ interesting! I'm hoping I can convey that interest & excitement about what most would assume is a dry topic, and thus create a compelling first work.


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## Cran

Yumi Koizumi said:


> And to me, it is all _terribly_ interesting! I'm hoping I can convey that interest & excitement about what most would assume is a dry topic, and thus create a compelling first work.


Yes, this is something I've seen some university lecturers and other teachers manage to do even when the required texts were drier than desert sand. But they have the advantage, like the screen-based science journalists and essayists, of using stage presentation skills and audio visual supplements.

It comes back to presentation, and you would know from voice work, your emotion is carried in your voice. To make academic texts work in the same way, the need is to put that voice, that emotion and excitement in the ideas into the text without losing the message. 

If Stephen Hawking can blow people away in his presentations on cosmology or anything using a synthesised voice, anything is possible. Even if I read one of his books, I hear that voice.


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## Yumi Koizumi

Cran said:


> Yes, this is something I've seen some university lecturers and other teachers manage to do even when the required texts were drier than desert sand. But they have the advantage, like the screen-based science journalists and essayists, of using stage presentation skills and audio visual supplements.



I hate to have a boring time, as student/learner or instructor/communicator. I am successful utilizing visual aids and 'whole group' exercises. How these are written & structured seems similar to doing the same in traditional writing. It doesn't just "happen".



Cran said:


> It comes back to presentation, and you would know from voice work, your emotion is carried in your voice.



I smile when I speak-even on the phone-as a habit. I think people can sense it at a high level, if not actually realize it on another.

Also, I see "academic" writing as separate from corporate/sales writing. Going through college courses today, nothing has changed for decades. 
A conversation last night:
Me: "What's so funny? "
X: "For my paper on stress for PSY108, I came across this definition, 'Aside from being itself, it is is both caused by itself and the result of itself. "
Me: "Perfect closing zinger for the end of the paper! Leave them with something, clever, short, and memorable!"
X: "Nope. They don't like that at all. The conclusion has to be about how the subject impacts the author, not witty quips."

Yikes! Too rigid for my likes, though I do conform begrudgingly in my own classes... This is why I draw a line between Academic & Professional/Corporate/Business writing-especially the compelling kind... 

Just how I see it from my standpoint...


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## WildPolitics

I know this thread is a little old now, so perhaps everyone has moved on.

In case not, I have been reading some profoundly beautiful and moving academic writing of late. It’s almost as if a spark of inspiration has been lit. Just when you don’t expect it, a journal paper comes through with soul and conscience. New books, like H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald are pushing into view. It is classified as a memoir, but it is also a natural history text, a wildlife manuscript and beautifully written prose.  

I hope academic writing can continue to evolve, and perhaps capture some of the spirit of the great lecturers. Academics need to be heard, but they have to tell their stories better!


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## Yumi Koizumi

_"I know this thread is a little old now, so perhaps everyone has moved on."_

I was hoping it would be an ongoing thing, really, as in WF the vast majority are classic writers. 

And WildPolitics, I don't like the word "Academic" to describe it, as that style is too rigid. Two spaces after a period? Yuk! But the sections, where the thesis goes, all of it seems to construct barriers for those in school instead of opening up imagination. A rigid style, to me, is meant to make things easier to evaluate & grade.

Well, I should back-pedal for a moment. If the writing itself is for academia, then yes, academic is a good word to describe it-but not the overall genre. I was trying to find a way of describing the vast majority of writing that goes on in the world every day, from emails to summaries, proposals to presentations-all those things that don't easily fit into the Fiction and Non-Fiction buckets.

Non-fiction writing brings historical, biographical, and financial content to mind for me. I've never heard someone call a multi-million dollar proposal 'non-fiction'. I tried calling it 'Professional Writing", but that gets people confused into thinking anything that pays. That brings up another good differentiator (<-businessy term right there!)... An 'author' here is paid on the work itself by some sort of contract that covers printing, sales, movie rights, etc. Professional writers draw a salary-and sometimes bonus/commission, depending on their job title. We get a steady paycheck, but only a tiny fraction of us in the working world have a title with the word 'writer' in it; "Technical Writer" comes to mind, and they are usually on loan from Marketing.

I have the word "Engineer" in my title, so you wouldn't think that I "write", but I do-a _lot_. I think that this means that there are writers who do nothing else, and there are non-writers (by title) that write, in this genre. The two big divisions in this kind of writing are 1. To Educate, and 2. To Sell (which is really #1 in hiding). I'm going into a ton of detail in describing this genre in a book I'm supposed to be working on each day!

But I am more interested in your experience, namely, "_I have been reading some profoundly beautiful and moving academic  writing of late. It’s almost as if a spark of inspiration has been lit.  Just when you don’t expect it, a journal paper comes through with soul  and conscience._"

Can you explain this spark? Is it on your, their, or both sides? What kinds of papers are you exposed to routinely? And of course, on whose side is the result _inspiration_?Thanks for sharing


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