WPA: Writing Program Administration, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1994 © Council of Writing Program Administrators
• Professional Communication and the Linda Myers) editor Politics of English Studies
Approaches to Michael Mendelson Computer Writing This essay is based on the proposition that professional writing belongs on equal footing with other courses in the English curriculum. I Distilled into its most compact form, the proposition rests on the logic of the following Classrooms syllogism: Learning from Practical Experience Rhetoric embraces writing in the workplace; English Studies includes rhetoric as well as literature; Therefore, English Studies extends (or ought to) "My first thought went like this: 'Oh no, not another to writing in the workplace. book about computer labs.' But after I read the book, J real ized the great diversity possible in classroom design. I started Itis, ofcourse, the parenthesi", the "ought to," thatis theproblemati (" fea ture to get really interested. And this surprised me because I have of thissylIogism. For the parenthesis acknowledges that while profcssi anal written on the topic, and I thought I had it allfigured out. I writing courses have been a staple in many English departments for more learned a lot from reading this book." - Thomas T. Barker than a decade, their actual status is still very much in question.: If such is Texas Tech University the case, and I believe it is, any proposal for the integration of professional writing into the English curriculum will need more than the strict logic of a syllogism to be persuasive. In the end, the reform proposed here will This text provides a variety of practical and theoretical require persistent dialogue on the part of department administrators and approaches to computer classroom design. Pedagogical. faculty; careful attention to curricular innovations of schools in the fore ethical, and political issues are discussed as well as nuts-and front of professional communication (hereafter RPC, for rhetoric and bolts construction. adapting teaching styles to a CAl environ professional communication, the standard name for this emerging disci pline); and proof supplied by teachers of RPC that their professional ment, use of specific hardware and software, and speculation interestsarein fact consistent with the activi ties of the department Miltonist, regarding future electronic learning environments. linguist, and composition specialists. But a general willingness to discuss reform is in itself no guarantee 225 pages that reform will be the end product of even the most well-intentioned $16.95 paperback efforts. What weneed is a setofpractical guidelines that plota path for RPC ISBN 0·79'4·'568·6 from the margins to the mainstream of English Studies. Without such guidelines, all courses in professional communication (including business State University of New York Press writing, technical writing, visual communication, editing, argumentative c/o CUP Services • PO Box 6525 writing,and writing internships) Ldn too easily beadded to thedepartmen Ithaca, NY 14851 • 1·800·666-2211 (orders) tal course list but ignored as importantcontributors to the actuilIspectrum American Express, Discover. MasterCard. VISA ofdiscourscstudies. In thisessay, I will focus on those particularissues that Please include $3 shipping we must confront and those practical steps we might take if we hope to achieve substantive reform. NY stale residents. add 8% sales tax • WPA: Writing Program Administration Vol. 17, No.3, Spring, 1994 7 WPA: Writing Program Administration, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1994 © Council of Writing Program Administrators
I put forward this proposal knowing full well that curricular debate research profile. What follows is my attempt to more fully define what overprofessional writing is far from resolved at manyschools. 1 I know that "integration" and "research" ought to meanin the context ofthis discussion. some dedicated teachers of English believe strongly that RPC courses are By integration, I mean nothing less than the incorporation of all too vocational, too mundane, too likely-in some curricular manifestation branches of English Studies (linguistics and creative writing, as well as ofGresham's Law-to drive out what they feel to be the more appropriate literature and rhetoric) into a seamless curriculum that does not play study of British and American literature. Recently, a director of the ADE favorites. The goal ofsuch integration is to engage our students in the full wrote to me claiming that "students can learn about the practical genres in spectrum of language study, and while the force of precedent may mean many places in our society (including the school of business), but the that there are more literahtre courses than anything else, an integrated English department is the only place they can learn about the literary curriculum will be one in which students are effectively encouraged to genres." Implicit in such comments is an attitude of contempt and sample from a full menu of options. This basic definition generates a dismissal, a perception that the business of English Studies in some way number of specific issues we must confront if integration is to go forward. becomes sullied by an association with professional communication. Such First: In an integrated program, disciplinary links between RPC an attitude is, I am sorry to say, still widespread. But my goal in this essay courses and the rest of the English and institutional curricula will be is not to engagein whatIconsidera lingeringskirmishin thelongcampaign established through course prerequisites and careful sequencing. All too to make composition studies legitimate; rather, I wish to advance a often a course in business communication, perhaps in tandem with the pragmatic agendafor those whoalready understandthatEnglishis a multi technical writing course, floats about in some ignored eddy of the writing disciplinary area made more robust by extending its fundamental concern program, totally without mooring in the curriculum and without cause with linguistic competence into promising new territories. ways to and from other courses. We can begin to contemplate the My proposal for integrating RPC into the English curriculum must relationship ofsuchcourses to the rest of the curriculum by addressing the notonly contend,however, with the vestigial contemptof many tradition following questions: alists; it must also recognize the strong local flavor of most academic • What are the appropriate prerequisites for professional writing? politics. Simply put, the politics of my department are not the same as the • Do rhetorical theory, literary study, and additional training in politics of yours, even though we may both be involved in discussing the advanced compositionenhance the study of professionaI writing? role of professional writing in the English curriculum. Let me acknowl Or alternatively, edge, then, that my experience with issues ofcurricular reformcomes from • Does professional writing prepare a student for additional, more a large public university in the Midwest, Iowa State, where-after four advanced work in rhetoric and/or composition? years ofdiscussion-theDepartmentofEnglishnow hasan undergraduate • How does professional writing fit in with a Writing-Across-thc area-of-concentration in Rhetoric and Professional Communication, as Curriculum program, or more broadly--how do WAC programs well as a doctoral program in the same subject. Inherent in Iowa State's address the subject of rhetoric in the workplace? redesigned curriculum is a vision of English Studies as an inclusive rather Once these questions (and the more specific ones that follow from them) than exclusive experience, a vision that extends not only to diverse have been addressed and responded to, RPC will have a morc appropriate literatures and academic essays but also to the kinds of texts our students anchor in the English curriculum and, justas important, students and their will be producing and interpreting as professionals. The claims of this advisors will be better able to address the relation of professional writing vision seem to me to operate for any English department. to a particular program of study (see Brereton, 284-94). So on to the mattcr of integration, or how can RPC be effectively Second, a related point: We must bcgin to think about the relation of incorporated into the English Studies curriculum, not only at schools like RPC to the English major. The rhetoric of the workplace is very different mine, but anywhere. My approach here will be twofold, and notespecially from that of the academy; and, as repeated surveys indicate, college startling: 1) integration of RPC courses will involve a comprehensive graduates can plan on spendingbetweena quarterand a third of their time review of the department's program of study rather than piecemeal writing (Anderson 30ff). Our own informal surveys at Iowa State indicate additions to the existing curriculum; and 2) barriers to integration can be that if teachers are taken out of the pool of English graduates, business is effectively scaled by efforts on the part of RPC faculty to increase their dearly the dominantcareer for English majors, and communication, inone
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form or another, is their principal activity on the job. If, however, the In other words, our courses in RPC must be no less theoretically pro~ram of study for the major bypasses existing courses in RPC, or if rigorous than a course in Shakespe,we that introduces stud~'nts to feminist existing courses do not meet the minimal "tandard for an effective intro or new historicist perspectives, or a course in argumentative writing that duction to professional communication, then perhaps our majors are ill ,'ppeals to Stephen ToulminorChaim Perelman. Sucha requirement places prepared for the: rhetorical challenges of professional as well as academic substantial demands on teachersof professional wri hngsince mo~t texts in cultures. In either case, the faculty has an obligation to contemplate the the field remain almost entirely devoid of theory. Nonetheless, teachers relationship behveen the major and the future of its graduates. with training in rhetoric and composition or teachers who have tried to At Iowa State, weare attempting to fulfill this obligation by requiring keep abreast of research developments in the area should be able to our majors to begin their studies with a block of courses that introduces augment the utilitarian materials of the available texts with adequate them to the broad scope of the discipline. After separate introductory information on, for example, the Aristotelean triad, the Burkcan pentad, or courses in literary studies, rhetorical analysis, and linguistics, each student Bakhtinian dialogics. Without such informing theory, RPC courses can chooses from a group of upper-division writing courses (which includes easily degenerate into the kind of skills-training that many opponents of four RPC options) and completes a theory course in either the literary or these courses see as the unalterable nahuc of the beast. rhetorical tradition. Students then focus theiradvanced study in literature, Fourth: The teachingor profession,ll writing should notbe viewed as RPC, or teacher-education. In this program of study, then, rhetoric is not a departmental albatross to be borne by professors whose principal an addendurn. And \vhile most ofour majors enter the program assuming interests lie elsewhere. In 1985, the ADE reported that 26(~;) of the teachers that the study of English is equivalent to the study of literature, their assigned by Englishdepartments to RPC courseswere literaturespecialists curricular experience expose~ them to a range of approaches that accu with "no special trainingor experience in professional wri ting" (Rivers 51). rately reflects the breadth of our discipline. The student who emphasizes Myguess is that the majorityofadditional teachers who routinelystaff RPC literarv studies in this curriculum will have some ilcquaintance with non courses developed their "experience" not in graduate school or the work bellet;istic writing, while students who opt for an RPC emphasis can build place. Rather, most teachers of Rl'C continue to be "bootstrappers" (i.e. a program of study that can include as many as half their courses in teachers who have trained themselves in the discipline) who mayor may professional communication. Ourhope is that no miljor is excessively one not appreciate the differences betvveen academic and professional dis sided in his/her emphasis, while RPC-oriented students need not feel as course. though they are in mutiny from a predominantly literature program. There are two potential responses to the preponderance of Third: If, as is the case at most schools, a single business or technical bootstrappers in the professional communication classroom: departments writing course is to provide English majors (as well as undergraduates can 1) hire from the soon-to-be-availablc crop of PhDs in RPC, and/or 2) from a pot pourri of disciplines) with effective training in professional make a concerted effort to train those faeu Ity members wi th other specia1 communication, then we must approach RPC in theoretical as well as ties whose teaching responsibilities have come to include RPC course". practical terms. Our subject is essentially rhetoric: the study of discourse Option One will naturally be a matter for careful scrutiny, but administr? and the complex of activities that surround the creation and reception of tors and facultv should kno'v\' that since 1990, doctoral level programs In meaning within working cultures. Our goal is to supply students with the RPC-related '1f~as have sprung up in significant numbers· Consequently, knowledge required for participation in and critique of the discourse there will be no lack of well-trained teachers/scholars available to depart practices of professional communities. Business writing courses domi ments who are serious about enhancing their RPC faculty. The more nated by such formalistic trivia as the buffered openingfor correspondence previllent choice, however, will undoubtedly be Option Two, so that the and a calculus for readability cannot fulfill this goal. Only the framework issue of retraining becomes a matter of substantial importance in any provided by rhetorical theory can provide students 'vvith an adequate blueprint for change. understanding of the nature and function of linguistic interaction, an Let me make dear that I do not automatically doubt the competence understanding sufficient for them to comprehend and respond to a work of teachers who are initiallv untrained in profc!>~ional communication; 1 ing world saturated by textuality and characterized by a myriad of have seen too many "English" teachers tak~' up RPC with too much conventions, format", ilnd styles. commitment and creativity to make me a general sceptic. But I am
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concerned about the lack ofopportunities for theprofessional development and we must accord this forum a voice in the administration of the of both full-time and occasional RPC instructors. More specifically, my department's writing curriculum. concern is with those teachers (at any level) who, for reasons ofscheduling To this point, I have addressed the politics of integration as they exigence or job availability, are asked to step into a business writingcourse broadly relate to curriculum, staffing, and the department's administrative with little or no exposure to a rhetorical domain that is dramatically structure. AsI have tried to indicate, the motive and themeans are at hand different than the area of their own academic training. My fear is that to effect significant change in the status of RPC courses. But if my own because of the lowly status of professional writing within the curriculum experience is any indication, change will require more than bureaucratic and community there are too many teachers ofRPC who feel that they have integration. What is at stake is the perception of "Who are we as a abandoned, or been pressed out of their native country and are in exile in department?" and "Howwill thisnew discipline (RPC) affect ouridentity?" a foreign and inhospitable land. Would we tolerate a similar situation by Such questions require contemplation by the department as a whole; and, repeatedly dislocating a medievalist to the alien territory of 20th century as I have noted, cooperative effort on the issue of professional communi American Literature? If not, what message does our reliance on teachers cation can be difficult to achieve. Indeed, the late Donald Stewart refers to with limited trainingorinterestin professiona1writingsend tobothfaculty programs of advanced study in rhetoric as "islands in the wilderness far and students about the place of RPC courses in the curriculum?5 ahead ofthe frontier ofthe profession and in danger ofbeing destroyed by The situation is not, however, without remedy. Departments can hostile forces" (193). Nonetheless, if professional communication is to hold seminars and colloquia on professional communication for teachers become a member of the English Studies community in good standing in need of retraining. They can institute peer mentoring programs, invite rather than a ghetto resident living on the fringe of respectability, then the in a visiting scholar in professional communication to lecture orconsult, or dominant community (which in most cases is literary studies) must be distribute reading lists and pedagogical materials, all ofwhichcancontrib encouraged to think seriously about the practical issues that follow from ute to the preparation of effective bootstrappers. At the very least, myopeningsyllogism. Itis, inmyopinion, the responsibility ofdepartmen departments must make some move to provide intellectual and pedagogi tal administrators and officers to provide such encouragement. They can cal support for faculty members who may know verylittle about thesubject begin to do so by contemplating the five issues outlined above and by they are endeavoring to teach. The alternative to such administratively promoting forums in which these issues can be openly discussed. sponsored support is to ask such faculty to choose between doing their But the RPC staff itselfneed not wait for department-wide discussion homework on their own or not doing it at all. The implication of such a to get under way in order to enhance its own position at the table. choice is that the department doesn't really care if these courses are taught Regardless of what the present status of a professional writing course in a well because they remain somewhere outside the core of our primary department may be, teachers and scholars of RPC can hasten the kind of responsibility. integration I seek by turning theirattention to research. As scholars, we are Five: Most teachers of professional writing have no independent notso totally dependentonthemediating opinionsofthe largercommunity committeeor forum in which to discuss curricular, pedagogical,and policy to whichwe belong; rather, weareindividually responsible for earningour issuesspecifically related to RPC. Under suchcircumstances, business and own place at the roundtable of English Studies with a currency that is technical writing courses are bound to be considered a curricular backwa honored throughout the academy. And while the exchange rate for ter to be patrolledby the departmental proletariat and visited occasionally scholarship in RPC may not be universal, the fact remains that research by faculty members who consider themselves on temporary leave from prospects for RPC scholars are especially bright. Moreover, the discipline their actual profession. Alternatively, faculty members who routinely ofEnglish has, on the whole, proven readyinrecent years to reconceive the teach these courses need to convene and discuss the issues raised by their scope of its research interests in considerably broader terms. So I tum to courses. This is especially important if there is no professional communi the second section of my "notes on integration" with a full measure of cation specialist on staff or if business and technical writing courses have enthusiasm for what active scholarship mightdo to hasten the inclusion of been folded into the administrative purview of the freshman composition RPC into the mainstream of English Studies. or undergraduate curriculum committees. In order to ensure the effective The first point to makeabouta research agenda inRPC is that thefield integration of RPC classes, we need to encourage the formation of a is wide open and significant opportunities exist to contribute valuable separate forum for all those who havebecome defacto specialistsinthearea, knowledge on a host of subjects. Consider the breadth of the parent
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discipline of rhetoric, a 2,500-year-old tradition that seeks to define and on "l3usine:"" Writing and the Spread of Literacy in the Late Middle Ages" describe the communication act and, in particular, the various historical, (by Malcolm Richardson) and on Lord Chesterfield'sepistolary rhetoric (by epistemological, psychological, cultural, and technical forces that condi Willi"m E. Rivers). In short, we need more research that examine" tion this act. RPC focuses specifically on the rhetoric of written communi historical texts in their own socia/cultural contexts and in the proce"s cation within the business, academic, scientific, and technical communities. establishes a lineage for contemporary practice. We also need more Its goal is to apply the extensive, varied tradition of rhetorical theory to theoretical research in the field; more research that posits ge-nera li"ed those practical questions relevant to professional communicators and accounts of the various genres, procedures, and contexts that characterize professional discourse communities. Such question" include the following writingin the workplace; and mOre research thatprovidesnew illternatives rather obvious but very extensive areas of inquiry: to the pragmatism that h,'5 to-date quite reasonably dominated research in • How do professional writers create or collaborate to create dis this most utilitarian of discour~e types. In particular, we- need to explore course,andhow doreaders in professionaIsettingsconstructorco more fully the methodological innovations of recent literary and critical construct meaning? theory and to extend the range ofour theoretic,,) appeal beyond Aristotle, • How do professionals and novice" acquire the specialized skills the ars dietami/lis, and Kenneth Burke to Foucault, Sa khtin, and Habermas, that allow them to participate in specific discourse communities, among others. The result would, I think, be a significantly expanded and how can writing instructors enhance the learning process? conception of what rhetorical studies in professional communication •I low can business writing scholars evaluate the effectiveness of can be. communication in professional cultures, and what contribution Third, we must remainalert to the interdisciplinary natureof research can empirical methodologies make to this evaluation? in writing\vithin theprofessions. Therearcnatu rill ex tensions between our • And how does the discourse of professional communities reflect work as rhetoriciant- and the interests of many other disciplines, such as and respond to various political, economic, cultural, and technical ethnography, psycho-linguistics, organizational and cognitive psychol influences7" ogy, the history of technology, the sociology of group behavior, computer The reader will notice that my outline for RPC scholarship empha science, even graphic arts. Studies such as Joi\nne Yates' Control TIIrollgll sizes both the humanistic origins of the discipline and the multi-disciplin Commullication and Charles Bazerman's Shapillg Written K/JOlPledgc signal a ary nature of its present practice, a combination that accounts for much of new refinement in cross-over studies with a rhetorical base; and we can, I the discipline's excitement and potential. The most enticing feature of this think, expect increasing diversity in method and subj('ct as the discipline emerging discipline may well be the fact that inquiry into topics like the matures. The effect of such diversitv w.ill not be a loss of concentration in above has really just begun, so that, to paraphrase Ivan Karamazov, our primary research age-nda (such 'a notion is hardly consi~tent with the "anything is possible." Collections ofessays edited by Odell and Goswami heterogeneous nature of the work conducted under the aegis of English); in Writillg ill Non-Academic Scttil/gs, byMyra Kogcn in Writing in tile Business rather, the expansion of rhetoric and composition "tudies into the domain Professions, or byThrallsand BI yl er in Profcssiorw ICo III It/II II ica tion: The Social ofbusinessand professional di"course will mean a fuller, morecomprehen Perspective are indicative of the breadth of the terrain and the applicability sive application of English Studies to the world around us. of diverse methodologies. i\nd because the field is new, the door remains This emphasis on the ce-ntri fugal nature of research in RPC brings me open to modest studies as well as ground-breaking scholarship. Such to my fourth and final recommcndation: we need to move beyond the pale opportunity should inspire both novice and veteran scholars as they of our own working environment and investigate all those communities contemplate the possibilities for research in the rhetoric of the workplace. that are the putative subject of the discipline-from small bllsincsses to Second, a" we fill out the m"p of the new discipline, we must address government agencies, from public-relation.s firms to the local CPA. more fully the need for historical and theoretical research in RPC We need Broadhead and Freed's TI1I' VI1riables ofComposition.· Process and Product ill research like Kitty Locker's investigation ofthe earlycorrespondencebythe 11 BIiSilll'5S Sri ting exemplifies opportunities in this area. And in fact, everv East Indian Company or Robert Shenk's discussion of the links between teacherof profest-ionaIcom m unication has a multitude of research option's Roman suasoria (a kind of history-based writing assignment) and contem in her own neighborhood. This potential for movement beyond the porary case-study problems. We need more publications like Douglas and classroom and into the field i;, a unique aspect of rc!'>earch in RPC and an Hildebrandt's Studies III the History of BIISil,CSS Writing with its fine essays additional cause for excitement on the part of independent researchers.
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Those who follow this "ethnographic path" will find that not only is there corroborated by noting the very small number of Engli~h departments that (as of a new continent of composition practice out there waiting to be mapped, 1989) offered students the opportunity to pursul:' an integrated course of ],:mguage but that the communities we seek to investigate--thebusinesses, factories, study i.n an
2, AnADE-sponsored survey by William E. Rivers in 1985 indicated that, between 1979 and 1984, almost two-thirds of 568 sample departments either doubled or tripled their enrollment in RPC courses, And yet, 71% of these same departments reported that faculty response to this growth ranged from '·reSl:'f\'cd acceptance" to "intense disapproval" (51-52). This di~trust of RPC courses can be informally
I () I 7 WPA: Writing Program Administration, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1994 © Council of Writing Program Administrators
Odell, Lec, and Dixie GoswamL eds. Writillg III NOll-Academic Settings. Works Cited New York: Guilford,1985,
Anderson, Paul V. "What Survey Research Tells Us." Writing ill Non Richardson, Malcolm. "Business Writingand theSpreadofLiteracy in Late Academic Settings. Eds. Lee Odell and Dixie Goswami. New York: Medieval England." Studies III the History ofBlisiness Writing. Eds. Guilford,1985, 3-83. George H. Douglas ,md Herbert W. Hildebrandt. Urbana, IL: The Association for Business Communication, 1985. 1-10. Bazerman, Charles. Slzapillg Writtell Kllowledge: The Genre and Actiuity of the Experimental Article ill Sciellce. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1988. Rivers, William E. "Elegant Simplicity: Lord Chesterfield's Ideal for Business Writing." Studies ilz the History oj Busill1'ss Writilzg. Eds. Brereton, John. "The Professional Writing Program and the English Ceorge H. Douglas and Herbert W. Hildebrandt. Urbana, IL: The Department." Writing ill the Business Professions. Ed. Myra Kogen. Association for Business Communication, 1985. 135-144. Urbana, IL: NCTE and The Association for BusinessCommunication, 1989.279-296. --' "The Current Status of Business and Technical Writing Courses in English Departments," ADE Bulletin 82 (19H5): 50-54, . Broadhead, Glenn 1, and Richard C. Freed. The Van'l1bles of Composition: Process and Product in a BllSil,CSS Sctting. Carbondale: SouthernIHinois Stewart, Donald C. "What Is an English Major, and What Should It Be?" UP, 1986. CCC 40.2 (1989): 188-202.
Chapman, David, and Gary Tate. "A Survey of Doctoral Programs in Tebeaux, Elizabeth, ed. Prospects jllY Promotion and Tenure. Associated Rhetoric and Composition." [{hetoric R.euiew 5 (1987): 124-183. Teachers of Technical Writing (scheduled for Fall 1993).
DOllg[as, GeorgeH., andHerbertW. Hildebrandt, cds. Studies in tire History Thralls, Charlotte, and Nancy Roundy Blyler, eds. Projl'ssiVlwl Coml1llmi of Rusilli'SS WritillX. Urbana, IL: The Association for Business catioll: TlTe Social Perspective. Newberry Park, CA: Sage, 1992. Communication, 1985. Yaks, JoAnne. Control Through Conmlllrzicatioll: The Rise of Systrnl 111 Enos, Theresa. "A Survey of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Compo American Management. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. sition." [{hetoric T\evieU! (scheduled for Fall 1993).
Lauer, Janice, and Andrea Lunsford. "The Place of Rhetoric and Compo sition in Doctoral Studies." The Future of Doctoral Studies in English. Eds. Andrea Lunsford, Helene Moglen, andJamesSelven. New York: MLA,1989. 106-lIO.
Locker, Kitty O. 'The Earliest Correspondence of the British East India Company (1600-1919)." SI udies ill the His/f)r!! ofBusiness Wrilin~. Eds. George H. Douglas and Herbert W. Hildebrandt. Urbana, IL: The Association for Business Communication, 1985. 69-86.
Lunsfurd, Andrea, Helenc Moglen, and James Selven, cds. The FutuYe of Doctoral Studies ill Ellglish. New York: MLA, 19H9.
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