Professionalism Series - 10: Different writing styles
This is a followup of part-2 and part-3 of the series.
Part-3 discussed the importance of accepting that you will be writing quite often.
Even when you are writing, though, there are many different styles, and rhetorical modes of writing.
Before you think elsewhere, knowing these styles and modes is not “the job of some english major, why should I care” [yes, I have heard that too]
The reason you have comprehension classes through college is for you to understand all of the writing that will be part of your life.
Rather than explain details, I will list down the different styles you could typically find in a company. I encourage you to research them in your own time.
- What is the difference between the styles of external and internal proposals?
- What is the difference between the styles of proposals and work specifications?
- What is the style adopted for feasibility analysis?
- How does a research publication differ in its writing style from a public article?
- How would you write a technical paper submitted to a conference? How does that differ from a technical paper presented to a journal?
- What is the most important rhetorical considerations of writing a patent application? How does that differ from design specifications?
- How would you create a document that pitches a certain advertisement design to internal managers?
- How should the rhetoric be for project reports? How would that different from a project post-martem report? How should it differ from future project enhancement documents?
- How would the writing style change if you were writing a white-paper?
- How would the writing style change if you were writing an article for a leading industry magazine? What about a leading general consumer magazine?
Finally, when and why are the documents above used in the typical company?
How long does each type of document take — on average– to create (assume that we already have templates)?
How much time, in %, should I spend on documentation every week?
March 2, 2008 at 6:42 am
I like the website. It’s cool! Very educational too…….
March 2, 2008 at 6:43 am
not very interesting at all.