Even though this is my third technical communication class at UNT, it’s the first one I’ve taken that focuses on the mechanics of writing. As Dr. Kim knows, I’m a corporate librarian and like a lot of librarians, I regularly create content. That includes reports for management, database walkthrough’s in e-mails, notifications for our Teams Channel, and articles for the newsletters the library sends out, and in every situation I’m pretty much left to my own devices and have to use my best judgement. So much of our communication with each other in the business world is written and I’m sure almost all professionals are tasked with communicating complicated information to various audiences at least sometimes, and with little or no special training. I know from experience it’s not easy to get busy people to take the time to read what I’ve written, much less understand exactly what I mean to convey. That’s why I’m very much looking forward to learning about writing in plain language and sharing what I learn with my team at work.
That said, I love language and thoroughly enjoyed the lecture materials this week. I was particularly delighted by Richard Lederer’s article, The Creativity of Human Language. The idea that when we speak or write, we are almost always creating something that has never existed before is very beautiful because it’s something nearly all humans do. I’ve never thought about language that way before, but I also like it as a unique perspective on creativity. I’ve met so many people who say they aren’t creative, and in making the case that “abounding creativity” is “inherent in the very nature of human language,” Lederer’s article makes the case that all humans are creative. I really love that idea.
It’s been probably 20 years since I’ve taken a linguistics class (the one that was required to get my BA in English) and so I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Kim’s lecture on types of linguistic variation and I know it will influence my approach to the work I do in this course. As we continue to talk about the different semantic and lexical approaches to writing technical information, I know it will be important for me to become comfortable with using this vocabulary (I’m already trying!).
Dr. Kim’s discussion of the consequences of linguistic variation in this week’s lecture was probably the information I learned that is most meaningful for my future career goals. It illustrates her earlier point that style guides are always prescriptive and helps explain why. I mentioned earlier that I’m expected to produce content that will be read by a lot of people in my job, but there’s really no direction for me and I know that’s true of other people’s experience, too. The way we communicate with our audience influences how much they understand and learn, and it also impacts their perception of our expertise. I know having guidance on how to write in a way that is both clear and promotes trust is much more effective than going it alone.
Link or two of the week
Did you hear that Merriam Webster says it’s okay to put a preposition at the end of a sentence? I’ve had animated discussions about this with other librarians and feel vindicated. John McWhorter of the New York Times agrees with me. (Gift link).
kristen palmiere 
Leave a comment