My first takeaway from this chapter was that becoming a good professional writer means unlearning some academic writing habits. For example, long, lengthy argumentative paragraphs are very effective at communicating academic topics, but may not be as effective when trying to keep the attention of a reader in professional settings. While some academic skills overlap with professional skills, professional writing is much simpler, shorter and to the point, communicating a message as quickly and effectively as possible rather than making an argument.
A second takeaway from this chapter was that when writing technically, you should use the most plain language possible. This prevents misinterpretations from readers, and allows a larger audience to be able to read and understand the piece. Avoiding being wordy and not including jargon language in writing keeps it simple and easy to read, allowing everyone reading to be on the same page
The two main points I want to highlight from the first chapter are a. the difference between professional and academic writing and b. plain language/plain English. The first point— professional vs. academic— highlights the key differences between the two formats. Those differences include the use of contractions, jargon, and sentence/paragraph length. Essentially, professional writing is far more casual than academic writing (although not overly casual). The second part of the reading I want to highlight is the emphasis on “plain English,” which is what most professional writing is done with. This type of writing emphasizes simplistic language choices, simple sentence structures, and, overall, an easily digestible product. This is crucial for professional writing because it ensures that your product is not limited to a specific audience and is, for the most part, universally understood. Products written in ‘plain English’ better promote your company, advertisement, article, etc., as more people are able to consume and understand the product.
The first chapter of the text created an understanding of the differences in academic writing and business writing. The text explains how the two are both important but academic writing is a bit more strict than professional writing. Academic writing requires a writer to follow a format like APA or MLA, doesn’t approve of “I” or “me “statements, has long and complex ideas that may create longer sentences, specialized language is fine, and grammar use is highly important. Think of this style of writing as something out of a textbook for a class, the information is often very informative and is abided to a strict format of what’s right and wrong. Professional writing is different than academic because the writers are looking to communicate as effectively as possible by using less specialized of language to create a concise message, the ideas are more central creating less words within sentences, the use of “I” or “me” statements is okay, and grammar is still important, but less rigid. The important part of knowing the difference of the two types of writing is the audience and what the writer is looking to communicate. If a lab student is reading the lab instructions for a case report, that would be academic formatted writing. Something like an email to a colleague or interviewer would have a professional writing style.
Two big points of this chapter are plain language that shows concrete and specific examples in writing, and proper techniques that help better an individual’s writing. Plain language is important in writing because it can create a better understanding of the information shown for the reader. By using plain language and proper techniques, writing can become “more attractive” visually which can assist businesses with professional documents and business documents. Plain language can also improve compliance which reduces enforcement costs and responds to the needs of the people so that their time is not wasted. Proper techniques in writing can include academic writing in a business setting and professional non-academic writing. For academic writing, some things it includes are; the information is often highly complex, the language is often highly specialized, and sentences are usually long and complex. For non-academic writing, some things it includes are; ideas are expressed as simply and concisely as possible, paragraphs are short (four to eight lines), style is more informal, and grammar rules are kind of relaxed. The techniques in these two types of writing can be beneficial to the individual depending on the audience they are writing for.
In Chapter 2 I noticed two major themes; using professional jargon has a time and place and plain language can save time and questions. In the modern day, professional writing and communication has become for experts by experts. This is often noticeable in political documents, news outlets, and other formal pieces of communication that use specific or formal language that can lead to confusion after an initial read of a document. I appreciated how the chapter pointed out that professions like engineers or medical providers need to use professional communication, however, it’s a style not everyone is accustomed to. When someone is communicating, it’s important to produce something that can be understood by a range of people. This is where plain language comes in which is more simplified for people not of that profession. While a good communicator and recipient should share questions the initial communication should be clear and laid out in a manner that is digestible for any reader.
In the second chapter of the textbook, the author explains the meaning and importance of plain English. Two big concepts from this chapter include the importance of using plain English in professional settings, and how we can use visual additions to our professional writing to make them more appealing to look at. Throughout the chapter the author gives several examples of how plain English has been adopted by governments and other large organizations in order to make them more accessible to both the public, as well as agents of said organizations.
To the first point that I believe is important in this chapter, the emphasis on using plain language to communicate in professional settings. The author explains that the use of plain English is largely used for the sake of accessibility. In many academic or technical documents, the writing can oftentimes be lengthy and filled with jargon. Whereas when using plain English, the writing is effectively simplified to be understood by laymen. In many ways the use of plain English seems to exemplify the words that I used to describe my understand of professional writing. Clinical, sterile, and concise. It is removing the fat from the content and slimming it down into something that is more digestible.
The second big idea of the chapter is about using things that are visually appealing in your writing when writing in a professional setting. The author talks about things such as white space, using headers, indexes, and lists during your writing. This is to keep the content that you are writing visually engaging in a way that goes beyond walls of gray texts that are carried on the merit of their intellectual content alone.
For the very first chapter, it focuses primarily on the basics of how to become a better professional and technical writer, and one of the things that this chapter briefly touches on that I want to quickly talk about is to unlearn many things that you may already know about writing. Writing novels and Professional/Technical Writing are not the same thing, so it is important to separate the qualities that make a good short story or novel, and the skills one needs when writing professional papers that can help you further your professional career. Every job that you will have in your life is going to use writing one way or another, but how they use it will be entirely up to you. No matter where you work, communication through written emails and letters will always be something that you need to know how to properly do. If you are a novelist, you need to not exactly forget everything that you know about writing, but instead, maybe re-evaluate what you know to apply it to professional and technical writing styles. I think that it is important to understand the boundaries between novel writing and professional writing, but don’t entirely let go of what you know. Instead, find a way to build on what you know and use it to expand your skills and your experience. That is why this part is super important, as it allows us to stretch the boundaries and maybe bend the rules, but not exactly break them.
On the other hand, it is also important to understand the difference between simple writing and complex writing, even in the field of professional writing. When you are writing a law case brief or even writing a will, you need to understand how you are coming across or what you are reading. If you are having to read the same page at least 5 or 6 times, what you are reading is not a simple piece of writing. It is important to know that longer does not always mean better. Length means nothing if the quantity of what you are providing is too complex for your reader to understand. I think when you are writing something that is in the professional field, the less you write but the more you write, the better. You can do so much with so little.
An important point from this chapter is the difference between academic and business writing. Both are professional, but have their own audiences. Academic writing has a lot of jargon, is complex, and tends to be long-winded with detail. These papers are meant to convey a lot of information and as precisely as possible. Business writing is a bit less formal, straight to the point, and avoids the use of jargon so people can read and understand quickly. These emails, memos, etc. are meant to get information across clearly and concisely with little to no room for misinterpretation.
Another important point is understanding how to write/rewrite something in plain language. This is commonly used for legal documents. People who aren’t familiar with legal jargon aren’t able to understand these documents, so writing something like a contract in plain language will prevent a lot of confusion. Writing such documents in plain language is an effective way to make them accessible to the public. Time is money, and less time can be spent having to assist someone in understanding a document if plain language is used. It’s important to recognize your audience and when plain language is beneficial. Business writing should have plain language, while academic writing will include more specialized language.
There is a difference between professional writing and academic writing. Academic writing includes:
The information is often highly complex
The language is often highly specialized
Sentences tend to be long and complex, in keeping with the complex subject matter
Paragraphs are long enough to explore each complex idea deeply
The style is formal and avoids first person wording like “I” and “you”
Academic citations
Grammar rules are strictly followed
Professional writing includes:
Ideas are expressed as clearly as possible
Specialized words and jargon are avoided as often is they can be
Sentences have one main idea with maybe 1 or 2 supporting factors
Paragraphs are short with 4-8 sentences in them
The style is more informal
Grammar rules are slightly more relaxed
Plain language is extremely important. The main takeaway that was mentioned towards the end was that if you have to read the same thing more than once to understand what it means, then it’s not plain language. Plain language is very important for the common person, as it is how most of us write and read. It’s a problem when things are written in different manners because it makes it hard for us to understand and is also costing the government time and money. Old legislatures and laws were written in a more complicated form of communication, so the government has been working on rewriting some laws and legislatures that are difficult to understand so time and money isn’t wasted on the meanings behind them to be deciphered by people because others couldn’t understand.
I think the plain language thing will be hard for me. I like to use big words and I know my sentences go on for longer than they probably should. This has definitely made writing a resume/cover letter in the past challenging so I am excited to see about tips this book has for making it easier to write in plain text. Or any tips about editing things down to become more like plain text. I definitely understand why plain language is more beneficial than super complex language. I just don’t have a lot of practice using it. I am certainly excited to change that and become better at using plain language to better my chances of getting a job. I wonder if the fact that plain language is better to use has anything to do with the fact that literacy and grammar rules are being focused on less in most schools now. The text mentioned how switching to plain language made it so customers called with questions about a product less often. I wonder if that has anything to do with them not knowing the rules of grammar as well as people may have used to so the language needed to be simplified more. Just something to think about.
10 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 2”
My first takeaway from this chapter was that becoming a good professional writer means unlearning some academic writing habits. For example, long, lengthy argumentative paragraphs are very effective at communicating academic topics, but may not be as effective when trying to keep the attention of a reader in professional settings. While some academic skills overlap with professional skills, professional writing is much simpler, shorter and to the point, communicating a message as quickly and effectively as possible rather than making an argument.
A second takeaway from this chapter was that when writing technically, you should use the most plain language possible. This prevents misinterpretations from readers, and allows a larger audience to be able to read and understand the piece. Avoiding being wordy and not including jargon language in writing keeps it simple and easy to read, allowing everyone reading to be on the same page
The two main points I want to highlight from the first chapter are a. the difference between professional and academic writing and b. plain language/plain English. The first point— professional vs. academic— highlights the key differences between the two formats. Those differences include the use of contractions, jargon, and sentence/paragraph length. Essentially, professional writing is far more casual than academic writing (although not overly casual). The second part of the reading I want to highlight is the emphasis on “plain English,” which is what most professional writing is done with. This type of writing emphasizes simplistic language choices, simple sentence structures, and, overall, an easily digestible product. This is crucial for professional writing because it ensures that your product is not limited to a specific audience and is, for the most part, universally understood. Products written in ‘plain English’ better promote your company, advertisement, article, etc., as more people are able to consume and understand the product.
The first chapter of the text created an understanding of the differences in academic writing and business writing. The text explains how the two are both important but academic writing is a bit more strict than professional writing. Academic writing requires a writer to follow a format like APA or MLA, doesn’t approve of “I” or “me “statements, has long and complex ideas that may create longer sentences, specialized language is fine, and grammar use is highly important. Think of this style of writing as something out of a textbook for a class, the information is often very informative and is abided to a strict format of what’s right and wrong. Professional writing is different than academic because the writers are looking to communicate as effectively as possible by using less specialized of language to create a concise message, the ideas are more central creating less words within sentences, the use of “I” or “me” statements is okay, and grammar is still important, but less rigid. The important part of knowing the difference of the two types of writing is the audience and what the writer is looking to communicate. If a lab student is reading the lab instructions for a case report, that would be academic formatted writing. Something like an email to a colleague or interviewer would have a professional writing style.
Journal 2: The Basics of Strong Writing:
Two big points of this chapter are plain language that shows concrete and specific examples in writing, and proper techniques that help better an individual’s writing. Plain language is important in writing because it can create a better understanding of the information shown for the reader. By using plain language and proper techniques, writing can become “more attractive” visually which can assist businesses with professional documents and business documents. Plain language can also improve compliance which reduces enforcement costs and responds to the needs of the people so that their time is not wasted. Proper techniques in writing can include academic writing in a business setting and professional non-academic writing. For academic writing, some things it includes are; the information is often highly complex, the language is often highly specialized, and sentences are usually long and complex. For non-academic writing, some things it includes are; ideas are expressed as simply and concisely as possible, paragraphs are short (four to eight lines), style is more informal, and grammar rules are kind of relaxed. The techniques in these two types of writing can be beneficial to the individual depending on the audience they are writing for.
In Chapter 2 I noticed two major themes; using professional jargon has a time and place and plain language can save time and questions. In the modern day, professional writing and communication has become for experts by experts. This is often noticeable in political documents, news outlets, and other formal pieces of communication that use specific or formal language that can lead to confusion after an initial read of a document. I appreciated how the chapter pointed out that professions like engineers or medical providers need to use professional communication, however, it’s a style not everyone is accustomed to. When someone is communicating, it’s important to produce something that can be understood by a range of people. This is where plain language comes in which is more simplified for people not of that profession. While a good communicator and recipient should share questions the initial communication should be clear and laid out in a manner that is digestible for any reader.
In the second chapter of the textbook, the author explains the meaning and importance of plain English. Two big concepts from this chapter include the importance of using plain English in professional settings, and how we can use visual additions to our professional writing to make them more appealing to look at. Throughout the chapter the author gives several examples of how plain English has been adopted by governments and other large organizations in order to make them more accessible to both the public, as well as agents of said organizations.
To the first point that I believe is important in this chapter, the emphasis on using plain language to communicate in professional settings. The author explains that the use of plain English is largely used for the sake of accessibility. In many academic or technical documents, the writing can oftentimes be lengthy and filled with jargon. Whereas when using plain English, the writing is effectively simplified to be understood by laymen. In many ways the use of plain English seems to exemplify the words that I used to describe my understand of professional writing. Clinical, sterile, and concise. It is removing the fat from the content and slimming it down into something that is more digestible.
The second big idea of the chapter is about using things that are visually appealing in your writing when writing in a professional setting. The author talks about things such as white space, using headers, indexes, and lists during your writing. This is to keep the content that you are writing visually engaging in a way that goes beyond walls of gray texts that are carried on the merit of their intellectual content alone.
For the very first chapter, it focuses primarily on the basics of how to become a better professional and technical writer, and one of the things that this chapter briefly touches on that I want to quickly talk about is to unlearn many things that you may already know about writing. Writing novels and Professional/Technical Writing are not the same thing, so it is important to separate the qualities that make a good short story or novel, and the skills one needs when writing professional papers that can help you further your professional career. Every job that you will have in your life is going to use writing one way or another, but how they use it will be entirely up to you. No matter where you work, communication through written emails and letters will always be something that you need to know how to properly do. If you are a novelist, you need to not exactly forget everything that you know about writing, but instead, maybe re-evaluate what you know to apply it to professional and technical writing styles. I think that it is important to understand the boundaries between novel writing and professional writing, but don’t entirely let go of what you know. Instead, find a way to build on what you know and use it to expand your skills and your experience. That is why this part is super important, as it allows us to stretch the boundaries and maybe bend the rules, but not exactly break them.
On the other hand, it is also important to understand the difference between simple writing and complex writing, even in the field of professional writing. When you are writing a law case brief or even writing a will, you need to understand how you are coming across or what you are reading. If you are having to read the same page at least 5 or 6 times, what you are reading is not a simple piece of writing. It is important to know that longer does not always mean better. Length means nothing if the quantity of what you are providing is too complex for your reader to understand. I think when you are writing something that is in the professional field, the less you write but the more you write, the better. You can do so much with so little.
An important point from this chapter is the difference between academic and business writing. Both are professional, but have their own audiences. Academic writing has a lot of jargon, is complex, and tends to be long-winded with detail. These papers are meant to convey a lot of information and as precisely as possible. Business writing is a bit less formal, straight to the point, and avoids the use of jargon so people can read and understand quickly. These emails, memos, etc. are meant to get information across clearly and concisely with little to no room for misinterpretation.
Another important point is understanding how to write/rewrite something in plain language. This is commonly used for legal documents. People who aren’t familiar with legal jargon aren’t able to understand these documents, so writing something like a contract in plain language will prevent a lot of confusion. Writing such documents in plain language is an effective way to make them accessible to the public. Time is money, and less time can be spent having to assist someone in understanding a document if plain language is used. It’s important to recognize your audience and when plain language is beneficial. Business writing should have plain language, while academic writing will include more specialized language.
There is a difference between professional writing and academic writing. Academic writing includes:
The information is often highly complex
The language is often highly specialized
Sentences tend to be long and complex, in keeping with the complex subject matter
Paragraphs are long enough to explore each complex idea deeply
The style is formal and avoids first person wording like “I” and “you”
Academic citations
Grammar rules are strictly followed
Professional writing includes:
Ideas are expressed as clearly as possible
Specialized words and jargon are avoided as often is they can be
Sentences have one main idea with maybe 1 or 2 supporting factors
Paragraphs are short with 4-8 sentences in them
The style is more informal
Grammar rules are slightly more relaxed
Plain language is extremely important. The main takeaway that was mentioned towards the end was that if you have to read the same thing more than once to understand what it means, then it’s not plain language. Plain language is very important for the common person, as it is how most of us write and read. It’s a problem when things are written in different manners because it makes it hard for us to understand and is also costing the government time and money. Old legislatures and laws were written in a more complicated form of communication, so the government has been working on rewriting some laws and legislatures that are difficult to understand so time and money isn’t wasted on the meanings behind them to be deciphered by people because others couldn’t understand.
I think the plain language thing will be hard for me. I like to use big words and I know my sentences go on for longer than they probably should. This has definitely made writing a resume/cover letter in the past challenging so I am excited to see about tips this book has for making it easier to write in plain text. Or any tips about editing things down to become more like plain text. I definitely understand why plain language is more beneficial than super complex language. I just don’t have a lot of practice using it. I am certainly excited to change that and become better at using plain language to better my chances of getting a job. I wonder if the fact that plain language is better to use has anything to do with the fact that literacy and grammar rules are being focused on less in most schools now. The text mentioned how switching to plain language made it so customers called with questions about a product less often. I wonder if that has anything to do with them not knowing the rules of grammar as well as people may have used to so the language needed to be simplified more. Just something to think about.