English 539

Minn Hall Winona, MN (555) 555-5555 bgreeno11@winona.edu

Memo Date: April 7, 2013 To: Dr. Kohn From: Brittney Greeno Subject: Information Report for Technical Writing Study on Advising Services Purpose This status report is to inform on technical writing in the academic and career advising services at Winona State University. Summary I interviewed Dr. Barb Oertel, who is the Director of Academic Services at the Warrior Success Center. Dr. Oertel has provided a first person perspective on the types of technical writing used within the advising environment by herself and other advisors. She brought to my attention the differences purposes in the documents she writes versus the standard documents other advisors write on a daily basis. Dr. Oertel has made it clear that most of the technical writing created by herself and advisors are persuasive and informative. The technical writing is intended for higher administration, students, parents, faculty, and other advisors. Introduction In their studies on the transition from academic into professional writing, Anson and Forsberg explain, [w]riting is seen as a socially constituted act, shaped by the writer's discourse community, members of an organizational or intellectual group who share specialized kinds of knowledge and textual competence (386). The discourse community shapes and influences the motives and communities that Dr. Oertel and the advisors write for on a daily basis. As James Sterns notes in his analysis of professional writing, professionals write in order to do something, to persuade with their knowledge (qtd. in Kain and Wardle 116). The results of the research will show how community and motive highly influence the technical documents created in the advising services. Results of Research The results of the interview will be described and broken down into the sub-categories discussed by Kain and Wardle in their focus on Activity Theory. Subject Kain and Wardle define the subject as a person or group who directly participates in an activity under study and provides a point of view for studying the activity (120). Dr. Oertel and the twenty academic and career advisors are the primary subjects who write for the Warrior Success Center. The points of view presented in their technical writing ranges from the collective group

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to an individual advisor; the point of view changes based on the motive and the communitys needs. Motives Kain and Wardle define motives as purposes, reasons for the activity (120). Dr. Oertel defines the goals of the Warrior Success Center as helping students coming into the college setting. The advisors provide a number of services to help students transition into the new college environment, to provide students with academic and career advising in their four years of college, and to help them transition into careers after college. Community Kane and Wardle define community as the group from which subjects take their cues and to which they contribute (121). The advisors write primarily for parents, students, and faculty. Motivated by incoming students, the advisors create documents that persuade and inform students and parents about the goals and resources at the Warrior Success Center. They also write to faculty who also advise students. However, Dr. Oertel writes primarily for the higher administration community, such as the President and Vice President, to persuade and acquire resources for the department. Tools Kain and Wardle define tools as physical objects, symbols, skills, and knowledge that people bring to or develop through their engagement in activity (121). The primary tools the advisors use to accomplish their tasks are templates of memos, emails, white paper reports, professional development reports, and student notes. These documents are written for primary audiences who interact closely with the advisors. Dr. Oertel and advisors in the Warrior Success Center also write reviews of literature, posters and brochures and create power point presentations. The tools used to write these documents are statistics, facts, and research on current developments in advising. These tools allow the advisors to show their extensive knowledge and experience in the advising studies and to promote their services to diverse audiences. Rules Kain and Wardle define rules as, formal requirements, informal habits of work, and shared conventions that shape the activity and operate in the broader social context (121). The rules advisors follow are ones that they adopt from their academic writing experiences. All documents must be clear, concise, and void of grammar or mechanical errors. The advisors mainly write to their advisees, faculty, and each other; their writing must be easy to understand concise because their audiences do not have the time to read long reports or summaries and they will lose interest in the document. When the advisors need to follow mandatory rules or formatting, they will turn to department templates for help. Division of Labor Kain and Wardle define the division of labor as the distribution of tasks and knowledge across the system (121). Dr. Oertel stresses that there is not a set division of labor in the Warrior Success Center. Each advisor is responsible for editing and revising their writing before sending

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it out. If the advisors collaborate on a group project, such as creating posters or brochures for the campus, then a committee will be created to edit and revise these documents; Dr. Oertel is the last person that will read and approve the documents before publication. Conclusion The results of the research have shown that advisors primarily write to persuade and inform students, faculty, advisors, and the higher administration. Dr. Oertel writes for the higher administration and the advisors write primarily for students and faculty. However, these two groups will collaborate on promotional pieces of writing. The writing must be clear, concise, and easy to understand for the general community. Please contact Brittney Greeno (via email) if you have any questions or comments or would like to discuss this project further. References Anson, Chris M., and L. Lee Forsberg. Writing Yourself into Professional Writing and Rhetoric. Professional Writing and Rhetoric: Readings from the Field. Ed. Tim Peeples. New York: Pearson Longman, 2003. 386-409. Print. Kain, Donna, and Elizabeth Wardle. Building Context: Using Activity Theory to Teach About Genre in Multi-Major Professional Communication Courses. Technical Communication Quarterly 14.2 (2005): 113-139. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Apr. 2013. Oertel, Barb. Personal interview. 14 Mar. 2013.