30 September - 06 October Reflections

Last week we read Chapter 4 in Writing That Works, the Baker and David article (which we also summarized), the Revising After Review PowerPoint, and the description of Project 3. That week’s activities included peer reviewing Project 2 deliverables.

Once a document is written, it very often needs to be reviewed and revised. Chapter 4 was a helpful guide for revising our project documents, especially considering that we had some peer reviews to do last week. The one thing I learned was the revision strategy suggested in the chapter, including waiting for a day or two before starting to revise a document and generally viewing your drafts as something written by a stranger.

The Revising After Review PowerPoint provided practical advice on revising one’s own document after review (which is helpful in light of our upcoming peer reviews), but I feel that I need more information on revising the formatting of a document. Specifically, it would be useful to learn formatting requirements for different types of documents.

Baker and David’s article The Rhetoric of Poser: Political Issues in Management Writing provided a useful insight into the politics of power at work place. The authors argued that when writing to their subordinates, managers project leadership by establishing values, inciting action, and setting goals, but these strategies can only be effective if the writers have credibility for the reader. It made me think that we need to take into account the power position of our audience when we write at work.