Movin' On Up

Movin' on up to the East Side,
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.

Movin' on up to the East Side,

We finally got a piece of the pie.

                  --Dubois and Barry

For those of you who have yet to start your careers, eventually you'll compose a successful resume and letter of application (documents we'll deal with later), and find yourself in that career-type position.   Terrific.  What that means, of course, is that it's time to become familiar with the issues and strategies of writing in an actual workplace: writing where there is more at stake than an arbitrary letter grade; writing upon which the very functioning of the organization (and your ability to pay the bills) rely.

This doesn't necessarily mean leaving behind everything you've learned about what we call "school writing," though there are significant differences between successful academic writing and successful workplace writing.  It does, however, mean knowing how to adapt to your circumstances.  Workplace writing has different demands and different needs.

Let's begin at the most basic level, which is:

The Rhetorical Situation

Let's start with a simple scenario.  We're sitting at the dinner table, passing the food and having some good conversation, when I look at you at the other end of the table and say "Could you pass the salt, please?"  The chances are quite good, I'd say, that you would pass me the salt.  It was, after all, a simple question, and I used the magic word to boot.

But did I, in fact, ask a question?  Yes, my statement was in the form of a question, but realistically what are the chances that you would say "No"?  Slim--very slim, indeed.  "Could you pass the salt, please?" is a yes-or-no question, but do you really think that "no" is a possible answer?  Even though we ask the question, we typically do not expect--and likely would be shocked--that someone might say "no."  There's really only one option: pass the salt.  So, have I asked you a question?  In reality--no.  What I've done, in fact, is given you a command.  So then why do we ask this as a question?

Because dinner is a social situation that we see as a form of family or community bonding.  Consequently we typically expect certain standards of behavior at the dinner table--including politeness.  So we ask a question about passing the salt to be polite, not because we are genuinely giving the person we're asking a choice.  This is actually a command ("Pass the salt") masking as a question, because the context demands we be polite.  So when you ask the question "Could you please pass the salt" you are reading the context and adjusting your language accordingly.  You are responding to the rhetorical situation.

Let's use a couple more examples to complicate the issue a bit.  Watch the following two videos, both of which exemplify a growing (and disturbing) trend: very public marriage proposals (almost always initiated by men, an issue for another time and place).  Let me apologize in advance for the lousy sound quality of the second video:

          

Here again we have the same question, asked twice: will you marry me?  But is it, in fact, a question?  The social conventions of marriage proposals require that a question be posed (or as the saying goes, "pop the question"), and certainly many proposals have been turned down.  But to what degree does the very public nature of these proposals change the rhetorical situation and make the possibility of saying "no" incredibly difficult?  In other words, to what degree does the public context change the question (Will you marry me?) into a command (Marry me)?  

In the first video, the woman answers "yes," but she's clearly not thrilled--look at her body language, her tight-lipped smile, and listen to the way she says "yes."  We could say this is an example of a woman being pressured by the context into giving a particular answer.

In the second video, the woman doesn't answer--she runs, runs fast, runs far.  Again, looking at her body language, she also seems clearly underwhelmed.  At one point she seems to be looking around, desperately hoping someone will take her anywhere else but there.  In this case, I would suggest that the result is the consequence of our Romeo's misreading the rhetorical situation, which consequently leads to a poor result (remember that).  For one thing, he clearly does not understand the nature of his "reader" (the woman to whom he is proposing), and one of the fundamental aspects of a rhetorical situation is readership/audience (who is receiving and who is responding to your message).  For another, he is proposing in a food court.  A food court.  In a mall.  Seriously?    

Fundamentally, then, a rhetorical situation simply means understanding the context within which you are communicating, and adapting your words for that context.  In other words, you adjust how you write depending upon the situation.   To break it down to its simplest components, the rhetorical situation refers to:

• What's your message?
• What's the purpose of your message?
• Who's your reader?
• What do you know about your reader that might affect how the reader receives the message?
• What do you need your reader to understand?
• How do you think your reader will react to the message?
• What external circumstances might affect how the reader receives and reacts to the message?
• How can you shape your language and message to best assure the reader receives and understands the message?

 
When we talk about the rhetorical situation in workplace writing, we mean that any message we send occurs within a network of relationships and events.  In other words, there are factors beyond the message itself that affect how we communicate the message and how the message is received. Our concern, or course, is the rhetorical context of the workplace, and the network of relationships and events that occur within the workplace.  We need to be able to adapt to that situation.  This can be more challenging than one might initially think, since most of us have been indoctrinated to "school writing" (as I'll address in a subsequent post), and "school writing" is a very different beast from workplace writing.

Now, pretty much all writing--all communication--exists within rhetorical situations.  It's not usually something we think about, but because humans are relatively clever beasts, we learn to "read" people and situations and adjust our language accordingly.  While we might swear like a sailor after we've shanked a golf shot into the water, the chances are for most of us that if we did the same thing while golfing with a parent, child or parish priest, we'd likely moderate our language.  In this case, it's the rhetorical context of the audience that affects how we use language.  

Here's another example.  You've may have seen (or remember) the Mac computer commercials featuring the cool young dude and the middle-aged suit.  The core message is simple--buy a Mac, not a PC.  But the advertisers create a context within which buying that Mac will align you with the forces of hipness (and conversely, buying a PC will align you with the forces of authoritarianism).  The advertisers understand how they want their message to be received, and they base that on what they understand to be the values of their targeted audience. 

Imagine for the moment Mr. Suit communicating to Mr. Dude.  Wouldn't you think it necessary for Mr. Suit to adapt his language in order just to keep Mr. Dude from rolling his eyes and going back to Angry Birds?  Same for Mr. Dude communicating to Mr. Suit.  

And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes.

To use another, less pleasant example, downsizing and layoffs have been an unfortunately common event.  Let's say one company lays off employees in the spring, and another lays them off two weeks before Christmas.  The message for both companies is the same.  But I'd be willing to bet that most of us would be more perturbed by the Christmas layoffs than the spring layoffs.  Why?  Because something about the context of Christmas alters the impact and the value of the message, even though the message is fundamentally the same.

So when we think about the rhetorical situation for an act of writing, we are trying to be aware of those elements that may affect how we communicate a message, and perhaps more importantly, how that message is received.  Generally the following elements are part of determining the rhetorical situation in a workplace setting:

• Purpose -- What do we want to happen?  Are we writing to inform, persuade, correct, support, inquire? 
• Reader(s) -- Perhaps the single most important element, since no message is worthwhile unless someone "hears" it and responds to it (ideally responding as we would like the reader to respond).  Who is this person?  What is this person like?  What does this person think of you (assuming he/she knows you)?  What does this person think of the situation about which you're writing?  What is your relationship to that person?  What does this person know, not know, need to know?  How do you think this person will initially receive the message? 
• Corporate Culture -- What are the values and beliefs that inform the organization, and how does your message fit into those values and beliefs? 
• Culture outside of the Organization -- Will your message have an impact, directly or indirectly, on the world outside of your organization?  (This is often the case with messages that have ethical or moral issues embedded in them.)