Mizrahi Readings (9/8/2020)

     

Mizrahi Readings: Chapters 1, 3-4

    Mizrahi educates her readers on how to greatly enhance their technical writing skills, from the Fundamentals to Routine Messages, to more Persuasive and targeted ones. The Fundamentals reading encourages the reader not to think of writing as a flow of letters and sentences with little to no forethought, but as a careful and layered process with considerations such as demographics and stylistic elements to consider in the writing/editing process. The reading on Routine/Positive Messages narrows the scope to letters, e-mails, memos, thank you notes, and other messages that would be sent by employers to employees or vice versa. Emphasis is places on being aware of the urgency and formality of the desired message, the person you are sending it to and how familiar you are with them, as well as what the desired response and when that response will be received. The final reading narrows the scope of Mizrahi's technical writing advice even further to persuasive messages and messages of bad news. She outlines the process for drawing in readers, presenting facts and logic, and persuading message recipients to take action in order to win support for a new idea or policy. The types of actions could be favor requests, sales or marketing messages, or adjustment requests. The bad news is where a more conservative and neutral approach must be taken; delivering bad news sometimes requires a direct approach, but more often than not needs an indirect approach. A neutral statement, followed by the reasons leading to the message, clearly state the news, and close with a statement of goodwill.

    The second and third readings' topics are almost completely opposite each other. Routine messages may take a little bit of formality and research about the recipient, but the process is not as calculated as that for a persuasive message or one that conveys bad news. Also every text is in conversation with the other, even though the good news/routine/congratulatory messages are in contrast to the persuasive/bad news messages in terms of topic. The understanding of technical writing as a process is needed to start writing good routine/congratulatory messages, while a well-written persuasive message requires the same basics but also an understanding of the right official channel for such messages.

    Does writing routine messages require the same degree of calculated thinking as writing persuasive/bad news messages?

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