Novice and Insider Perspectives on Academic and Workplace Writing: Toward a Continuum of Rhetorical Awareness

TLDR

Communication researchers have helped frame understandings about disciplinary and professional writing, yet they are often outsiders looking in. This study focuses on insider perspectives of engineers in academic and industrial contexts across diverse career stages. Qualitative data were analyzed using phenomenological research methods. Participant perspectives fall along a rhetorical awareness continuum from denial to acknowledgment to accentuation of rhetoric as critical to success, varying by writer/reader roles, identity, career stage, and objectivity, with implications for practitioners discussed.

Abstract

Communication researchers have helped frame understandings about disciplinary and professional writing. But often they are outsiders looking in. To complement that research, this study focuses on insider perspectives of engineers in academic and industrial contexts at diverse career stages. Qualitative data are analyzed using phenomenological research methods. Findings indicate that participant perspectives fall along a rhetorical awareness continuum at points spanning from denial and acknowledgment to an accentuation of rhetoric as critical to individual and organizational success. Participant perspectives along the continuum also vary in terms of writer and reader roles, writer identity, career stage/organizational role, and objectivity. Implications for practitioners are discussed.