Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Other Professional Writing
An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful
experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow
field.
Niels Bohr
Many computing graduates find that, once they enter the profession, writing is a
surprisingly large component of their daily work. Researchers expect to have to
write papers, book chapters, grant applications, and so on; while computing profes-
sionals expect to write material such as project and code documentation, manuals,
and acceptance records. However, they might well also find themselves having to
write other expert material, such as project proposals, technical assessments, ten-
ders, purchase recommendations, reports to managements, descriptive material for
the Web, or any of a wide range of kinds of document that are required in large
organizations.
Much of this topic concerns computer science in an academic context. The chal-
lenges of writing tasks in general—job applications, emails, promotional material,
and so on—are too diverse, and too different from academic writing, to consider
here. However, there are a range of professional writing tasks that are focused on
communication, and are written by the computing professional as an
expert
;some
of the issues that arise with such tasks are like those of academic writing, and it is
these that I now discuss.
Scoping the Task
A first step in most professional writing is to establish the
task
, that is, to figure out
what the writing is meant to achieve. It may seem unnecessary to say something so
obvious, but some authors appear to jump into writing tasks without any clear idea of
what it is that they wish to accomplish, or what their “effort budget” is, or should be.
Yet knowledge of the “effort budget” is critical. Research papers are designed
to form a permanent record, or perhaps to be examined, and there is a consistent
requirement that they be complete and polished. In contrast, other writing may be
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