Brad's Workplace Writing and Brandt

There are interesting and useful connections to be made between the way Brandt describes her research participants experiences with work and Brad's experience's. Look at the section called "Overview of the Participants" of the article "Writing for a Living: Literacy and the Knowledge Economy." There are some useful passages there that I can grab and use.

...an ongoing project based on interviews with people employed in writing-intensive positions. (168)

Writing-intensive positions are defined as ones that engage people in writing for 30% or more of the typical workday. Writing is a broad term, including any activities that involve alphabetic inscription (from data entry to stenography to authoring of original, extended texts), preparations for writing (i.e., digesting information and planning), and the review and editing of the writing of others. (168)

All of the people I interviewed either produced texts as a primary service for their company (securities dealer, scientist, underwriter, lawyer, magazine editor, mortgage broker, accountant, marketing director, educational materials designer, and Web designer) or pro- duced texts as a means of internal communication and coordination (regional development director and software manager). In fact, those in the former group also wrote at times for internal coordination, and those in the latter group at times produced texts as services. (173)

Almost everyone read the writing of other employees and had their writing reviewed by others. (174)

Several of the nonjournalists I interviewed, including the lawyer, the mortgage lender, and the insurance underwriter, had published articles in magazines or newsletters on topics related to their work, as had the educational materials designer in his capacity as a union leader and activist. (174)

Furthermore, 8 reported experience with teaching in connection with their work, whether that was teaching other employees something about writing, giving in-house or conference presentations on their innovations, or teaching, as the mortgage lender put it, “to drum up business.” (174)