 Imagine yourself working in a company you have dreamed of.

 How would you tell your boss about your plan of resigning?
Total sum of the values, customs,
traditions, and meanings that
make a company unique.
Simply defined as workplace or
professional culture – varies from
organization to organization
Professional writing has specific purposes
related to workplace setting.

To record important workplace information

(minutes of a meeting, secretarial notes, and
official documentation of proceedings.

To give or ask for information from people with

the company (memorandums), outside the
company (business letters)
Professional writing has specific
purposes related to workplace setting.

Either of the two purposes (professional

reports)
To persuade readers to take action
(professional proposals, marketing or
promotional materials and job application
letters)
Professional writing targets a specific audience :
one reader or multiple readers.

The audience may be homogenous, “a discourse

community”
The writer may use technical terms that are
familiar to the readers without having to explain
what the words mean.
Report about medical ailment for an audience
composed of doctors.
When the audience is not
homogenous:

Aim for diction/word choices that

will be understood by everyone.
If technical terms are used, those
should be clearly explained.
 FOR HOMOGENOUS AUDIENCE FOR NON-HOMOGENOUS AUDIENCE

Clinical Features and Outcomes of The Broken Heart Syndrome

Takotsubo (Stress) Cardiomyopathy Phenomenon
For many years, researchers have
The disease is characterized by studied the phenomena of the broken
transient sytolic and diastolic left heart syndrome, or stress
ventricular dysfunction with a variety cardiomyopathy. This occurs when a
of wall-motion abnormalities. It highly stressful event, such as the
predominantly affects elderly women death of a spouse, results in a person
and is often preceded by an emotional feeling like they’re having a heart
or physical trigger, but the condition attack. The symptoms include the
has also been reported with no evident same ones that occur when having a
trigger. Although the cause of heart attack: shortness of breath and
takotsubo cardiomyopathy remains chest pain. When an emotional event
unknown, the role of the brain-heart happens, researchers suspect a surge
axis in the pathogenesis of the disease of stress hormones are released which
has been described. causes heart attack.
Professional writing is written in a
style that aims to build goodwill.
Effective professional writing is:
(Locker and Kienzler)
Reader-centered,
Emphasizes the positive
Use bias-free language
Adopting a professional style means
adopting a reader perspective in
writing.
“The YOU attitude”:
emphasize what the readers wants to
know
respect the reader’s point of view,
protecting the reader’s ego.
 I Attitude You Attitude
If you have any questions,
If I can answer any of your
please ask
queries, I’m perfectly willing
to do so.

We delivered the order to the Your order was shipped to

provided address this your address this morning.
morning.
You will be happy to hear
I am happy to tell you that…. that…
All information should be stated
positively.
Focus on what the reader can do.
If negative wording needs to be said, it
should be communicated briefly
The writer should eliminate any harsh
words or negative connotations.
Negative Wording
We cannot process your
reimbursement request because
your documents are not
complete.
We do not reply to emails on
weekends.
We can’t give you the list of
books because we have not yet
finished taking inventory.
Positive Wording
Your reimbursement request will
be processed as soon as you
submit all the required
documents.
You may contact us via email at
any time from Monday to Friday.
You will receive the completed
book inventory by tomorrow
morning.
It is unprofessional to use language
that shows bias against certain
people or groups of people.
Examples:
Patriarchal society- word choices reveal
bias against women in a workplace.
Capitalist society- language bias against
the poor.
Examples:
Patriarchal society- word choices reveal
bias against women in a workplace.
Capitalist society- language bias against
the poor.
Youth-oriented cultures- language bias
against older people.
Professional writers and speakers should
use language that does not discriminate
people on the basis of sex, physical
condition, race, age or any other category
Gender Biased Bias-free
Woman lawyer Lawyer
Lady president President
Male nurse Nurse
Managers and their wives Managers and their spouses
Faculty and their wives Faculty and their spouses
Dear Sir: Dear Sir or Madam
Chairman Chairperson
Stewardess Flight attendant
Salesman Sales representative/person/s
Professional documents require language
that are appropriate to the workplace
setting:
Use of polite language
Professional rather than overly personal
Grammatically accurate
Clear and direct
No use of emoticons or emoji's
Polite language is essential in a
workplace wherein there are power
asymmetries.
“please”, “kindly” and “thank you:
soften impositions of power, create a
positive writer image and convey
gratitude.
Overly friendly language should
not appear in workplace
documents or writings.
 Overly Personal
Hey, I’m not sure if you’ve heard
but I’ve been having a bunch of
family problems lately. My son
was recently expelled, my
daughter is in rehab and to top it
off, my wife hasn’t spoken to me
in days! So, I really need a few
days off to try to get my home
situation straightened out.
Please help me out by
approving this request.
Professional
I am writing to request a three-
day leave. I have some urgent
personal business to attend to,
and I would humbly appreciate
your approval for this request.
Thank you very much for your
consideration.
Professional documents require language
that are appropriate to the workplace
setting:
Use of polite language
Professional rather than overly personal
Grammatically accurate
Clear and direct
No use of emoticons or emoji's
Concise
Complete
Conversational
Clear
Considerate
Confidence
Check
Building a Team
Making Things Clear
Managing Diversity
Dealing With Problems
Surviving Catastrophe