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Re: The English Major and the Engineering Student: What can they learn from each other?
Subject:Re: The English Major and the Engineering Student: What can they learn from each other? From:Wayne Douglass <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 18 Feb 1999 10:46:25 -0800
At 09:40 AM 2/18/99 -0800, John Nesbit wrote:
> I still don't understand the distinction some people place on technical
>writing vs. common sense expository writing where you need to address a
>specific audience. I probably put a little more humor and use metaphor a
>little heavier than straight laced technical writers do, but that's also
>due to the intended audience I have.
> Any writer with some common sense can adjust to a different audience.
>Everything you learn in an English composition class is applicable to
>technical writing the way I see it.
True enough. One often hears the mantra of "audience analysis" in the tech
writing community as if it hasn't been a commonplace in rhetoric since
Aristotle.
--Wayne
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Wayne Douglass phone: 408-542-2139
Verity, Inc. FAX: 408-542-2040
894 Ross Road mailto:wayned -at- verity -dot- com
Sunnyvale, CA 94089 http://www.verity.com
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