Moving Beyond the

Academic Community

Transitional Stages in Professional Writing

Chris M. Anson
L. Lee Forsberg

From Academic to Non-Academic

Writing
Surface-level writing skills are portable
Grammar
Sentence structure
Spelling

Skills that lead to a more successful transition

Coping with unfamiliar social and organizational characteristics
Creating strategies for social and intellectual adaptation

Writing in Non-Academic Contexts

Context affects how a writer writes
Influences rhetorical and linguistic decisions

How you write to a friend vs how you write to a boss

Texts are shaped by the internalized values, attitudes, knowledge,

and ways of acting that are shared by other members of the
organization
Contexts, writers, and texts are in a dynamic state of evolution and
mutual influence

Activity
Directions: Write three brief emails in which you
inquire as to certain details about a particular
assignment, paper, or project. Keep in mind that
each email needs to be brief and that each
reader has at least some prior knowledge about
the subject of the email.

Formality Level: Just a Friend

The first email should be written to a
classmate about an assignment that you do
not understand. Write as if this person is, or
could be, dealing with the same thing and
you need an answer like yesterday.

Formality Level: Degree Possessing Recipient

The second email should be addressed to a
teacher or advisor. Dr. Lee, Dr. Spencer, Dr.
Shaw, etc. This email is about details for a
project that is due soon and you really need
advice.

Formality Level: Your Boss

The third email will be written to your
employer. You are unsure about something
you need to do for work so you ask your
boss. Keep in mind that this person is directly
responsible for your employment status.

The Writing Internship Program

Focused on the transition from academic to non-academic writing
Followed six college seniors who had internships which required a
significant amount of writing
Students participated in an internship course
Discussed their internships
Participated in workshops
Kept journals of their feelings and experiences

The Interns
Jim
20, a journalism major

Louise
21, an English major

Joan
35, a returning student, completing a journalism degree

Paula
38, a returning student, completing an English degree

Rachel
22, an English major

Betsy
21, an English major

Stages of Transition
Three stages of transitions
1. Expectation
2. Disorientation

3. Transition and Resolution

Expectation
Writer builds a vision of him- or herself working and writing in the new setting
The picture is idealized
Especially true if the student has been a successful writer in college

The student has an intense motivation to perform well

The student may have some apprehension

Disorientation
Trying to determine his or her role in an organization leaves the
student disoriented
This leads to an intense frustration and sense of failure
Students react in different ways to disorientation
Alienated independence
Evaluation of nature and quality of knowledge in the workplace
Personal and profession conflict

Transition and Resolution

The student starts to establish a role and forms new knowledge for
adaptation
He or she may start to take a greater initiative
Have a better understanding of what is expected
Forming new self-concepts

The student starts to get rewards and responsibility

Resolution of previous frustrations and conflicts

The Students: Expectation

Students had various motivations for participating in an internship
Discovering possible career paths
Wanting experience in a field they wanted to be in
Wanting to be important and make a difference
Wanting to experience writing as a career

All of them looked ahead positively

Thought the application of the knowledge they had gained in
college would be interesting and challenging

But what I found was an arena where all

the rules had changed and no one could
remember where the rulebook went
--Rachel

The Students: Disorientation

Disorientation happened soon after the students began
Disappointed in generally held expectations
Collision of what they saw in the office and what they had learned in
the classroom
In a classroom, the teacher tells you exactly what to do
In an office, the supervisor/boss expects you to know what to do

The Students: Disorientation

Other causes of disorientation
Being unable to identify their role in the office
Being unable to find out what was expected of them

Struggling to find a professional role (persona) acceptable to both the

writer and his or her colleagues

The Students: Disorientation

Frustration and disorientation led to the students feeling isolated
Were not free from supervision but could not rely on it for help
Had to know how to execute assigned tasks on their own
Felt that they could not ask for help because it would show how much
they did not know
Felt alone and disconnected from the rest of the workplace

Too much responsibility, too much time on their own, too much
expected of them, and too little guidance

The Students: Disorientation

Perceived independence gave way to intense frustration
Could not adjust quickly and easily to their new roles
Could not perform tasks with little guidance
Could not communicate effectively with their supervisor

Early frustration
Looked to supervisors as caretakers and providers
Willing to accept their supervisor's criticisms and guidance

The Students: Disorientation

Frustration led to conflict
Students started noticing a more adversarial quality in their relationships
with their supervisors
Their view of how things should be written or done started to conflict
with their supervisors ideas
Conflicts seemed very threatening and students reacted strongly
because of their lack of security in their own roles

Conflict led to initiative

Students started to assert their own opinions
Started to strengthen and define their own role

The Students: Disorientation

Internal conflict
Produced by being unable to receive guidance from the supervisor
Produced by being unable to evaluate the supervisor as a role model
Produced by being unable to gauge ones own performance

Lack of feedback hurt the students self-esteem

Difficult to look up to supervisor
Gave unilateral directives about writing

Gave students examples of poor writing

The Students: Disorientation

Resolving conflict
Had to realize that the rules are different in the new context
Had to realize that their role models might not be the best exemplars of
those rules

This was the right way to do it in school, but is it the right way to do
it here?
Is this person, his work, and his advice a good model for success in
this arena?

The Students: Transition and Resolution

Initiative was a response to certain kinds of frustration
Conflict may continue indefinitely
The students struggled to find their role and had to take action
Tried to gain experience in their internship
Tried to make a contribution to the workplace
Tried to merge their own goals with those of the organization

Had to assert themselves to get information they needed to write

The Students: Transition and Resolution

Transitional learning experiences
Points at which the students developed an understanding of the
context that facilitates their work and writing
Failed initiative does not lead back to frustration and conflict

Mistakes test the context and force a more direct communication of

information

The Students: Transition and Resolution

Action and initiative lead to rewards and/or extra responsibilities
Resolution
The integration of self and role as the writer becomes more comfortable
within the context and resolves previous conflicts to gain a more
balanced view of the experience
Student can assess and internalize the gains they made
Resolution is dependent on earlier frustration
Learn how to embrace difficulties and make them productive

Finding the Missing Rulebook

Trial and error
Learn to read the context in which you are writing
Learn the beliefs and conventions of your workplace
Learn a strategic way of understanding and working in a continually
evolving context
Become a reader of context in order to become literate within
that context

FIN

Works Cited

Anson, Chris M., and L. Lee Forsberg. "Moving Beyond the Academic Community:
Transitional Stages in Professional Writing." Written Communication 7.2
(1990): 200-31. Print.