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Created
by EJ Belcher
Last updated December 2003 http://www.imdb.com applying objectivity in writing professions Interestingly enough, texts from corporations are usually filled with jargon, making them difficult to read. How can a person remain objective if they do not understand what he or she should be writing about? Barbara Couture addresses this issue when she discusses bad business writing in Functional Approaches to Writing Research Perspectives. “After being told that their writing is ‘verbose’ and ‘muddy’ and after learning in seminars how to recognize and eliminate superfluous nominalizations in their writing, corporate writers continue to fill their prose with such structures” (11). Superfluous nominalizations not only make a text harder for audiences to read, but also for writers to stay focused. When they worry too much about sounding overly knowledgeable – such as students attempting to impress a professor – they can become lost in the words. Being clear and concise is always the best policy for remaining objective. In “Choose Your Words Carefully,” Bill Fiora offers: “More than most business professionals, competitive intelligence (CI) and strategy practitioners need to choose their words carefully when they deliver their views to company management [. . . .] As often as possible, have colleagues check CI work to ensure greater objectivity” (38). Journalism and ethnographic research are two writing professions in which clarity, conciseness, and of course, objectivity play crucial roles. |