A professional writer needs to know what information is valuable to different people in the workplace. A PW needs to know at what level his or her co-workers are communicating. Are they using very technical terms that would need explaining to someone not in their field, but could be used in inner office memos without explanation?
A PW needs to know the limits on length for certain documents. The writer may make things more difficult than they need to be by creating a document that is too verbose, and wastes a lot of time, or on the other side, write a document that is too concise, and doesn't provide the right information. A PW needs to recognize which departments need his help, so that messages get passed to the right people, at the right time. A PW needs to understand that his or her job is to help create purposeful information, not to do the work of everyone around the office. A PW is not a secretary.
A PW needs to facilitate the meeting of ends by the different interests of all the different sections in the workplace, by helping them communicate on the same level.
A PW should be like an old fashioned telephone operator, listening to the needs of the caller, and patching them through the right channels, to get to them to the right place.

Rhetorical Activities

2. Every year on the plaza of the Mountainlair a group of people come to protest abortion. They are armed with posters, signs, and very vocal demands. Some people may call protests open air debates, but there is absolutely no debate involved. Protesters come with a purpose, and their opinions are set in stone. They are there to upset, and offend in order to get others to change their minds on the issue at hand.

4. At WVU, conversions can happen in all sorts of ways. There is the festival of ideas, where "specialists" of different fields come and lecture about their work. In this setting, someone can sit down with one set of expectations, and at the end of the lecture have a completely different knowledge of the subject. The individual may debate with the lecturer in the Q/A section, or may have an internal debate with his or her own thoughts.
In many English classes, there are class discussions. The members of the class may have been given an assignment to research a topic and then bring their findings to the discussion. During the discussion, many different intelligent opinions are shared, and through the whole process the class members form new opinions, or change old ones in the face of new evidence or suggestions.
Students at WVU suddenly have a new influx of culture, from all the various races, ages, and social circles. Bonds or rivalries are formed with people unlike themselves, and they discover who they are, where they belong, and what their morals are. An uncountable number of conscious and unconscious changes happen to a person's beliefs.

Why did Selzer want to observe how an engineer writes?
Selzer felt that courses that taught the different writing styles and how to perform them had skipped over the technical writing field. He felt that the people who wrote technically for their jobs didn't have a standard form, and made up their own style. He wanted to find the strengths and weaknesses in that style.

Which of Selzer's findings intrigued you?
Selzer found that Kenneth, the engineer, did very little revising. He would spend a lot of time working on a layout for his proposal, report, or other writing, then would work very quickly, and with a purpose, to create the document. When the first draft was created, he would have his secretary type it up, and then he would read through it and make a few minor adjustments and be done.

How did Selzer convince you to believe in his findings?
Selzer looked over all of the notes, writings and references and analyzed them, along with a couple of face-to-face interviews.

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Professional writers may hold an infinite number of titles, and may do an endless amount of tasks. They can pave the way in creative ways, offering new ideas, or making old concepts new and attractive. They can hide out behind the scenes, helping those who need to have their ideas heard, by giving suggestions, or doing their writing for them. Our culture is built on communication, and when it is easy to converse and make opinions our heard, it is easier to get what we want.

Technical writers and editors work with professionals in scientific or very technical fields and help make the difficult jargon of the specialists more literate and comfortable to the layman.

Journalists explore the world in all sorts of ways and report on their discoveries, interests and musings. This field allows the writers to be somewhat free in how they choose to express themselves and can lead to a vast range of professional success.

Web content editors help companies make their services known online. The internet is a new area of media, and these writers help make the transfer easier and more successful. These writers can have very significant impacts on the companies they represent, and are very important.

Professional writers can fill just about any niche in any job today.