Apart of group 3, we did the engagement with you.

The question that I will be trying to answer in my research is: How do people who work in an office setting that communicate non-creatively in the form of writing, view writing as a part of their work day? From this question I wish to explore how writing is viewed and executed within jobs where someone’s writing is directed towards a small amount of people, i.e. emails, letters, speeches, ghostwriting. I want to find out that since these types of writings are viewed pretty commonly within jobs, how do the people who do formal writing for work acknowledge writing within their jobs. Using writing for communication rather than publication, and the restrictions of it. While exploring this question, I wish to know if people find their writing to be guided or restricted because they are in formal settings and if there is a reviewing process for their work like there is for publication jobs. The course contents have guided me to this question because before this class I only viewed writing for money as publication or writing for TV shows/movies and not in a typical office setting. The course contents have pushed me to look past the more commonly known writing jobs and discover how frequently people communicate without realizing it as a type of writing. Those who ghostwrite for their bosses or send out letter of communication in their office space as their primary job would be the ideal people to interview. I have a family member who workers in a hospital office setting who primarily writes all day for their job; for example, emails, letters, and writing for their boss who would fit the criteria. She would be the best to interview because I am mainly focusing on writing as a form of communication, so her type of work would be the best to answer my research question. As a guide I will mainly be looking at Melissa Gregg’s, “Workplace Affects in The Age of The Cubicle” because this reading is what sparked my interest in workplace writing and what guided me to my research question.

Interview Protocol:
• What type of writing does your job consist of?
• About how many people do you communicate through writing to?
• How many people see your writing? (Aside from the people you are sending it to)
• What is a situation that writing wasn’t the best way to communicate?
• What is a situation in which your writing was restricted in the sense that you couldn’t say what you wanted to say?
• How much of your writing is guided or being prompted?

Recruitment Script:
I would like to interview you for a Research Project for my English 245: Writing for Money class. The project entails interviewing a person who writes for money in order gain insight into their experiences with writing and how writing is used in labor. The interview is needed for primary research and is helping to answer my research question of: How do people in an office setting, that communicate non-creatively in the form of writing, view writing as a part of their work day?
I would like to ask for your permission and consent to interview and record audio for your participation in my research. All research is for class purposes only and will only be discussed within the class setting.

Interview question for tv writer:

Do you ever feel as if you can’t write what you want? Netflix has more wiggle room with risky topics than regular tv, so how much of your writing is filtered?

In her article, Nakamura explained how community managers see it as their job to manage misogyny and sexism, or basically any inappropriate comments on Social Media and with the growing ‘new economy’ exposes the question of if people see it as an actually job and if so what can they gain from it. Something that stuck out to me in the reading was the story about AOL workers not getting compensated for the work they did. I personally, never knew these jobs existed but if the company recognizes that they did the job and did not pay them for it is ridiculous to me. This made me wonder how many other big companies are using their employees for something without paying them. In the Gregg article, she focuses on the ups and downs of having the option of working from home and gives two real life examples of people who had the opportunity from their job to work from home. The example of the couple who basically got sick of seeing each other, was very interesting/entertaining to me because I know couples who complain that they never see each other because of work but I’ve never heard of a couple getting the opportunity to see too much of one another because of a job. So it was interesting to see both the good and bad of working from home. This made me realize that, to me, before reading the article, working from home seemed like a great idea, but after reading it not so much. Home becomes work and normally I go home to escape from work. This article brought out the fact of home companies are using this new way or working to benefit themselves and the workers as well.

Option 2:

The job I would hope to have after I graduate is publishing or editing. With Pubishing/ editing, writing is going to be pretty much the only thing I look at, not necessarily my writings but other people’s. I will probably write edit/revisions on their work, also my opinion on their writing as well. After I write the text I will be sending it either to my boss or the author directly since it is their work. Having this job could be high stakes because someone’s writings, which they are probably proud of, would be in my hands and I would have to edit/give my opinion on it great enough to better their project. If i don’t that falls back on me.

In her reading, Deborah explains her study of writing and literacy through interviews with 12 people in different lines of works. These 12 people all work in writing-demanding positions. She looks to explore how writing and literacy works within these 12 different careers while dealing with the pressure that is put on them by having a certain type of writing, especially in the corporate world; i.e the filters and regulations they have to follow. One thing that stood out to me was the idea of ghost writing in the corporate world. I am vaguely familiar with the term but I have only heard it used in music references, such as “I was a ghostwriter on this song”, etc. So when it was brought up in the article by one of the interviewers, who ghost write for her dad/boss, it was eye opening. I didn’t think it didn’t happen within these writing intensive jobs, I just never thought about it happening. To me, this makes these jobs even more demanding because if you are writing for someone you have to be able to know them and their writings enough to make it pass as theirs. I also found it interesting how all the interviewers were from different writing jobs, and how writing is different in each position that is listed. Overall, this essay was very interesting to read because it put writing and literacy in a more ‘real-world’ setting by interviewing people. It’s different than just talking about writing in the workplace rather than having first hand accounts from people who actually do it.

Option 2:

I have wrote several passive aggressive notes to my roommates, who I’ve been friends with for 3 years now. One of my roommates has a hard time turning off the stove after she uses it, I don’t know why she forgets but I have had to tell her to turn off the stove/oven many times after she used it. Recently I wake up and go to the kitchen in the morning and realize that the stove was on and nothing was on it. I’m the first one to get up every morning so I knew it had been on 6+ hours and I knew what roommate it was. but trying not to target people I sent a paragraph long message in our roommate group explaining what I saw in the morning and if “we”, I used the term “we” to not point fingers even though we all knew who the culprit was, could turn off the stove after using it and ended it in a joke, by saying I don’t want to wake up one morning in flames, even though I was fuming. I think my roommates knew I was being passive aggressive but I didn’t care.

In her essay, Gregg goes into great detail describing the inter workings of office work/life with most being negative implications behind it. She uses a main character from the show Six Feet Under, as a prime example throughout the essay to back up the claims that is made. She claims that something is missing or wrong with the middle class office setting and how overtime things started to change in the work environment including writing and how it is used in the office setting. She goes into detail about the heavy reliance on emails and even the passive aggressive ‘sticky-notes’ that people use for memos. A term that the author used a lot within her essay was ‘precarity’, which is a term I was not very familiar with until reading the essay. Now after the reading, I take it to mean being insecure about one’s employment and/or income in the time of change, both socially and economically. Although I have never thought about the aspects of an office job like the author, as I was reading it everything was clicking and making sense. Specifically the section on the passive aggressive sticky notes that are left around a work place. I never thought of them as a formal form of writing but reading it has open my mind. Since I am more of a visual learner, while reading I tried to think of shows/ movies that portrayed what she was claiming because I have never seen the show she was referencing. That gave me the idea of the show The Office, the American version. It has all the aspects that is mentioned within the essay, even down to the temps. This helped me put the essay into perspective even though I have never worked in an office setting. This essay responds to one of the questions that the class is about in regards to economics and writing. Although someone might work in an office setting it doesn’t mean that their job is to write so, the office work life forces people to use other forms of writing that we don’t think about as often.

Exigence: the benefit of using Social Media to raise awareness for important real life topics and how money can be made off of social media without exposing one’s social life. Using social media for business proposes while also being social.

Genre: An Instagram post mirroring the selected post I chose of Matt Mcgorry’s.

Soundness: The choices I made was finding a popular celebrity who’s Instagram feed promotes real world issues and not just their lavish lifestyle. Matt McGorry being the main one I have found so far. It could also be done on other social media platforms as well.

Artifact: Instagram post by Matt McGorry.
Summary: Matt Mcgorry is an actor and an activist who uses social media as a way to get his ideas out. He often times post books on his Instagram that he has just reviewed and gives his 1.8 million followers a glimpse of his thoughts regarding them and what the book is about. This specific post is about “Are Prisons Obsolete” by Angela Davis. Within this post he briefly explains how prisons are thriving with cheap labor and some of the cost that it takes to make prisons. In this post he not only talks about the economic aspects of prisons but also the cultural aspects of it as well.
Textual Analysis (Rhetorical strategies)
~Appeals used in this Instagram post would be using Logos to appeal to the audience. Matt first credit the author the of book Angela Davis, by writing a short paragraph of some of her beliefs and what she has gone through. He strays from an emotional approach because with a topic like this one, to convey a serious message there needs to facts to back up opinions and not just completely emotion driven.
~Diction: Very formal diction for an Instagram post. Uses words ‘abolitionist’, ‘incentivized’, and ‘oppression’ to get across the severity of the situation.
~Delivery: Instagram Post. Gets thousands of people’s attention on an important topic.
~Organization: Breaks up points into smaller paragraphs instead of one long continuous stream of consciousness. Breaks the thoughts of the post into an introduction to the author, his opinion, and then an example for the text. Almost essay style.
Overall organization of the post and writing style suggest that Matt takes this book/issue seriously and urges his followers to do the same.
Contextual Analysis:
~Lanham: Stuff and Fluff. In this Instagram post the stuff is the book and the fluff is the awareness of the issues that come with prisons
~Bourdieu:
• Cultural Capital: Matt uses his position as an actor on a popular show and his followers to get this point across. He directly names the book and the author to his 1.8 million followers in order to get the book to gain traction, if it already hasn’t. He uses he platform and cultural of social media status to promote important issues, because he has the ability and capital to do so.
• Social Capital: Matt uses Angela Davis because he shares similar beliefs as her and knows many other people do as well. Although he has a large following from his acting jobs, he has also done a lot of activism work and has made connections in that world as well. From this, he shares his message with other people who has the same opinions as him. Also, his Instagram feed is majority of his activism work and books he recommends in relation to that so by now mostly all his followers know his opinions and views on topics such as this.