Whereas most research on writing in the workplace examines writing from writers' perspectives, this study focuses on readers' responses to writing. The central issue in this study is the relationship between readers' responses to writing and the goals and values of an organization. The particular focus of the study is managers' responses while reading their subordinates' reports. / Conducted over two years in a large company that develops and markets health care products, this study used a variety of qualitative methods. Observations, interviews, and the critical incident method revealed that organizational expectations for writing were closely tied to the organization's mission and its beliefs about how that mission should be accomplished. Respond-aloud protocols from two divisions of the company, Marketing and Management Information Systems, demonstrated that managers' responses while reading their subordinates' reports strongly reflected their beliefs about the particular mandates of their divisions. Furthermore, these protocols also revealed how the divisional cultures reflected the larger framework of the organization. / These findings suggest that writers must learn both the organizational and divisional goals and values in order to write reports that meet readers' expectations. Moreover, this study illustrates the importance of readers' responses to the development of theories about writing in the workplace.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.41258 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Ledwell-Brown, Jane C. |
| Contributors | Dias, Patrick X. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Curriculum and Instruction.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001394788, proquestno: NN91724, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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