Written communicative expertise

Abstract

Good communication skills are seen as a requirement for many professions and form part of a professional’s expertise. Focusing on writing skills, this paper draws on research into the production and reception of public information documents (PIDs) in Australia. To triangulate data from three sources, a multi-perspective framework was adopted. First, the document writers in the organisations were interviewed, and second, the PIDs’ reception was explored through readability testing with members of the public. The third perspective involved analysing the semiotic resource, the published PIDs themselves. Research data revealed that organisational authors adopted specific writing processes and understood that their documents targeted a diverse audience. However, although the content of the documents was accurate, most reader-participants did not find them easy to understand. Building on these preliminary findings, this paper investigates the context and processes of professional writing in the workplace and related connections to the concept of written communicative expertise. I link my findings to issues encountered in my work as a communication consultant. These links highlight the importance of fostering connections between linguists, content area experts and managers in organisations to improve our understanding and training in the skillsets that lead to written communicative expertise.