Overview

In this text, the term “Professional writing” denotes the various types of writing encountered in workplace settings. Some people might associate professional writing with business, but professional writing is not limited to just business writing. “Technical” writing is highly specialized writing such as that done by scientist and engineers and often collaboratively written by technical writers, editors, or document-production people. “Public” writing creates texts for public conversation and may include informing, persuading about a particular issue, educating about a topic, calling groups of people to act, and/or to inform about a specific issue in or outside of the workplace. Writers enter public conversations for several reasons: to inform a public audience about communal issues, to prompt others to act or effect change, to educate audiences about public policy, or to advance the work of the nonprofit sector.