First off, what caught my eye most about this chapter was what the author considered to be good elements of both academic and non-academic writing. For academic writing, what was listed felt more like common knowledge because I have participated in academic writing for about my entire high school/college experience. Therefore, what was more important to me out of these two sections was what is expected of professional writing. Although I have had a glimpse of what the professional world seems to be, this section has prepared me more in what is expected of me. It begins with how ideas must be communicated clearly and simply as possible, paragraphs are short, and specialized language (in most cases) is avoided rather than encouraged. This was something that almost set me back a little bit compared to what is expected of academic writing. If anything, it feels as if it is the exact opposite. In academic writing we tend to want to include complex language and in-depth contextual writing to support our ideas. In the professional world, this goes out the window. I believe that this can complicate ones ability to write in the professional world without doing the preliminary work and research to prepare for such. The section continues on to provide answers as to why they are so distinctly different because they require different audiences. In the professional world, one does not have time to read complex and in-depth writing surrounding a subject; it need to be concise. This is drastically different from the academic world where one does have and requires the time to devote to such reading and writing.
Another concept in this chapter that was interesting to me was the importance around usage of plain language or known as plain English. The importance of this is to decrease possibly misunderstandings and misinterpretations of more complicated texts. That despite it being a “professional” setting, the more simple the language the better. It has been surprising to me because we are required to learn such complex usage of written and spoken language in academic settings; so that one may assume it is necessary for the professional world. The features of plain English one must know to succeed in doing so are concepts such as using concrete examples, avoiding word heavy expressions, and repeating words/sentences/subjects. Doing so allows ones language to be conveyed clearly and effectively, relating back to how one becomes a good communicator.
