Disciplinary Style Manuals as Reliable Guides to Scientific Discourse Norms    

Style manuals sponsored by professional associations in various scientific disciplines have received virtually no scholarly attention. These manuals, however, specify many disciplinary discourse norms that writers need to follow in publishing scientific research. Consequently, these manuals provide an important and reliable source of information about how communities of working scientists conceptualize, construct, and publish their scientific texts. The disciplinary norms that these style manuals promulgate derive both from general scientific research practices and from the practical demands of scientific publishing. Because of their unique normative nature and their connection with scientific practice, disciplinary style manuals should be categorized separately from other types of scientific style manual, and the material they contain can reliably be used in technical writing and editing.

Hagge, John. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Scientific Communication>Style Guides

Linguistic Politeness in Professional Prose    

Consonant with a trend toward investigating professional writing in naturalistic settings, this discourse-analytical study of a corpus of 'suggestion letters' written in a Big Eight accounting firm demonstrates how auditors use negative politeness strategies to meet the complex demands of potentially threatening interactional situations. The study substantiates Brown and Levinson's claim that politeness is a linguistic universal by showing that the same politeness strategies found in speech also occur in written communication. Analysis of negative message strategies in ten leading textbooks shows that business communication pedagogy needs to modify strictures on the use of passives, nominalizations, expletive constructions, and hedging particles in light of research on the exigencies of real-world linguistic interaction.

Hagge, John and Charles Kostelnick. Written Communication (1989). Articles>Language>Business Communication

Review: The Teacher-Researcher: How to Study Writing in the Classroom

The latest NCTE book list indicates that The Teacher-Researcher should interest English instructors at all levels. In fact, Myers’s “global purpose is to promote the development of teacher research among K-12 teachers by providing examples of different ways teachers can study writing in their classrooms,” mainly for assessment purposes (1). Although JAC readers may profit by applying some of Myers’s work in their research, The Teacher-Researcher as a whole is too eclectic and superficial. Because Myers sometimes treats details in his exposition rather cavalierly, he may confuse his primary audience as well.

Hagge, John. JAC (1987). Articles>Reviews>Education

Review: Writing in the Business Professions

Writing in the Business Professions should interest teachers of advanced composition. I encourage them to peruse the volume for themselves since I can’t analyze its contents at length here. I do, however, feel that I need to warn potential readers about several things that perplexed me when I read the book especially since this book may help determine the future of business communication instruction in the 1990s.

Hagge, John. JAC (1990). Articles>Reviews>Business Communication