The Use of Genres in Work and Professional Contexts

An important role of technical communicators is to understand how to comprehend genres, both old and new, and to figure out how to incorporate them into the community in order to produce and share knowledge. There has been an ongoing debate as to how one can learn and understand genres. This article discusses how one can be taught some genres, but others must be experienced through immersion in order to be fully comprehended.

Another main point of this article is to understand the differences between genres in school and genres in professional contexts. In schools, readings and books serve a different purpose than they do in the professional world. Students use books to learn while workers read in order to set policies within their departments.

After conducting many studies, the authors of this article conclude that genre knowledge is dependent on participation in the community. Therefore, it is clear that immersion is an effective way to master a genre. By fully understanding a particular genre, technical communicators can use the information they have learned to shape the way knowledge is presented to the community.