1.0 Introduction

{1} What Val will learn about the transition to communicating in the technical workplace concerns the audiences and purposes of such communication.  The focus of communication shifts from self to user.  In school, you are the focus of your communication: even when you submit an assignment that is intended to be written for a professional audience, your professor is assessing you and you are expected to demonstrate the requisite skills or knowledge called for by the assignment.  Workplace communication requires you to shift your focus to the audience-as-user of your communication.  Users of communication may need information or they may need persuasion.  What such users need is actionable communication: their task is to take action in response to your communication.

{2} Moreover, the production and consumption of written communication in the workplace comes at a cost.  Val has to understand that not only will they be paid to write (anything from text messages, emails, memos, and letters to formal reports), but that those with whom they communicate will be paid to read and respond to those messages.  All communication in the workplace, therefore, comes at a cost.  Effective communication pays for itself.  Ineffective communication risks losing money.