What is the difference between technical writing, business writing, and professional writing?

I have worked as a professional writer my entire adult life (let's just say that's a couple of decades and leave it at that) and I expect to complete my Ph.D. in Technical Communication and Rhetoric in May.



Ever since I entered my Ph.D. program at Texas Tech I have struggled with the answer to that question. Sometimes you see people use the terms interchangeably and sometimes you see people draw hard lines and build big heavily-defended walls to separate the two (with any attempt to cross the border considered an act of war).



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Business Writing & Technical Writing

Many people see business writing as the type of writing you do in the business world, professional writing as people who write for a living (say like journalists or copyeditors and not to be confused with just plain writers which is the typical name given to those who write novels), and technical writers as people who translate science and technology into human language the rest of us can understand. Sure it sounds simple until you start actually studying all the different kinds of communication that takes place today and look at all the different people who are writing. One thing that the we can say about living in the communication age is that it has certainly empowered all sorts of people to become writers who could not have done so just a few decades ago -- and today those people have a wealth of tools and venues to share their work. So where do we draw the line? Can you see how it can become a bit of a conundrum? Read more at www.squidoo.com

 

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