Book Reviews

The avant garde rock band "Talking Heads" released an album several years ago entitled "Stop Making Sense," a rhythmic and linguistic fiasco that establishes frenzied nonsense as a standard for modern communication. This absurdist notion does not seem entirely off base when one thinks of how the specialized vocabulary of modern professionals and technocrats has made verbal and written communication even more complex than it already was. Moreover, when one places the traditional expectations of the English instructor beside the actual writing tasks that a student will eventually be asked to carry out in the modern workplace, the disparity between the standards of traditional academe and the writing required of workaday professionals does seem absurd.

Carolyn Matalene's fine edition of essays, therefore, could be retitled "Start Making Sense" in that Matalene draws together a community of writers who collectively insist that classroom writing instruction should be directed toward the specialized communication needs of the working world. It is to Matalene's credit that this collection is uncharacteristic in its ability to provide a focused and well-structured statement concerning its subject. The essays, each of which pinpoint a specific area of concern, were apparently selected with care, and the collection is structured in a way that makes the overall work accessible and engaging. The relationship between the world of academic writing and the other "worlds" of writing in the workplace is the chief point of concern in the opening sections; however, specific ways to integrate these worlds in the classroom are also discussed in articles that target specific issues. For instance, the transition from teaching literary writing to teaching writing in the non-literary areas of technical writing and business writing is covered in articles written by English professors who have had to make this transition. In the later sections, the collection provides articles by several experts who have worked as writing consultants in the fields of manufacturing, journalism, finance, electronics, and law. A number of training techniques are covered, including a discussion of group writing practices in business management environments and articles on the "coaching" of individual writers in the newsroom

Matalene's collection provides a thorough look at the various "worlds" of writing that are encountered in a number of business environments. These essays, therefore, are necessary and useful continuations of the ideas presented in Writing in Nonacademic Settings (1985), the groundbreaking work on this subject edited by Lee Odell and Dixie Goswami. These and other statements on the problems that surround the teaching of composition in the academic setting provide welcome alternatives to traditional instruction. Also, by suggesting a number of ways in which our talents as English instructors are used in a variety of corporate and business settings, this type of research does much to defeat the myth that our field only provides superfluous skills and useless knowledge.

Thomas Dabbs
Francis Marion University