Wendy McTammany ’95 on changing careers and adapting her writing to suit new audiences and purposes

Wendy McTammany ’95, Physical Therapist Assistant at Evangelical Community Hospital

Who I am as a writer has changed over the years based on my career, but more so as a result of whom my audience is at any given time. Something that I feel I was able to grasp at Bucknell, when I was writing every day for different classes, was that clear communication is paramount. I know that this sounds a bit cold and clinical, but depending on his/her audience, a writer has to change vocabulary, structure, organization and/or format. Even the most informal writing is ineffective if your reader cannot understand what you are trying to say.

When I was at Bucknell, my English essays were far different from the short stories I wrote in my creative writing class. Not only because they were for a different purpose but also because they were for a different audience. My social science essays needed to clearly communicate in the language of that discipline. When I went to graduate school for education, I had to write lesson plans that communicated to my cooperating teacher and to the professors at school while also teaching my students. As a teacher, I had to write test questions that were clear enough to elicit intelligent responses from my students and also answer my question. I made it clear to my students that clear communication and audience focus was important to me. I responded to student complaints that their history or science teacher was asking for different formatting for essay references by reminding them that different audiences and purposes require different styles of writing, different ways of communicating. (Not that they liked that very much, but I do think most of them eventually understood what I meant.)

Communication, one can see, is the reason that we write. We write to share knowledge, to express emotion, to elicit a response from our readers.

After eight years at home and doing little more writing than emails and an occasional poem or story for a now defunct informal writing group, I went back to school to become a Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA). I had been out of the classroom as a teacher for eight years and out as a student for twice that. I was going to have to learn to communicate in the language of the medical professional and that was a bit intimidating. I clung to my focus on audience and purpose, and that focus helped me to tackle a technical writing class and then move on to writing daily patient notes when I got my first job out of school.

As a PTA, I write daily notes about patients that have to quickly and clearly convey information about that patient’s symptoms, progress, exercise program, pain level, etc., so that any therapist who sees that patient after me can quickly know just where that patient left off and what needs to be done to best care for him or her in the future. I may not be available for questions, so I have to be clear and, as time is a factor with appointment scheduling, concise. Again, it all comes down to clear communication.

I don’t get the opportunity to write for fun very much, but I feel that I am truly blessed to feel so confident when wading through the sea of different kinds of writing. I think that my writing experiences at Bucknell were varied and not always easy, and tackling them gave me the writing confidence that I have today. I love to craft a piece of writing with an audience in mind; it feels (at the risk of sounding too sentimental about writing) almost like creating a personalized gift for that audience. Thank you, Bucknell for giving me one more writing assignment. This is my first blog post… another new form of writing to add to my ever growing list.

Prof. Mike Malusis on the four Cs of high-quality technical writing and the painful but necessary process of writing

Mike Malusis, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Bucknell’s Writing Across the Curriculum Program (2012-15)

What writing project(s) are you working on right now?

I am working on several writing projects that are at various stages of completion, including three journal papers (one in press, one in review, and one in preparation) and two papers (in preparation) for upcoming conferences in Paris (2013) and Melbourne (2014).  I also have begun work on my first book project, a textbook on ground improvement (i.e., principles and practices for improving the engineering properties of poor or problematic soils), in collaboration with my Bucknell colleague, Professor Jeff Evans.  We are hoping to complete the book in two years, but we shall see.

What do you love about it?

The most rewarding aspect of writing, from my perspective, is the learning that accompanies the writing process.  I love to learn, and there is no better way to enhance my knowledge or crystallize my understanding of a particular subject than to write about it. 

What about it (if anything) is driving you nuts?

Just about everything, but in the interest of brevity, I’ll list my top three frustrations: (1) writer’s block (which happens far too often for my liking); (2) the seemingly endless process of revision; and (3) finding errors in my published papers (if you find one, please, do not tell me about it). 

How would you describe your writing process?

An oft-followed adage in engineering is, “plan the work, work the plan.”  This is exactly the way I approach all of my writing projects.  The planning stage is particularly important, as this is the stage in which I answer the key questions that ultimately guide (and constrain) the design of the writing piece.  For example: Who is my audience?  Why am I writing?  What are my objectives?  What are the requirements (e.g., length, format, etc.)?  What information must I include?  How do I organize and present that information?  Typically, my planning effort culminates in a detailed outline that includes a draft title, the basic structure of the piece (i.e., all sections and subsections, organized hierarchically), bulleted lists of key information to be included in each section/subsection (including illustrations such as figures, tables, and drawings), and a draft list of references that I anticipate citing in the work. 

After my outline is prepared, I begin “working the plan.”   I create the illustrations first, since much of what I convey in the text will be my interpretation of these illustrations.  Then I compose the text, starting with the sections that are easiest to write.  I try to articulate my ideas as best I can while fighting back an instinctual urge to create a masterpiece in the first draft.   Unfortunately, I am not always successful at preventing my perfectionist nature from getting in the way of progress (and writer’s block ensues).  In any case, once I have flesh on the bones, I embark on the revision process.   Revision is no small task and goes well beyond proofreading.  I critically evaluate the entire piece --- every section, every sentence, every word --- with focus on organization, economy, clarity, completeness, precision, and accuracy.  This process, for me, often requires several iterations.  Painful, but necessary.

What kind of feedback on your writing do you find most helpful?

While I appreciate feedback of all kinds, the most helpful feedback generally relates to one of the four C’s of high-quality technical writing: Clear; Concise; Complete; Correct.  Clarity problems, in particular, are difficult for me to detect in my own work.  My explanations always make sense to me!    

What would you like your students to know about you as a writer?

Good writing does not just happen for me.  I usually spend at least twice as much time revising a paper as I spend creating the initial draft.