Reading #2: Henry

I felt that this chapter, while offering a rather interesting reflection on the similarities between anthropology and technical writing, didn't really do much at all. It seemed to me that someone had an initial idea of the fact that these two things were similar, and then proceeded to concoct a thirty-something page article to explain their "discovery." I've been having a problem with most of my other textbooks over the course of this, the first week of class, 2015, and I find the same issues within the pages of this book. These books seem vastly more concerned with academic masturbatory language, than with getting across a succinct point or enlightening the potential reader. What is the main point of this article? That to fully understand any workplace, especially one that is "contemporary" in the authors words, in an effort to produce any sort of effective technical writing about the establishment, one needs to fully understand the business, people, and most importantly the culture. I think that this is trite, banal and unnecessarily overblown. The entirety of this paper could, and should have been condensed down into a two page summary. An example of these fictional people is unnecessary, and in my opinion does nothing to clarify the very simple point of the paper. I think that anyone who is at the college level, and has taken a professional interest in writing for these types of settings already understands the importance of being informed prior to taking on any sort of project, already knows how to take notes and even reflect on them later, and is likely already aware of effective interview tactics either from their experience as interviewer or interviewee. I expected this article to deal with topics such as how a technical communicator might mesh with unorthodox technical environments, such as bakeries, delis, restaurants, or any other business that does in fact have need of a technically leaning writer, whether they know it or not.