ATTW 3

(A note of explanation: The Association for Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) is an emailing list that I subscribe to to better my understanding of what professional writers do. The posts titled ATTW are about the emails I receive.)

One message regarded a survey on errors in grammar and mechanics. It was being used to see which types of errors were more openly accepted by professors and academics, and which errors were most easily spotted. I found this very interesting because we all know there are certain things that are just obviously wrong, but other errors, people can't seem to agree upon. I am sure the results would point to what a common trend is in what counts as an error and what is overall regarded as something that is okay to let slip by. As a professional writer, we may be faced with many of these "potential errors" and we might have to confer with our supervisor or coworkers what their opinions are on these errors in order to produce work that will be accepted by all. We also might have to relax our own opinions on certain errors, and be open to the suggestions of others of why it might not be and error.

There was a very interesting discussion following a call for editors for an article on Fat Studies in the journal Rhetoric Society Quarterly. So what exactly does "fat" mean? When can a person be considered fat, and is it a negative or neutral term? Is this something to be celebrated? The discussion pointed out the fact that terms such as "overweight" and "obese" are medical terms, they have widely accepted definitions. So, again, what is fat, and how does it fit in with these terms? While most may see the term "fat" as an insult, this discussion is about "taking the word back" and using it simply as any other adjective that describes a person in a neutral way; the term would lose its power to hurt. Fat studies, therefore, is studying how body size does not communicate body behaviors. Being fat is not the same as being unhealthy. One quote that I found exceptionally interesting was, "We can all hope, I guess, that Fat Studies does more for the acceptance of normal bodies than Rhetorical studies has done for the concept/term of 'rhetoric.'" Rhetoric has been a term we have focused on in the course of this class, and it is still clear as mud to me. The discussion brought up how society skews our view of what this actually means, making it even more confusing.  After reading all of the messages, I concluded that "fat" and the topic of "fat studies" is a form of rhetoric (gasp!) with several different ways of perception. Fat is a controversial term that we socially construct (look at that Intro to Soc knowledge coming into play!); it does not have to be an insult!