Variables of Composition: Process and Product in a Business Setting

Writing is written within and for dis­course communities, whose values, tra­ditions, and beliefs condition the writer’s own values and influence both the pro­cess of composition and the products is­suing from that process.

To understand how writers compose and revise within the business and industry community Broadhead and Freed examine the revision practices of proposal writers in a management-consulting firm. They describe the writ­ers’ motives and intentions in changing a text. This study provides a firmly based theory of composing and revising that will enable business writers to achieve a balanced perspective by focusing on the ends as well as the means of compos­ing—that is, by focusing on the interplay of product and process.