Response to Deborah Brandt’s Literacy and Learning: Reflections on Writing, Reading and Society

In the winter of 2010 I interviewed two candidates for our receptionist position at my onsite management office. Each person was strong in their own way and I was torn as to which person would be the best fit. In the end I asked them both to provide a writing sample for a memo to the shareholders. It is without question the person with more experienced and two years of college under her belt was the best candidate. There were no corrections to be made on her work and she was made an offer. However, the candidate declined the position and it was offered to the “runner-up.” Today, I diligently look at any memos or letters she writes before it is posted or sent out to others because it represents this office and on a larger scale the company that employs us.
Deborah Brandt’s book caused me to see writing as more than just a creative venture for an artist or a necessary component to obtaining a degree. Whereas in my writing classes at NYU we discussed the economy of words and how saying less is sometimes more, here she is exploring, among other things, the economy of knowledge, a term which was unfamiliar to me until now, and how combined with literacy, “writers put knowledge in tangible and thereby transactional form”(117). Writing is used in a multitude of fashions we take for granted. The prospectus received by your 401(k), the instructions for assembling goods and the employee manuals distributed at work are all scrutinized before even reaching the audience for which it is intended. It makes the work of writing seem more valuable that the act of reading. Ms. Brandt points out that reading is not given the same authority as writing in the work place (146) when in fact the two go hand in hand. It is clear there is a system of checks and balances when it comes to knowledge writing. An extensive amount of reading by various individuals must take place before any approval can be granted. What goes out into the world is a representation of the entity and sub-entities that support the information. There is no room for errors in this type of writing because in the end it can be costly.
This book began as a series of interviews and developed into a detailed analysis of our relationship to reading and writing outside the confines of school. Writing has changed and evolved and will continue to do so in our mass information charged society where we want things quickly and in bite size pieces so we can move on to our next task. The economy of words meets the economy of knowledge and when one must cut a 30,000 word manuscript into a 500 character per screen Power Point presentation (132) it makes me wonder what’s not being said. What's being left out? Are we dumbing ourselves down?