This piece of writing on Goodwill’s site is meant for potential donors, most likely corporations or other large organizations. They included it in their website to show other potential donors that the company is credible because it’s backed by the federal government. Their audience of potential donors in this part of the website is not the average person that would donate clothes - they would be appealing to professionals interested in donating large sums of money or companies that would want to partner with them. The US DOL’s purpose in publishing this is to show the general public where and for what purpose their tax money was spent. Government officials that supported this expenditure or worked on securing it might use this news release as evidence that their work is better than their opponents when they run for re-election, and the use of the Official Style in this article helps demonstrate their responsibility. The article is available to everyone, but the people most likely to read it are corporate executives, non-profit executives, and other members of government. Professionals recognize the Official Style in writing as a signal of being in their group, giving the article social currency in the professional sphere. It also signals that the writer has received higher education - only 25% of the population could read this article according to the Flesch Reading Ease, and the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level and the Coleman Liau Index put this piece of writing at a second to third year university level. The authors used “the Official Style” in this piece because it’s intended for people that would be comfortable reading that type of writing, and it commands authority from the rest of the public that may choose to read it.
This article consists of long sentences that have many clauses, semicolons that are appropriately used, stacked prepositional phrases, to-be verbs, a lack of grammatical errors, and an (in general) impersonal writing style. These strategies of the Official Style convey authority and knowledge from the writer to the reader, making them appear credible. For an article by a governmental department, this is not only normal but expected by anyone who might read it. If the article had been written in a more plain style to appeal to a wider audience, working professionals might not respect the Department of Labor as much because this information is not necessary for the general public (like an announcement for an election might be). The US DOL’s following of expected writing conventions reinforces the Official Style as a norm for companies and government, and increases credibility in general for Goodwill and the US DOL.
It’s important for the authors to show their credibility in this article through the use of the Official Style because both organizations are playing off of each other’s credibility to increase their own - Goodwill is showing that they’re endorsed by the federal government, and the US DOL is proving that they make good choices with tax money by giving it to a nationally-known non-profit. Both companies want respect and to appear authoritative in this article because they are receiving money from the citizens’ taxes. When the average person reads something very complicated and official-looking, they ask less questions about it and are more likely to ignore it because it’s difficult to read. If they do read it and it superficially appears to give enough information to satisfy them, they’re less willing to criticize it or think critically on it.
Using verbose and bureaucratic jargon relating to business makes the reader less interested in thinking critically about the issue. Some examples of business jargon are phrases in the article like:
- pre-employment training
- occupational skills training
- intensive individual assessment
- labor organizations
- workforce development institutions
- energy-efficient building construction and retrofit
- certification of five member Goodwill headquarter agencies
- energy efficiency assessment
- obtain and retain well-paying jobs
Most of these phrases (such as “occupational skills training” and “intensive individual assessment” ) are rather vague ideas hidden behind business buzzwords. Using this language to describe the programs that the US DOL is supporting at Goodwill allows the specific details of the program to be obscured yet gives just enough information for a casual reader to see a general picture of what is being supported. Brevity is important for this style of writing because a press release is often confined to one page, but use of vague language is also a common marketing practice for companies. The less a company says specifically about their organization’s programs, the more people are likely to support the programs that company is using. There is an ethical problem with that type of writing, but often it’s not produced with harmful intent. In my opinion, Goodwill and the US DOL don’t want to have to answer too many questions about this grant because they both believe that Goodwill deserves it. The people that need to understand it (like the Goodwill executives or other government officials) will, and everyone else will ignore it because it seems like someone smart and credible wrote it. Writing in a plain style might open up a massive discussion with a large group of Americans that simply doesn’t need to happen. We elect officials to make decisions like this for us, and it would slow down the procedure if everyone could understand and debate it. By excluding people through the use of the Official Style, the authors of this article are preventing complications from this decision by people not involved in the decision-making process.
This article is one of the few examples where the Official Style is necessary to accomplish the article’s goals. The authors informed the right people about the right amount of information, and through word use and sentence construction excluded everyone else that didn’t need to know about it. It’s written appropriately for the audience it’s intended for, and accomplishes its goals utilizing the Official Style.
https://www.goodwill.org/press-releases/u-s-department-of-labor-awards-goodwill-7-3-million-for-green-jobs/
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20190717
Elizabeth Puck
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