Discussion Post Question:

Corporate authors often face the challenge of speaking with one voice
when they collaborate on documents and presentations. However, a corporate
groups multiple voices and perspectives are often valuable. Can organizations
achieve a unified voice without sacrificing the value of having diverse perspectives?
If so, how? Analyze a variety of pages and documents available on a corporate
website. Annotate rhetorical moves that establish a voice and identity for the
corporation as well as any moments of heteroglossia. Evaluate the effectiveness of
the corporate voices, making recommendations for improvement.
My Discussion Post Response:
I analyzed webpages off the corporate website for Marriott International, Inc., which is a leading
American hotel corporation. The website includes different written documents and pages for all branches
of the company, including hotel development, a statement of core company values and history, corporate
responsibility, a diversity page, and investor relations.
Reading the pages, it is obvious that there is a company-wide rhetoric used by all the writers
employed by Marriott. There is a clear set of standards that each corporate writing piece on the website
follows. There is a specific diction associated with the hotel business that consists of professional and
business vocabulary. The writing on the corporate documents is meant to be concise and to the point, and
with little literary fluff.
There are however, nuanced differences in the writing styles of documents coming from
different departments of the company. The webpages in the diversity section of the website, for example,
are written with a bit more enthusiasm than the documents in the investments pages of the websites.
These differences are probably a result of the multiple voices and perspectives described in the prompt,
and also the variance in intended audience and purpose of each corporate department. The diversity
page would be catering to a less professional audience in a more casual way, while the investor page
would be directed towards potential investor page with more professionalism.
The Marriott International, Inc. website is a prime example of a corporation maintaining a
unified voice while incorporating many different writing styles provided by writers with varying voices,
perspectives, and purposes.