A study examining the writing of adults who do not consider themselves professional writers but who must master a variety of types of writing in order to meet the day-to-day obligations of their jobs is described in this report. The introduction of the report offers an overview of the work and findings of the study, which was conducted at various governmental agencies to determine whether workers' intuitive distinctions among types of writing could be verified empirically. The introduction points out that one of the important outcomes of the study was the development of research procedures that can be used in nonacademic settings. The second section of the report explains and assesses one of the primary research procedures, discourse-based interviews. The third section presents the findings from the study of writing at a county social services agency. The final section reports the findings of a comparative study of work and school sponsored writing, and discusses the study's implications for teaching. Tables of findings illustrate the text. (HTH)