All of the readings for this week are about defining technical writing. Because they all deal so similarly with the same topic, I thought it would be best to combine my writings into one piece.
I find it rather remarkable that these articles take a seemingly simple task (define technical writing and/or technical communication) and beat around the topic. Miller is mostly concerned with examining scientific rhetoric, the positivist view of science, and the role of instructors in technical communication. Her article seems to me to be less about a proper definition of the field and more of a defense of technical writing as a respectable field.
Dobrin’s forward for his article actually apologizes for the article being so awful. The article is just 30+ pages seemingly devoid of meaning or relevance. Dobrin’s discussion of universalist views, monadist views, and alternity seem to reveal way too much thinking about technical writing. However, I do appreciate Dobrin’s much anticipated definition: “Technical writing is writing that accommodates technology to the user.” In much the same vein that he manages to poke holes in other definitions, he thoroughly examines his own definition. However, in doing so he claims that his definition is not “ultimately accurate.” But, for the purposes of even the most discerning everyman, I think he got it.
This brings me to the third article by Bemer, which acts as an overview of the whole definition dilemma. Bemer makes the comment, “the academy [of technical communication], many scholars say, focuses more on theory than application. The opposite is perhaps true for the workplace.” To me, this statement is very important. Articles that are so roundabout, confusing and generally unhelpful (like Dobrin’s article) don’t help the practitioner. It seems that they are more helpful for the teacher of technical writing. The academy is supposed to train students to enter the workplace, where theory has little relevance.
I never ever imagined that technical writing had so much theory abounding in it. I really figured it to be a rather straightforward field. I hope I haven’t missed any dire points, but I feel as though there isn’t any practical use in these theories. I don’t think I could get a job as a technical writer because I could hold an in-depth discussion on the many subtleties of the definition of the fields and schisms between it and more traditional fields in the humanities. Articles like these may even be harmful. Most people (according the examples given throughout these articles) claim that technical writing is supposed to clear and objective, but Dobrin and Miller refute these claims, asserting that it’s impossible to remove all rhetoric from writing and constant use of impersonal tone is something of a paradox, etc. It seems to imply that there is no right or wrong way to be a technical writer if nearly everything about the field can be refuted back and forth. If anyone can perform technical writing any way they want, then what is purpose of teaching it?
Taking these readings into account, along with class discussion, I think that technical writers are defined by their products (manuals, walkthroughs, Web sites, reports, etc.), the products of the technical writer are created to, “accommodate technology to the user,” and technical writing courses teach students how to best produce these products.
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There is, as you point out, a rather unproductive gap at times between theory and practice (although it's often said that there's nothing more practical than a good theory). You'll find this in every field, although it is perhaps more pronounced in English studies.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a good point in stating that Dobrin's definition of technical writing is probably workable for a general audience (even though it's not good enough for Bemer). I'm trying to imagine a reasonable definition of technical writing that a general audience wouldn't find acceptable, though. Are these writers claiming to seek a (practical) definition of TW when what they really want is a theoretical understanding of it mainly of interest to professionals? Perhaps the annoying thing about Dobrin is simply that he's stating he wants to do one thing while he's doing another. We will have some readings, such as the Casady reading next week, which are by practitioners rather than academics; we should compare the types of things they find of interest and their approaches.
There's one distinction I think is important to make. In your second-to-last paragraph, you state that these articles "[seem] to imply that there is no right or wrong way to be a technical writer if nearly everything about the field can be refuted back and forth." This is not something these writers (or I) would agree with. There are right and wrong ways to do things. It's just that right and wrong will be defined by the professional community, not by reference to some universal law of writing (although individual professionals are always free to attempt to reference universal laws in their defense of their own perspective). Dobrin and Miller aren't relativists (believing there are no standards), they're social-constructionists (believing that we, the community of professional writers, create these standards). In other words, Dobrin and Miller aren't arguing against the existence of standards, they're arguing about the source of these standards.
The positivist view says, basically, that if there is no one absolute right answer that is applicable to all situations and will satisfy everyone, then there must not be any wrong answer (i.e. all or nothing). Miller and Dobrin believe that there is no one universal answer to the question of "what is technical writing?". But they do think we need contingent, provisional definitions. This is the type of question that profesionals have to reach some agreement on, but that later professionals can redefine if they feel they need to. In other words, disagreement among professionals is part of how a field gets defined, not an anomaly in how professionals operate.
Our discussion about conventions tonight should remind us that you CANNOT perform technical writing any way you want. You have to work within the conventions of the genre and the field, or risk readers not understanding you, or other professionals shunning you. Becoming a writer (of any sort) is really a process of enculturation where you absorb the values, preferences, ways of thinking, etc. of a community. And writers have to be aware of the cultures of their readers as well. We have to be careful to not too quickly dismiss the complexity and in-depth knowledge needed by technical writers about issues of language, collaboration, usability, and many other topics.