Real value: Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[HALL Bill <bill -dot- hall -at- tenix -dot- com>]

Technical communicators are supposed to be good at dealing with new ideas
and technologies. The fact that the recent running debate triggered by the
"real value" postings has gotten out of hand shows that technical writers
are also human and have some basic human problems dealing with SOME kinds of
change. I'm sorry that Earl has felt the need to bar Dan Emory and Tim Altom
from the list. Both have a lot of knowledge to contribute - but they have
demonstrated the basic human failing of attacking the person rather than
fundamental aspects of the issue under debate that may not be understood
well enough to articulate.

We are living in a time of fairly rapid technological change where there are
two radically different documentation paradigms in competition (e.g., the
paradigm of structured authoring and content management vs the paradigm of
paper-oriented word processing and file management). One is enabled by and
would be completely impractical without the new computer technology, the
other uses computer technology but represents the direct evolutionary
progression of the kind of writing practices that humans have used for
millennia. Each is unquestionably the most appropriate paradigm for some
particular environments - and for some environments either would be an
appropriate choice.

The problem with deciding between them is that there are truly
"revolutionary" differences between the two paradigms; and that protagonists
on the two sides have deep problems articulating and expressing things they
just "know" to be true - and failing this the temperature rises and the
debate morphs into a holy war, with people calling names and throwing brick
bats.

I know that the book is more than 30 years old, but Thomas Kuhn's Structure
of Scientific Revolutions should be required reading for all technical
writers. As a sometime student of scientific revolutions, it is still the
last word on the psycho social phenomena such revolutions engender. The book
is not well written from the point of view of a technical writer, because
Kuhn himself was dealing with new ideas. However, it does explain how highly
competent professionals in different writing "schools" can become involved
in the kind of holy war just passed. Kuhn's last chapters particularly focus
on the holy war phenomenon.

To communicate successfully between the different schools, we really have to
go back and think deeply about things we learned at primary school: what is
writing, how do we organise and represent knowledge, etc. and accept that
technology may now offer tools and possibilities that simply didn't exist in
any viable form when we learned to write. Perhaps then we can successfully
translate ideas across the paradigmatic gap without name calling and
attacks, and focus on the actual cost/benefit choice between applying
structured vs paper paradigms to particular writing environments.

And given that the technologies are rapidly evolving, today's choice may not
be cost effective tomorrow. As technical writers we all need to have a deep
understanding of both paradigms and be prepared to discuss cross
paradigmatic issues without holy wars.
 
Bill Hall
Email: bill -dot- hall -at- tenix -dot- com

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