RE: Tech writing class (Intellectual Foundations) LONG

["walden miller" <wmiller -at- vidiom -dot- com>]

Jim writes...
Is not college a time for studying and discussing the intellectual
foundations and new ideas of a field?
Rather than getting job training, perhaps students of Technical
Communication should consider questions like: ...


Well, it really depends on whether you are talking about grad school or the
undergrad grind.

I spent about 8 years as an undergrad, diving into many, many different
majors.  Academic philosophy was not what I learned.  On the other hand, my
5 years of grad school was steeped in Rhetoric of Communication, but very
short on practicality.

There must be a balance, but most graduate schools err on the side of
rhetoric (after all English-type-subject grad schools are mainly there to
perpetuate themselves by teaching teachers.  Tech Comm grad schools are
often the odd-person-out in the politics of English (along with Linguistics
and ESL).

Undergrad programs can be incredibly good or just a set of rules and
overviews of subject matter.  Drill, drill, drill.  That works well for
training a person for job placement, but doesn't prepare a person for the
politically charged atmosphere of a tech writer in a large corporation.

But, the original question was what to teach in an intro course on tech
writing. That is definitely not the place for philosophy and rhetoric (other
that mentioning that all tech writing is informed by p & r).

An intro course should give enough information about the various aspects of
tech writing that students can make curriculum decisions for their degree
programs AND decisions about whether they even want to pursue tech writing.

I heard of a great intro course given at Michigan Tech (all you MT whirlers
chime in here...).  The course brought in working tech writers every other
week to talk to the class about what they do, how they do it, the tools they
use, the problems they face, etc.  The assignments were to write reports on
each writer.  At the end of the course, the students had a set of case
studies of actual writers.  It was a one-hour course, from what I
understand.  This is a nice approach.

At Carnegie-Melon, I understand the Masters program is very heavy into
practicality and the PhD program is very heavy into Research/Rhetoric.  You
choose where you want to be.  This is not to say the Masters program doesn't
get its share of Rhetoric. Linda Flowers is a Research/Rhetoric heavyweight
in academic circles and her influence is no doubt felt throughout both
programs.

Finally, I think the questions raised by Jim here are very important to Tech
writers, but in a very different avenue.  Let us ask the same questions
about ourselves in our jobs.  How do we keep abreast of research?  How do we
discuss the role of the communicator in intuitive interfaces?, etc., etc.
(read his questions...)

Techwr-l is a nice forum for practicality which of course takes up most of
the time in our jobs.  But techwr-l does not often delve into rhetoric
discussions of visual communication,
human factors, process theory, usability design, etc.

I am not suggesting that techwr-l go in that direction, either.  But the
same problem that faces teachers on what to teach faces writers on what to
keep up on.

my .02,
walden


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