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What is "technical" writing? (Was: RE: What to do?)
Subject:What is "technical" writing? (Was: RE: What to do?) From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:19:40 -0500
Chuck Martin opined: <<What I'm saying--I've said it before--is that
Technical Communication is an engineering discipline.>>
Um... speaking as a recovering scientist (forestry) working with a batch of
foresters--only some of whom are engineers--and freelancing with a bunch of
scientists whose writing is moderately technical, I'd suggest that your
definition is too narrow.
Certainly engineering (applied science) is one of the larger and more
visible subsets of technical writing, but I'd broaden the definition to
include scientific communication (basic science), software development (an
art desperately striving to become a science), medical writing ("human
engineering"?), and a range of other genres.
<<Would you trust the information in an article about what to do if you run
out of avgas if it was written by someone who didn't have experience behind
a stick?>>
Here you're getting to the crux of the matter (imho): Technical
communication involves working with a variety of folks who are experts in a
technical discipline of some kind, including but not limited to engineering.
To succeed in this form of communication, you need to understand the subject
matter--and if you're not an expert, you must absolutely be able to identify
what parts you don't understand so you can ask one or more expert to approve
your interpretation. You also need to understand the vocabulary and needs of
your audience, who are often not experts. Last but not least, you need to be
able to translate between the expert and the audience.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h@ mtl.feric.ca
(try ghart@ videotron.ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"I don't read literary theory anymore; it makes my brain hurt... I have way
too much time on my hands and way too little to think about. In this
respect, the laundromat is not much different from the English department
office."--Tim Morris, U of Texas English professor ("Suds", in _The American
Scholar_)
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