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Re: What is "technical" writing? (Was: RE: What to do?)
Subject:Re: What is "technical" writing? (Was: RE: What to do?) From:k k <turnleftatnowhere -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 28 Oct 2003 14:23:56 -0800 (PST)
I'm enjoying watching all this come out. Lots of
people with lots of free time today.
> >
> What I'm saying--I've said it before--is that
> Technical Communication is an
> engineering discipline.
>
> 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?
>
What kind of engineering? Civil, mechanical, chemical,
aerospace, marine, electrical, software, customer, or
structural? Or are you referring to driving a train?
:-)
"Technical communication" is a communications
discipline. "Communication" is a noun that in this
case expresses the point of the matter. "Technical" is
a modifying adjective that increases the granularity
of the definition. I don't see any form of the word
"engineering" in there.
Technical communication is an art form in which the
writer renders his audience knowledgeable, as opposed
to business communication, in which the writer makes
his audience (usually) misled and bamboozled. What
matters is imparting information clearly.
I would trust the information in an article about what
to do if I ran out of avgas if it were written by
someone who knew what he was talking about and was
able to tell me clearly. That could be a person who is
a pilot who knows how to write effectively. OR, that
could be a non-flying writer whose work has been
reviewed and passed for accuracy by someone who is
familiar with such situations.
Would you trust such an article written by someone who
knows exactly what to do but is so terribly bad at
writing that you can't understand what he means? Would
you trust such an article written by a man who has
100,000 hours on his log but he writes so poorly he
puts the steps in the wrong order?
You don't have to be a structural engineer to write
what is the tensile strength of T-12 aluminum. You
don't have to be a chemical engineer to describe a
benzene ring. To write an article on any subject and
have it be effective, you must have a clear
understanding of the subject. You can have that
understanding even if you are not a member of the
profession that deals with the subject most often, but
you can't impart that understanding effectively unless
you are a communicator.
>
> But if engineering is applied science, then what we
> do is definitely
> engineering, because we apply the sciences of
> information gathering and
> organization, communication, translation, and much
> more in what we do.
>
Sorry, but while "information gathering" may qualify,
there is no such thing as the "science" of
organization, communication, or translation.
Especially translation, which involves cultural
differences as well as linguistic differences.
If it can't be expressed in mathematical models and
formulas it isn't science, and what we do can't be
thus quantified. We deal with people - figuring out
how to make things clear to them. People can't be
quantified. (If they could be the advertising
companies would rule the world.) We deal with too many
variables. What we do isn't exactly juju but it sure
as the world isn't a science.
And, Gene: of course your insurance policy doesn't
mention things like torts or malpractice laws. But you
can bet your bottom dollar the people who write the
policies have to understand those subjects or the
insurance companies would have gone broke ages ago.
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