An underlying theme I saw in this week’s readings was one of how title and job description is a rhetorical situation in and of itself. It appears that during the 90s, technical communication went through a re-invention or makeover period. What we do as technical communicators changed, who we were advocates for changed, how we wrote changed, and the ways in which we had to think changed. Even calling ourselves technical communicators became a problem because of the stigma attached to it.

Johnson-Eilola suggests that we need to start emphasizing the “communication” half of our title rather than the “technical” portion, which of course is strong rhetoric within itself (189).

By emphasizing the “technical,” we were suggesting that as communicators, we would present facts, numbers, and data, in a non-personal manner – not taking into consideration the needs of the audience, but rather just presenting facts and leaving it up to the audience to interpret. However, but emphasizing the “communicator,” we are able to bring more value to what we do. We are advocates for the audience and work to present facts to them in a way that they understand and need. Johnson-Eilola goes so far as to re-configure the understanding of what technical communicator do to calling it “symbolic-analytic work.”

He states “Symbolic-analytic workers rely on skills in abstraction, experimentation, collaboration, and system thinking to work with information across a variety of disciplines and markets…(it) mediates between the functional necessities of usability and efficiency while not losing sight of the larger rhetorical an social contexts in which users work an live,” (176).

He utilizes this rhetoric to present the value of what technical communicators do…to emphasize the complexity of a job that is often simplified because of the thought that anyone can write. It asserts that we have to think like technical workers in our methods, but know how to present it to various audiences through much more interpersonal contexts.

In her article, Lay agrees that “As the distinctions between science and rhetoric disappear, truth is defined as agreement within a community, not as discoverable and describable reality, technical communication then offers culturally based perceptions to the audience, rather than objective information and data.” (151)

While yes, the focus of her article was on the feminist theories behind technical writing and the emphasis that is placed on gender differences, she also changes the definition of what technical writers should be doing. Like Johnson-Eilola, she believes in the focus on audience understanding and that technical communicators will all communicate differently based upon who they are and who their audience is.

She suggest that “As feminists attach the last vestiges of scientific positivism within science and technology, technical communication must also let go of the ethos of the objective technical writer who simply transfers information and accept that writers’ values, backgrounds, and gender influence the communication produced.” (156)

With the new idea that technical writing was no longer all objective facts and rather a much more communicative process, it fits that the understanding that all writers are different and communicate differently. What was once basically a formulaic process is now a subjective process that involves evaluating audience needs, understanding technical processes, working with other writers, scientists to make products usable rather than bare interpretable to some audiences.

It is interesting reading now about a change that occurred 10-15 years ago. The ideas that all of the authors were writing about are the foundation of our education as future technical communicators now. I do wonder then, how the types of people working in this field have changed and how much less scientific or technical we have actually become.

Works Cited

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 176-192. Print.

Lay, Mary M. “Feminist Theory and The Redefinition of Technical Communication.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 146-159. Print.