What is technical writing and is it different from other kinds of writing? If we say that technical writing is not creative writing, does that mean technical writing is not creative? And if we say technical writing is writing about the sciences does that mean technical writing is objective and perhaps inherently patriarchal? Or can technical writing be stripped of all structures and assumptions and operate freely both of cultural imposition and of the systems and structures we teachers usually assign to this form of writing?

Greg Wilson believes that tech writing has been too bogged down by modernist structures and can be freed by post-modernist beliefs that allow the writers to approach the subject matter in a different way that involves more analysis and less robotic regurgitation of SME data. Wilson states,

Postmodernism has developed as a potent commentary on modernist thought, and our discipline can benefit from examining what it has to offer. In my own teaching, I have drawn on Jameson’s concept of cognitive mapping and Reich’s concept of symbolic analysis to encourage students to think differently about the relationships between technical concepts and to critique their relationships as communicators and social actors to technology and authority (74).

Part of Wilson’s argument is that a symbolic analytical approach leads to more security for people working in the tech writing industries and allows for a more fulfilling approach to the work. Certainly it is important to find a way to approach tech writing in a role that isn’t defined by subservience to a company or staff, but stripping the writing of its structure could be a potential danger. Considering Charney’s approach to objective texts (in that they are both not objective and that the writers of such texts don’t pretend that they are creating absolute truths) we can also see that moving away from the objective doesn’t necessarily create the benefit we may think it does.

Part of what’s going on in Wilson’s article and in the Brasseur article is to bring into question what kind of writing tech writing really is. Is it just editing and punctuating sentences as Wilson once worried, or is it something more profound and more relevant that shed light on ideas about culture otherwise not discovered? The answer is that tech writing more than likely does not need to be objective or subjective, creative or uncreative, but rather a practice of writing within “technical fields” more invested in the needs and interests of the audience than other kinds of writing while also employing a more heightened awareness of the scientific methods and approaches to analyzing and using empirical data. If it gets there using ethnography or deconstructing the map, great, but these shouldn’t be positioned as choosing one approach or the other. In this regard, having a structure both to technical writing pedagogy and technical writing itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just looking at the new instructor packets for ENGL 304 and 305 for WVU’s Professional Writing and Editing Undergraduate classes, we can see that both rely heavily on following certain principles and sets of beliefs regarding what kind of writing is right for what kind of situation, neither which outwardly privilege ethnography or a postmodern ideal. The most marked difference between the two classes is the level of persuasion—304 emphasizes persuasion in documents while 305 does so significantly less (the difference between a business proposal and a feasibility report for example). This results in changes of actual assignments (resume in 305 but not a cover letter; that’s 304) and theories applied to discussions.

Certainly we can employ theories and theorists like Jacques Derrida and we can really pick apart how technical writing and creative writing and reflective writing are all really wound together and circling each other, but that’s not necessarily productive. The positive good that comes from differance and deconstructionist theory is one that limits cultural differences and motivations for alienation. Technical writing, however, needs to have some level of structure because it needs to address certain kinds of specific needs for specific kinds of audiences who need to be able to quickly and efficiently use documents to achieve or understand something usually about a specific task. The readers expect structure, and denying them such wouldn’t necessarily be a freeing experience for reader or writer. The postmodern idea that deconstructs structure, then, is fine to apply to the technical writing when addressing ethical or intercultural issues as to open the writer up to a number of possible interpretations by a number of different audience members; it doesn’t necessarily help when trying to understand why to include an introduction, lit review, or methods section in a feasibility report.