This week, Dorthea A. Winsor introduced me to the idea that engineers are, in fact, forming themselves through writing technical documents. This idea is exciting for me because I’ve never seen it articulated so clearly.

She says, “These writers seem to be explaining their actions to one another and more importantly to themselves so that those actions would square with their ideal notion of themselves and their work. They were [SIC], in other words, writing themselves as engineers” (p. 347). I never thought of engineer-writing (e.g. fact-gathering, data recording, data generation, lab reports, project templates) as vehicles for self-formation, but I see this possibility, now.

Winsor’s guiding principle that “knowledge of a document equals knowledge of a thing” implies that our writing of anything is a writing of ourselves (p. 345). And now this makes much sense to me, especially when reflecting on my own experiences with pre-formed documents I’m asked to fill out. Previously, I wouldn’t put that act under the same category as “essay writing” or “creative writing” because it doesn’t directly ask me to explore my beliefs. However, when filling out plans of study, medical documents, surveys, data sheets, etc. I do negotiate how best to represent myself.

For instance, at an eye doctor’s office with pink eye, I might need to choose between several descriptions of the eye color and the level of discomfort to best represent what I’m feeling, or perhaps to best achieve the desired outcome (for instance, if I didn’t want to pay for an X-ray, I might not check the box that says “Pain is behind the eye”). So, I would have the choice of either answering the questions to most authentically reflect reality or of misrepresenting the “data” in order to achieve a desired outcome. I would also have to indicate my allergies, my emergency contact information, my past medical history, etc. In a certain way, this is a writing of the self in that very moment and a writing of the history of the self. We decide “I am this,” “This is that,” which are perceptions of reality and beliefs about what reality should be, expressed in writing.

(Hyperbolic example: Look at how the blogger of Hyperbole and a Half recreates the universal pain chart to better express her reality.)

This negotiation about a very “objective” situation demonstrates how data recording reflects an inherent view of reality and a belief of what should be happening. As long as we are humans, we are creating ourselves (and our research) through every decision put in writing.

Think, especially, of those who may not have a traditional family and cannot check the “Father” or “Friend” box for their “personal guardian” without going through a difficult negotiation about what their relationship is: “Well, he’s kind of like my dad, but we aren’t really related, but he’s not exactly my friend, either. He was first my teacher, then my stepdad, and now after the divorce, he’s technically nothing to me, but he still pays for my insurance, and I take him to baseball games.” Similarly indeed, when people of mixed ethnicity fill out census forms, they are confronted with impossible choices about how to define themselves. So how do they fit? Suddenly, a perceived “black or white,” categorical decision becomes very gray and subjective. And in the same way, checking “Caucasian” expresses a certain facet of our identity—of how we identify ourselves.

Relating these thoughts to professional communication and workplace studies, I suppose I am seeing how all work is a form of self-expression. I have previously believed that writing creatively is closer to an expression of the self than job-related writing (which I have expressed in a continuum, that you may see in my conference presentation). But after this week’s readings, I understand that, whether we are conscious of it or not, our work is an expression of ourselves, and we should never treat someone’s work lightly. What someone does, how they think, and what they write is who they are. And the categorical thinking that engineers practice is an ordering of reality through various choices, the very basic of which is to trust numbers. This decision to believe in numbers and the action of recording numbers are expressions of a personal belief.

This is not to say that all data is “subjective” and useless and rife with human flaw. I am, rather, attempting to demonstrate how any choice, whether working in science or math or the humanities, is an expression of a certain logic, or a certain belief. And if choices reflect beliefs, then categorizing data (categorizing, itself) is a form of self-expression.

 

Reference

Winsor, D. A. (2004). Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering. In Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Suart A. Selber (Eds.). Central Works in Technical Communication (341-350). New York: Oxford.