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Subject:RE: Where do we belong?? From:"David B. Stewart" <dbstewart -at- dswrite -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:26:09 -0500
>
> >Technical communication is an engineering discipline.
>
>
> Except where it's not. Not everyone writes for software development.
>
When did software development become the limit of engineering? Technical
writing seems to owe its roots to the "how to" needs of the world. A
written presentation to accomplish the doing of something. It is more of
technique (the root of technical) than the visions that arise when
"technical" is heard today. A Whirler thread ("History of Technical
Writing", September, 1993) seems to support this idea with references to a
1906 sexual "how to" and gaming instructions.
>From my earliest schooling I have been a writer. Perhaps I have always been
an engineer, as well. No fainting please...I am a card-carrying engineer.
There. I said it! I feel _so_ much better! I may be more cultured than some
you have experienced, but many of us can write, communicate, and keep
chewing gum away from a slide rule (bamboo or electronic varieties). As
engineering is a practical application of scientific theory, I see technical
writing as a practical application of engineering. It is a next logical
step to communicating the intended application of a thing. Engineering may
provide the thing, but writing (in any presentation) provides a necessary
humanization of some tool or method.
Do I imply technical writing belongs to or with engineering? No. Technical
writing is a practical extension of many things...as is engineering in the
broad sense.
Technical writers belong wherever they fit. They belong wherever clear
communication is necessary.
Cheers!
Dave Stewart
P.S.: I heard the "Burn the infidel!" remark. Stop it! <g>
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