Re: What is "technical" writing? (Was: RE: What to do?)

["Chuck Martin" <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com>]

"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> wrote in message
news:217927 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
>
> Chuck Martin opined: <<What I'm saying--I've said it before--is that
> Technical Communication is an engineering discipline.>>
>
> Um... speaking as a recovering scientist (forestry) working with a batch
of
> foresters--only some of whom are engineers--and freelancing with a bunch
of
> scientists whose writing is moderately technical, I'd suggest that your
> definition is too narrow.
>
> Certainly engineering (applied science) is one of the larger and more
> visible subsets of technical writing, but I'd broaden the definition to
> include scientific communication (basic science), software development (an
> art desperately striving to become a science), medical writing ("human
> engineering"?), and a range of other genres.

Hm, I kinda saw it as the other way around: thinking of "engineering" as an
all-encompassing term. "Human engineering" makes that point well. I'll keep
trying to twist my brain to see it differently.

I met someone over the weekend who said he just got his degree
in"engineering." My first question is: What area? (In his case, turned out
to be chemical engineering.)

>
> <<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?>>
>
> Here you're getting to the crux of the matter (imho): Technical
> communication involves working with a variety of folks who are experts in
a
> technical discipline of some kind, including but not limited to
engineering.
> To succeed in this form of communication, you need to understand the
subject
> matter--and if you're not an expert, you must absolutely be able to
identify
> what parts you don't understand so you can ask one or more expert to
approve
> your interpretation. You also need to understand the vocabulary and needs
of
> your audience, who are often not experts. Last but not least, you need to
be
> able to translate between the expert and the audience.
>

You hit on some great points, all of which are part and parcel of this
discipline. But being an expert in any technical discipline almost never
equates with knowing everything about that discipline. It means only that
you know far, far more than average folk.

I tell anyone who'll listen that the smartest people aren't the ones who
think they know a lot, but are the ones who know how much they don't know.
(The really smart ones keep setting out to learn more.)

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.

Chuck Martin



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