Re: Academic Research in TechComm (Was RE: Criticizing Writers - What

Subject: Re: Academic Research in TechComm (Was RE: Criticizing Writers - What
From: "Janet M. Swisher" <swisher -at- enthought -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:20:43 -0600


Judy Ramey and Ginny Redish published some articles in 1995 on "Measuring the Value Added by Professional Technical Communicators". For example:
http://www.stc.org/confproceed/1995/PDFs/PG7778.PDF
http://www.stc.org/confproceed/1995/PDFs/PG19.PDF

These articles are widely cited. I think they published an update in _Technical Communication_ within the past couple of years, but I don't have a citation for it. (I can never remember my member ID to log on to the members-only area of the STC website.)

There's also this article by Saul Carliner:
http://saulcarliner.home.att.net/idbusiness/value.htm


Beth Agnew wrote:
>
> There's always someone working on something, but I'm not aware of anything
> currently that proves our value. It would definitely be worthwhile pursuing.
>
> In my experience, technical writers are often the only people who can put
> together the big picture of a product during development because we touch
> all the stakeholders -- marketing and sales need info from us that they can
> understand, testing and customer support need info we have on potential
> problems, and training uses our knowledge as a basis for their training
> materials which are in development before the product is ready.
>
> We also often drive a project because of the deadlines we request, such as
> code freeze (though most developers don't seem to know what that is, LOL),
> upload to website, or go to printer. Our documentation plan is often the
> first actual document some departments see about a product and its
> deadlines.
>
> And since we talk to just about everyone involved in the product life cycle,
> we sometimes are the only people who can give an accurate status report on
> it at any given time.
>
> Hmmm, designing a research study about all this could prove to be quite an
> accomplishment!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-118812 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:bounce-techwr-l-118812 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]On Behalf Of Phillip
> St. James
>
> Is anyone in the tech comm academic arena doing anything significant in this
> area currently? Is
> something relevant and reliable already available?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -phillip
> Palo Alto
>
>

--
Janet Swisher --- Senior Technical Writer
Enthought, Inc. http://www.enthought.com



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