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Subject:Re: Rhetoric And Technical Writing? From:"Bryan Sherman" <bsherm -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:42:50 -0500
Technical Writing is a BROAD discipline. In my experience the statement:
"After all, technical docs are almost never intended to influence ways
of thought or persuade people on how to decide things."
is way off the mark. I document a lot of applications for clients that
involve changes in their work process. Influencing their ways of
thought and persuasion are crucial components to my deliverable.
I've determined that the most reasonable answer to many of this
questions is "It depends."
You have to know your audience and your goals in what you are producing.
On 3/22/06, Me Too <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> For what it's worth, I agree that studying rhetoric
> may have some value in technical writing. You never
> know where abstract knowledge will be useful. But it
> would be limited value, because the actual use of
> training in rhetoric would be applicable in only a
> small fraction of technical documents. After all,
> technical docs are almost never intended to influence
> ways of thought or persuade people on how to decide
> things. I think knowledge of classical rhetoric would
> be a lot more useful in sales/marketing type
> documents.
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