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Subject:Re: A guide to technical writing from 1908 From:Marguerite Krupp <mkrupp128 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 7 Jan 2015 21:50:16 +0000 (UTC)
I totally agree, Robert, that tech writing traces back many centuries. Check out the description in the Bible of the building of the Ark (back when everyone knew what a cubit was)!
Marguerite
From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
To: Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Sunday, January 4, 2015 3:05 PM
Subject: Re: A guide to technical writing from 1908
Chapline's "Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC" is a
reasonable if largely symbolic starting point for the explosive growth
in the field in the 50s, when many major companies added documentation
departments, "technical writer" became a common job title, and the
precursors of the STC were founded.
Even the most cursory history of the field traces it back many
centuries. Anybody who calls Chapline the first technical writer
without qualification has spent no time at all reading up on the
matter, which was probably the case for whatever editor wrote that bad
headline on the piece you linked to.
On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 5:44 AM, Rick Lippincott <rjl6955 -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>>Is anyone claiming that tech writing started with the computer age, Rick?
>
> Yep.
>
> For starts, all the people who claimed the first tech writer was
> Robert Champline.
>
>http://www.writingassist.com/newsroom/first-technical-writer-joseph-chapline/
>
> --Rick Lippincott
>
> On 1/1/15, Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> wrote:
>>> Another nail in the coffin of the myth that tech writing started
>> with
>>> the computer age.
>>
>> Is anyone claiming that tech writing started with the computer age,
>> Rick?
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