What Isn't Technical Communication

by Glenn Dayley

As a new immigrant seeking citizenship in the nation of technical communication, I have been interested in the various definitions of the field. Practitioners, researchers, and educators don’t always agree on what constitutes a technical communicator.

Definitions and Duties of Technical Communicators

In the April/May 2007 edition of Technicalities, authors suggested what technical writers could do to switch from more traditional technical writing positions to other areas of technical communication such as usability studies. There was a distinction made between technical writing specifically and technical communicating generally. It seems practitioners, researchers, and educators do agree that technical communicators are involved in many things in addition to writing end-user documentation.

A quick survey of job listings on STC chapter websites reveals that employers have a wide variety of expectations for a technical writer or communicator. Some job descriptions are so general and others so specific that one might wonder whether companies really know what they can expect from technical communicators. “Technical communicator” seems to be losing its ability to define the role of the person hired for that job because of the varied duties that could be required—everything from computer-based training (CBT) developer to visual rhetoric advisor for a company’s website.

Does “technical communicator” capture subfields of technical communication such as usability? Are subfields becoming so specialized now that they should be regarded as their own fields? While these questions often loom large in academia, professionals don’t seem as hung up over this concern about fields and subfields as researchers and educators, as evidenced by the variety of duties technical communicators perform from project to project.

Definitions in Academia

In the academic world, technical communication teachers teach everything from resume writing to how to be a team player on a new software development team to the way users respond to visuals and text in online environments. It’s possible to find academic programs that focus on certain areas of technical communication, such as human-computer interaction, but leave other areas such as industrial safety documentation under-represented. How do programs make such decisions?

Due to lack of resources or interest, academia often struggles with how to define or represent technical communicators. In industry this is not always the case. Many people working in what could be considered technical communication are not even called technical communicators. My brother works for a computer programming and engineering firm and, although hired as an engineer, has become the resident technical communicator. There wasn’t an official change of position or title; he simply was good at many of the things we would call technical communication and over time was tasked more with projects requiring technical communication skills than “pure” engineering skills. Practitioners have a knack for flexibility that academics often lack.

Common Definition?

Why does this debate over the definition of technical communication matter? I think as soon as practitioners approach supervisors and others in their chain of command, attempting to demonstrate other areas in which technical communicators could be of service and offer real return of investment (ROI), a clear definition and description of all that technical communicators can offer is essential. “Bean counters” might hear only that technical communicators are looking for more time and more money. It might be helpful for practitioners to be able to point out just how valuable their contributions could be by using an actual description of the duties performed and by showing that the value of those duties has been demonstrated and is being demonstrated by researchers and taught by educators.

The relationship goes the other way as well: researchers and educators often point to what is being done by professionals to justify curriculum modifications and research agendas. The relationship between the three groups—educators, researchers, and professionals—should be more openly symbiotic than it is.

Below are links to websites offering definitions or views of technical communication relevant to this discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_communication
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwtwc/definitions.htm
http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15427625tcq1601_2
http://www.stcboston.org/jobbank/bank.shtml
http://www.stcwvc.org/galley/0205/c3.htm
http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resource_code.htm

Collaboration

The main populations in technical communication haven’t always held each other in the highest regard, but I think they are more alike than different. They really could leverage one another’s work and passion to give their own population a boost. Newsletters, journals, and conferences, both professional and academic, are good places for members of these groups to come together and interact in productive ways, sharing the latest concerns, trends, and research, and discussing ways for better progress within the overall field.

Glenn Dayley, currently enrolled in the Technical Communication and Rhetoric gradate program at Texas Tech University, has worked as a composition teacher, literature professor, journal editor, webpage designer, layout editor, and professional writing advisor, and has published numerous articles, essays, and stories.