NDLI: Knowledge production from different worlds:what can happen when technical writers speak for engineers

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Volume 22, Issue 4, Nov. 1998

Designing information-supported performance

Pushing us into the map

Commentary on Wright

Designing information for users

Introduction to the book commentaries

Unveiling the extraordinary possibilities and implicit threats of online communication

Audience analysis in cyberspace

Is "online community" an oxymoron of a new reality

Knowledge production from different worlds

Volume 22, Issue 3, Aug. 1998

Volume 22, Issue 2, May 1998

Volume 22, Issue 1, February 1998

Issue SI, December 1990

Knowledge production from different worlds:what can happen when technical writers speak for engineers

Content Provider	ACM Digital Library
Author	Longo, Bernadette
Abstract	At the turn of the 20th century, technical writers in the United States were mostly engineers who both developed technology and wrote about it. During World War II, however, some engineers seeking to increase the efficiency of technology development separated their engineering from their communication tasks. This trend opened up a new occupation for non-engineering technical writers who communicated knowledge made by engineers. While this specialization may have allowed engineers to develop technology more efficiently, it also allowed non-scientists to give voice to scientific knowledge and by the 1970s created tensions between practitioners in scientific fields and liberal arts-trained technical writers. How could non-scientists give scientific knowledge its material form through communication? And did this arrangement between engineers and writers too often render engineers mute within their own professions? This paper traces a cultural history of technical writing practice in the United States and explores current trends in the academy which aim to prepare engineers more adequately for communicating about their work. Finally, this paper suggests that technical editors, as distinguished from traditional technical writers, can accommodate both an engineer's need to give voice to technology developments and a writer's contributions to shaping that voice into effective communication.
Starting Page	45
Ending Page	53
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISSN	07311001
DOI	10.1145/307287.307318
Journal	ACM SIGDOC Asterisk Journal of Computer Documentation (ASTR)
Volume Number	22
Issue Number	4
Language	English
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Publisher Date	1977-05-01
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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