From technical writing to humanistic technical writing
Over my years as a technical writer, I’ve learned that technical communication is sometimes a misunderstood profession.
Occasionally, I meet people who think technical writers are professionals who write long, complicated documents about science and technology. Actually, I tell them, technical communication is practically the opposite. In truth, technical writers are professionals who research long, complicated documents about science and technology and then rewrite the information into formats that are concise and readable for non-experts.
In short, technical writers transform dry facts and figures into plain language and clear communication. Ultimately, the goal is to inform readers so they can understand science and use technology with ease. In technical communication parlance, we refer to this approach as user-centered. (For more on the user-centered approach, see my introductory piece on technical writing.)
Why user-centered communication?
The question is, why bother making communication about science and technology user-centered? Because it’s not just scientists or technicians who need to understand science and use technology. Managers, workers, customers, politicians, and laypeople read science and work with technology too.
Therefore, if we don’t communicate information about science and technology clearly, we’ll confuse these people down the road. What’s more, confusing people about science and technology can cause problems, sometimes with tragic consequences. A case in point was the Challenger disaster.
The Challenger disaster
In 1986, the U.S. witnessed the Space Shuttle Challenger explode within a couple minutes after launching into flight. Tragically, the explosion killed the astronauts aboard.
According to the report that investigated the disaster, known as “Rogers Commission Report,” one of the central causes of the Challenger explosion was a “flawed” decision-making process due to “failures in communication”—namely, between engineers and managers at NASA. These failures in communication probably occurred because the scientific information calculated by NASA engineers had not been clearly presented to NASA managers.
Here’s a revealing excerpt from the report:
In addition to analyzing all available evidence concerning the material causes of the accident on January 28, the Commission examined the chain of decisions that culminated in approval of the launch. It concluded that the decision making process was flawed in several ways. The actual events that produced the information upon which the approval of launch was based are recounted and appraised in the sections of this chapter. The discussion that follows relies heavily on excerpts from the testimony of those involved in the management judgments that led to the launch of the Challenger under conditions described.
That testimony reveals failures in communication that resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers [emphasis added].
Ethical or humanistic technical writing
Clearly, there’s an ethical or humanistic lesson that technical writers can learn from tragedies like the Challenger disaster, in which communication failures lead to flawed decision making. As a moral necessity, people need to have access to clearly communicated information about scientific and technological knowledge, particularly when that information may have an impact on what decisions they make concerning their own lives … or the lives of other people.
Technical writing is, perforce, an ethical or humanistic practice. It’s empowering people with knowledge about science and technology, so they’ll be able to make informed decisions. We could refer to this humanistic or ethical approach as “humanistic technical writing,” to borrow a phrase from Bernadette Longo, a professor of technical communication at New Jersey Institute of Technology (Longo, 2000, p 168).
Humanistic technical writing pressumes—rightly, I believe—that if we want to avoid tragedies like the Challenger disaster, we need to safeguard against failures in communication about science and technology. Otherwise, people won’t be empowered to make informed decisions. In other words, clearly communicated scientific and technological knowledge is an ethical imperative, especially if we’re to use that knowledge to shape the world for the better.
Humanistic technical writing – both art and science
One final point about humanistic technical writing: It’s an art as much as a science. Of course, you need scientific knowledge to be a technical writer. Nonetheless, you also have to think about it in aesthetic or imaginative ways—for example, historically, philosophically, or culturally and linguistically.
Why? Well, the sciences help us understand technology, but the arts and humanities help us think about the ethical or humanistic questions as to how we design, use, and implement technology. For instance, whose interest does the technology serve, for what end, and how do we know that’s the right thing to do?
In this way, the liberal arts—including the humanities, such as literature, history, philosophy, and rhetoric—help us reflect and imagine beyond the mere technical, to “see beyond our current scientific knowledge/power system to transform it into a system through which we can better address our complex social problems”—to quote Bernadette Longo once more (Longo, 2000, p 166).
For anyone interested in learning more about humanistic technical writing, I highly recommend Longo’s book: Spurious Coin: A History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing.
References
Longo, Bernadette. (2000). Spurious Coin: A History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rogers Commission Report. (1986). “Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.”
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