A Humanistic Rationale For Technical Communication

After reading this article, I was a bit perplexed at what was going on.  The article tries to explain whether a technical writing course should satisfy a humanities requirement or not.  The way that the author approached this article was a bit puzzling for me.  I didn’t really understand her view point or why she decided to take this particular approach.  Obviously, she is a lot more qualified than I am to speak about this matter, so she definitely knew what she was doing; I just had a hard time staying on track with what she was saying.  She brought in the topics of rhetoric, science, and others to prove her point why she thinks technical writing is more than just a “skills” course, but as a student who isn’t really familiar with this kind of topic, it made it very difficult for me to understand.  I realize that she was writing this article for people in the English department, so most people understood her rant about how technical writing is positivist.  I on the other hand, am not one of those people and found it extremely complicated to keep up with her theories.  Although, I thought the article was a pretty difficult read, I did like some of the points that Carolyn Miller made about technical writing, and the way she thinks it should be taught.  “It is an amenity occasioned by the conditions of employment in business or industry” (Miller 6), I like this quote because I feel that this is a good point about technical writing and how it is useful in everyday life.  Most people do not know what technical writing is, but everyone in the business world uses it and I think that it is important for people to understand how valuable technical writing is in everyday society.  Also, I enjoyed the part where Miller talks about how she thinks technical writing should be taught as an understanding of how to belong to a community.  Rather than just being able to form a bunch of words on a page, technical writing should be used to focus on a community.  By understanding that technical writing is like being a part of a community, the writer can focus on reaching out to that community, and learning how to be successful in that community.  You have to be aware of who you are writing to and the “concepts, values, tradition and styles” (Miller 8), are all important in being successful in your communication to that community.  The analogy of being a successful communicator in your community and being a successful technical writer go hand in hand, and I thought Miller made an excellent point in explaining that.