A Brief History of

Technical Writing

Argument“Good technical writing is so clear that it is invisible.”(1)

“A technical writer is an honest mediator between people who create technology and people who use technology.”(2)

My aim in this presentation is to question these seemingly simple and benign statements. We will look at:

• Plato

• al-Khwarizmi

• The Renaissance

• The twentieth century

Plato and thePlato and the Greeks GreeksWas Plato the first technical writer?

• Writing steals memory and understanding; the written word is a mere copy of reality, unable to ask or answer questions.

• Human beings gain wisdom through contemplation and oral communication with others.

• Plato was concerned that writing undermines ethics.

The Greeks sought balance between:

• Episteme - knowledge of (truth, beauty, justice)

• Techne - know-how (of a craft or art)

Plato rejects this balance. Plato’s book The Republic is a manual for implementing an ideal society. Plato prescribes that those capable of episteme should rule over those practicing mere techne.

Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwarizmi

• A Muslim cleric, al-Khwarizmi lived in Baghdad, Iraq.

• He wrote his most important works between 813 - 833 A.D.

• The first software documentation writer?(3)

• Responsible for documenting the Indian decimal number system

An extant page from

al-Khwarizmi’s book,

circa A.D. 830

‘The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing.’

Today, his book is referred to simply as ‘Algebra.’

Modern science began its bloom in the early 16th century, making advances in scientific fields like medicine and astronomy.

Prior to books, technical knowledge was transmitted orally and by example through apprenticeships.

The Renaissance

The printing press, invented in the mid-15th century, established five new trades in technical communication:

• Type founding

• Printing

• Publishing

• Editing• Bookselling(4)

Gutenberg’s Printing Gutenberg’s Printing PressPress

The Twentieth Century

Political leaders put technical ideas to horrific uses during the twentieth century.

World War One and Two began a new era in technical communications, mainly as a result of weapons manufacturing.

Many of the fields in which technical writers work today would be less developed if not for the exigencies of war.(5)

The Soviet state systematically kept documents on persons arbitrarily imprisoned and executed.

A bureaucrat found them and secretly began collecting the names of victims. He was able to present his evidence publicly in 1986.(6)

In effect, the Soviet state’s impeccable document management provided evidence of its past atrocities leading to its illegitimacy and eventual downfall.

Contemporary technical writing began with the booming post-war economies and new consumer goods requiring new kinds of documentation and genres of technical communication.

Today, technical communication operates in a business environment; however, the U.S. government is both history’s largest investor in science and technology and the world’s largest producer of technical communication.(7)

Corporate North America

Summary

I introduced invisibility as ideal technical writing and the honest mediator as the ideal technical writer.

I have tried to attach a warning to these seemingly simple and benign ideals by tracing a history of the uses of technical knowledge and writing in western civilization.

Summary - continued

Plato and the Greeks

• knowledge of and know-how

• Plato wrote a manual – The Republic – explaining how to educate the best persons to rule.

Modern advances in science led to the fields in which technical writers work today.

• Algebra and printing have moved the transmission of technical knowledge from an oral to a written format.

• Advances in science have complicated the ethical use of technical knowledge.

Summary - continued

The Twentieth Century

• Political leaders fulfilled Plato’s concerns: humans were treated as technical objects.

Contemporary North America

• Our profit- and consumer-driven technological culture is the largest investor in technical knowledge and producer of technical communications.

• The products technical writers work with have political, economic, and environmental costs.

DiscussionDiscussion

• Do invisibility and honest mediation in technical writing stand up well to history?

• What other values – if any - ought technical writers adopt as part of their practice?

• Are technical writers properly thought of as mediators between theoretical and practical knowledge?

• Should/can technical writing balance technique and ethics?

• How might awareness of the history of technical communication benefit us?

The Future of Technical Writing?

“I’ll send you the instruction manual

by Thursday.”

Bibliography

1. (emphasis added) Longo, Bernadette. Spurious Coin. A History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing. State University of New York Press. 2000.

2. http://technical-writing.learnhub.com/lesson/1661-history-of-technical-documentation

3. Frederick M. O’Hara, Jr. A Brief History of Technical Communication. http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Vz33XMtTsIkJ:www.stc.org/confproceed/2001/PDFs/STC48-000052.pdf+history+of+technical+communication&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

4. Ibid.5. Ibid.6. Remnick, David. Lenin’s Tomb. Vintage Books. 1994.7. http://www.proedit.com/technical_writing_history.asp 8. Frederick M. O’Hara, Jr. A Brief History of Technical

Communication.