Re: Tech Writing Curriculum
What about medical schools?
What about them? Medicine, like engineering, belongs at university because it is based on pure research, and, even when applied, can add to the general sum of knowledge. Although many people enter these fields solely as a career move doesn't change that.
By contrast, tech-writing has some basis in pure research, but this fact is almost overwhelmed by practicality and the need to respond to the market. Nor are most tech-writers familiar with the research. Even fewer conduct independent research, or even feel obliged to keep up to date on the latest studies.
Obviously, I have no great problem with these facts, or I wouldn't be on this list. Not would I be earning half to two-thirds of my income from technical writing. I'm also aware that some people are working very hard to change the profession to make it academically respectable, although I have mixed feelings about their goals or their success; too often, their studies seem poorly designed, inconclusive, and/or based on outdated research in other fields.
However, to put tech-writing in its current state on a par with academic subjects does seem a rather inflated claim. So long as literature courses that are unavailable anywhere else go begging for funding, I don't think that tech-writing should be entering English departments.
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Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
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