Re: Academic/technical writing

[Ann Amsler <aamsler -at- RAVEL -dot- UDEL -dot- EDU>]

I would agree with Chuck that Academic and Technical Writing cannot be
equated.  If you read academic pieces from the humanities, most of the
words have Latinate origins, sentences structure is complex, sentences are
very long, etc.  If you read pieces from the sciences, passive voice
predominates (in the name of objectivity).  Neither of these is necessarily
bad because they are understood in their context (probably not by anyone
outside of the discipline, however).

Technical writing generally seeks to avoid all of the qualities above in order
to provide understanding to people who might not be familiar with the
subject.

I do think, however, that the writing skills needed for both types of
writing are the same.  You have to know to whom you are writing and how
your writing will affect your audience.  Both types of writing require an
understanding of the language and an ability to work with the language.

In hiring technical writers, I have received beautiful samples of writing
from people who said that they were submitting technical writing pieces
when, in actuality, the paper was written in an academic style.  This has
been true especially when the paper dealt with a subject such as money,
university benefits, research fellowships, or whatever.  The people who
submitted the samples didn't recognize that good technical writing is of
a certain style and not just about a "technical" topic.

By the way, I often do hire the kinds of writers I've just described because,
in my experience, they've been able to apply their excellent writing skills
to the kind of writing we do here.  They've also won quite a few awards for
the excellence of their publications.

Ann Amsler
University of Delaware
aamsler -at- brahms -dot- udel -dot- edu