Gender, Technology, and the History of Technical Communication

In her article “Gender, Technology, and the History of Technical Communication,” Katherine Durack examines the history of the female role in the technical communication field. She begins her discussion by noting the absence of women in the recorded disciplinary past. One possible reason is that “women have contributed only very rarely to technical and scientific work” (36). If this is true, and scientific inquiry and technological innovation have been primarily the work of men, then the contributions of women may have been consequently lost, subsumed, or overlooked. Another possibility is that the absence of women may have been due to historians and not actual historical reality.

A “Peculiar Set of Cultural Blinders”
Although those in the field of technical communication have yet to agree on a single definition, technical writing often contains either or both of two key characteristics: a close relationship to technology, and an understanding that technical writing is associated with work and workplace (36). It follows then that what is understood as technical writing comes from what is considered technology, work and workplace. The assumption is that these terms are gender-neutral, and that addressing the matter of gender and the history of technical communication is as easy as searching for women who have distinguished themselves in scientific, medical and technical fields (37). However, this view is often contested because of its simplistic view that inadequately addresses biases from our past and future.

History and Women’s Work
History, including the history of technical communication, primarily focuses on the works of great men and the great works of men (37). In both of these cases, there is a need to establish significance, which usually involves prerequisite location in the public sphere. This public sphere is male dominated, while the private sphere is generally the realm of women. The activities of women have typically been omitted because history focuses on public and political activities and innovations. To include women’s work in the history of technical communication, “we [must] contest two assumptions that lead to their exclusion from our disciplinary story: First, (the assumption of agency) that women are not significant originators of technical, scientific, or medical achievement; second, (the assumption of technological significance) that women’s tools are not sufficiently technical, nor their work sufficiently important, to warrant study of their supporting texts” (37).

Women as Significant Contributors to Science and Technology
To overcome the first assumption, women need to be identified who have contributed significantly to science, technology and medicine. Then, their written works must be fit into technical communication history. The main difficulty facing the historian is the apparent lack of women’s contribution to these fields. Women, like men have undoubtedly sought means for improving their work processes, but their significance may be obscured by having been misclassified, trivialized, or attributed to men (37). Women’s inventions may have been under-reported because they weren’t ‘real’ inventions of technology such as weapons and machines.
Often, when women did invent ‘real’ inventions, they were left off the patent record. Some reasons for this include: women’s lack of disposable income and time, married women in the United States and Britain could not own their inventions or patents until the Married Women’s Property Acts passed, the necessary technical and mathematical training necessary to build models of inventions and patent them was not available to women, cultural stereotypes discouraged women from taking credit for their achievements, and these same stereotypes encouraged women to be generous, thus sharing ideas instead of profiting from them (38). Technologies that pertain specifically to women’s biological functions and social roles, including the baby bottle and sewing machine, have essentially been ignored by historians (38).

Women as Significant Users of Technology
Addressing the second assumption involves a different strategy: departing from conventional history to challenge existing definition, seeking a “a new narrative” that focuses “on the casual role played by women in their history and on the qualities of women’s experience (39). The industrial revolution brought about great technological innovation and increasing differences about appropriate work roles for men and women. Women are often seen running machinery, but it is rare to see them actually knowing what goes on inside the machine. During World War II, women were expected to help out, but as soon as the men came home, they needed to return to their homes. Even when a woman is skilled at a job, such as sewing, they are often underpaid because it is a ‘woman’s job.’ Men remain predominantly the makers, repairers, designers, and uses of what we typically consider technology, while women hold household jobs, which are unrecognized and generally unpaid (39).

“The periodic submittal (and rejection) of texts such as cookbooks to the Society of Technical Communication’s annual publications competition demonstrates the difficulty we have with considering as ‘work’ a productive activity that is typically assigned to women and accomplished within individual households without benefit of financial compensation” (40). Durack adds that when a man tinkers in his garage it is considered a significant invention, but when a kitchen doubles as a chemistry lab it is often discounted as technological.

The Household as a Setting of Consequence
The current focus of workplace writing as a definition of technical writing fails to recognize the household as either a workplace or a setting of consequence. Writers in organizations are more easily studied and compared, therefore individual household are often excluded. However, there are significant instances of technical writing and use of technical documentation that occur in the household since many products are geared toward home use (40). These include computer hardware, lawn mowers, blenders and credit card agreements. There are many instances in which private individuals must interact by text with organizations (41). Also, many people are starting to move the traditional workplace into their household.

Toward Inclusive Definitions
Durack concludes by writing that “if we are to include the accomplishments of women in the history of technical communication, we must first challenge the dualistic thinking that serves public and private, household and industry, and masculine and feminine labor” (41). She notes that she doesn’t know if it is possible to construct a single definition of technical communication that can accommodate both past and future changes in the meaning and significance of work, workplace and technology, but she offers the following observations.

• Technical writing exists within government and industry, as well as in the intersection between private and public spheres.
• Technical writing has a close relationship to technology.
  
• Technical writing often seeks to make tacit knowledge explicit.
  

She concludes her essay by stating “as we construct the history, a major challenge will be to examine why we deem certain artifacts technology, their attendant activities work, their place of conduct the workplace, and therefore find reason to include associated writings within the corpus history of technical writing” (42).

What’s technical about technical writing?

David N. Dobrin

Dobrin discusses various definitions of technical writing. He refers to common definitions that had been given in the past. He states that some definers choose to define "technical writing" and some define "writing technically"

He first discusses Fred MacIntosh’s method, which is to collect various technical writing pieces and find the characteristics they share.

Jon Walter’s definition includes three pieces:

1. Had specific rhetorical modes and formats which were pitched to specific readers (format).
2. Had a specialized vocabulary and an objective style (style).
3. Had primarily technical content (content).
   

Patrick Kelley and Roger Masse:
Technical writing is writing about a subject in the pure science or the applied sciences in which the writer informs the reader through and objective presentation of facts. (Page 109)
Dobrin states that Walter, Kelley and Masse’s simply define technical writing with other terms that need to be defined.

John Harris:
Technical writing is the rhetoric of the scientific method. (page 109)

Charles Stratton:
A particular art, science discipline, or trade helps audiences approach subjects. (page 110)

Earl Britton:
The primary, though certainly not the sole, characteristic of technical and scientific writing lies in the effort of the author to convey one meaning and only one meaning in what he says. (page 110)

Dobrin explains that Harris and Stratton are objective but Britton adds univocality. Dobrin is trying to stress how linguistically dense technical writing is. However, Britton says it is simple. He states literature is a symphony technical writing is a bugle call. (page 110) meaning you simply state what you want the reader to do. The bugle call tells soldiers to wake up.
Dobrin goes on to discuss the different aspects of defining words and their true meaning. He also makes references to the scientific method, which refers to Harris’ definition.

Formal versus epistemological objectivity
The universalist view often called the "window pane" theory includes ten assumptions:

1. The world is out there.
2. Properly applying our minds, we can know it.
3. There is a best way of knowing the world.
4. The best way of knowing the world is available to any intelligence.
5. It is independent of language and human quirks.
6. Language is a way of using and telling this access.
7. We are able to determine the correct and incorrect uses of language.
8. So distinguishing is difficult we often fail at it.
9. If we can purify language and our consciousness, we can formulate a perfectly correct language, a universal language, which we would not make mistakes.
10. It is our responsibility to do so.

The monodist view
This is to see language as it is actually used. It doesn’t separate language and knowledge also that there can be privileged access to the world.

Alternity
It is a source of vitality and creativity, because it means language is always playing with the possible. (page 117)
In this section Dobrin explains that alternity gives self-expression. Jargon woud fit into this category.

Finally Dobrin give his own definition of technical writing:
Technical writing is writing that accommodates technology to the user.

He refers to technology in this definition as an array of tools or procedures. (page 118)
Dobrin goes on to explain nothing can be simply defined but the best sense of the word n the definition should be carefully chosen.

Campbell Chapter 11 - We Haven't Used That Procedure in Years

Campbell begins her discussion by addressing the importance of keeping documentation up to date. She writes that you should make a commitment from the beginning to establish a clear and regular review process.

When to Revise
Campbell writes that there are numerous opinions about when and how often you should revise, but the best approach is to find a balance between regularly scheduled review and revision and as-need review and revision. The best balance will depend on content factors and logistics.

Campbell then goes on to describe regularly scheduled reviews, stating that the ideal is to review and revise annually. She notes that if this isn’t possible, you should create a realistic schedule and stick to it. Another possible solution is to perform rolling reviews, which are a good way to work regular revisions into a schedule with a minimum of disruption. To perform a rolling review, you schedule different groups of policies and procedures for review periodically, and then as each review is completed, roll another group into the schedule.

Next, Campbell discusses as-needed reviews, which are needed when a significant number of changes have been made to the documents, content changes occur or are pending, and certain types of problems or behaviors increase. A good rule to follow when revising is: if approximately 25 percent of the given policy or procedure has been changed, it’s time for a complete review. Also, anytime you have new equipment, programs or products, you’ll need to adjust your policies and procedures. Finally, you should listen to others around you. If you hear about accidents, complaints, questions, confusion, errors, deviations, rejection rates, and corrective actions, it’s probably time to update.

When Not to Revise
Campbell writes that before you revise a policy or procedure you should first ask “why?” She says that you shouldn’t rush into revision because the policy or procedure may not be broken; it might be the implementation process.

How Much to Revise
According to Campbell, your goal is to change as much as necessary and as little as possible. How much you revise depends on the nature and degree of the changes themselves. Campbell notes that you can change the following: a portion of an individual policy or procedure, all of an individual policy or procedure, a section or related group of policies and procedures, or an entire handbook or manual.

How to Revise
Campbell writes that the revision process is similar to the process you followed in the original development of your policies and procedures. However, you must also take the following steps: Develop a follow-up mentality, Check and double-check related documents and cross-references, create a formal mechanism for users to give feedback, continually solicit information, keep a file for suggestions and ideas, and keep records of all revisions.

How to Clarify the Changes
Next, Campbell writes that you should make it as easy as possible for the user to see what, and how much, has been revised. You can use one or more of the following options: visually highlight the changes on the page, use clear, descriptive wording in your transmittal document, and summarize the changes. You have many choices for highlighting, but the trick is to highlight the changes so that they are immediately obvious to the user. To help the reader see what you’ve changed, use clear words like added, replaced, deleted, modified, etc. The goal is to make it fast and easy for the reader to tell what’s been changed. Also, in the transmittal document, give readers a brief summary of the major changes. You should tell readers: what areas are affected, how extensive the change is, the reason for the change, and the impact on the bottom-line.

How to Hold Users Responsible
To avoid users coming back several months after the revision has been sent saying they never got it, Campbell suggests using a notification system that forces users to share responsibility for updating their document(s). She says the system is easy to construct, and its effectiveness lies in its simplicity. It should contain the following parts:

• Users are given a revision index from which they record all revision notices in the order of receipt.

• All change notices are clearly numbered in an obvious and easy-to-identify manner so that any missing numbers can be spotted immediately.

• Users are instructed that it is their responsibility to record all change notices in their revision indexes and to notify the appropriate person if any are missing.

• A summary of all the change notices issued is periodically sent to users.

Campbell provides an example of one such system. She also notes that some organizations require users to acknowledge in writing that they have received policy and procedure revisions. Finally, she writes that whatever notification system you choose, be sure it makes clear to users that they have obligations in the change process and they will be held accountable for meeting those obligations.