The Composing Process of an Engineer

Jack Selzer's article "The Composing Process of an Engineer" details the approach to writing taken by Kenneth E. Nelson, an engineer at Henningson, Durham, and Richardson (HDR). Selzer examined Nelson's documents and notes, interviewed Nelson, and listened to responses to questions recorded by Nelson before and after he created documents. This in-depth examination of Nelson's writing process filled a void in writing process research at the time (1982), as most investigations of the writing process had been conducted regarding student writers rather than developed and professional writers, particularly those in technical fields.

Selzer found that Nelson's process varied greatly from the process observed in the student writers. Nelson spent the vast majority of his time in the invention or arranging phases of the writing process. He invested less than twenty percent in the drafting process and under five percent in the revision process. Also, Selzer found Nelson's writing to be almost entirely linear, in that Nelson completed each step and generally did not loop back on prior stages of writing. This is different from dominant conventions of writing, which describe writing as a recursive process that generally loops back on prior steps (rather than proceeding in a linear fashion), and emphasized revision heavily.

This leads Selzer (and his readers) to conclude that professional and more scientific writers might approach the writing process very differently than the process is usually taught to student writers, and might call for different approach to teaching technical writing. From my experiences with composition, much of this makes sense. For instance, writers with heavy technical backgrounds may have already internalized habits that lend themselves to heavily weighing the processes of invention and arrangement. Greater preparation time (which beginning students almost never give much attention to) would result, as it did in Nelson's case, less need for revision due to greater preparation. Also, writers whose expertise comes from technical fields may have learned to approach processes in a linear way. For instance, architectural projects and scientific experiments often must be carefully planned in advance, and do not allow for a recursive approach, because once the work is in progress, errors may not be reversible after they occur. Because of this, writers with expertise in engineering and similar fields may be used to planning more and revising less.

Overall, Selzer's article lends an interesting perspective to research on how the writing process may be taught, and addresses the facts that technical writing students may need a differently structured writing process than, say, my composition students. However, Nelson represents only one person, and I think that while Selzer's case study is interesting, that it cannot be declared as necessarily representative for all technical writing professionals. His history of expertise, type of writing background, amount of practice, and comfort with writing do not necessarily represent engineers or technical writers as a whole, and one case study certainly doesn't not define such a broad group. However, it was an interesting look at the approach of one technical communicator.

Teaching Technical Writing--How Did We Get Here From There?

In his article, “The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America,” Robert J. Connors describes in detail the progression of technical writing instruction since the middle of the nineteenth century. Connors begins his essay by stating that technical writing, in one form or another, has existed since ancient times; however, he states that the attempt to actually create an instructional approach to the material is a recent phenomenon. Connors first describes the post-Civil-War boom of the industrial revolution in America, and the resulting rise of engineering education (and education available to a greater percentage of the American populace). Connors describes how fledgling engineering programs initially involved virtually no English instruction, resulting in an outcry over the large number of “otherwise competent engineers who were near-illiterates” (Connors 5). The response to these illiterate engineers resulted in two approaches. Schools either attempted to integrate miniature English departments into engineering programs, or they required engineering students to take varying numbers of English classes.

As Connors describes, controversy on several levels broke out and lasted through the 1970’s. Technical writing, the amalgamation of English and engineering education, became an illegitimate child of both programs, a child neither department claimed nor thought of highly. Connors describes that “English teachers saw engineers as soulless technicians, while engineers saw English teachers as dreaming aesthetes” (6). This led to a great rift in the philosophy over what technical writing curriculum should consist of; the English faculty wished to “humanize” the engineers by teaching them literature while the engineers desired a more nuts-and-bolts approach to writing. The instructors who taught these courses, generally less-experienced English teachers, were looked down upon by both groups, and found technical writing to generally be a sort of professional suicide lacking prestige or path to promotion.

Only after World War II and the resulting boom in technology and technological documents did the situation for technical writing instruction improve. The demand for writers who could produce technical documentation, as well as a gradual decrease in enrollment in literature study, eventually led to a greater prestige for technical writing instructors. Trial and error over various types of curriculum led to an approach that more mirrors our current state. This approach includes multiple levels of technical instruction including some nuts-and-bolts usage instruction, the exploration of “forms” such as report writing and proposal writing, and also the more advance concept of rhetorically based instruction that could be applied to numerous circumstances.

Connors provides a detailed and thorough examination of the progress instruction in technical writing has made in the past 150 years. He details large amounts of difficulty and disagreement between English and engineering programs over what to teach, how much to teach, and how to teach it. I must agree with R. Gerald Nelms in his introduction to Connors’s essay, in which Nelms mention that some anecdotal and memoir-based information might help further flesh out the history that Connors lays before his readers. However, Nelms goes on to emphasize that this approach was not particularly popular when Connors’s article was published in 1982, thus explaining the lack of this type of research.

Overall, the article holds a valuable history of our field, and brings to light controversy many current technical writing students, who now reach advanced levels of study in an age when technology is often revered and the study of it encouraged, may not realize the position of relative esteem that the profession now holds. This information can give us a context for appreciating the fortune we have to be able to pursue our education in a supportive (and hopefully somewhat lucrative) environment.

Howdy...

My name is Catherine and I am a second year grad student. I am pursuing both the MA in t.com and the MFA in creative writing (fiction), so, as I mentioned the other day, I feel kind of schitzophrenic most of the time. In one program, sentence fragments and intentional comma splices are the way to go. In the other, we write by the book. Plus, while I'm a pretty quick learner, I don't know any HTML or much about computers in general (sadly, though, I'm rapidly becoming one of the most technologically literate maps, which doesn't say much for writers and technology).

As far as future prospects, I'm pretty flexible about what I want to do. With my MFA, I'd love to be a brilliant and successful fiction writer, but I don't really... see that coming along any time in the near future (ever). I'm a TA, and like teaching, so I would enjoy teaching either t.com or creative writing at a school, that is, if anyone would have me without a Ph,D. If I could find a challenging or interesting job in the technical world, I think that would be fascinating and cool as well. Really, I just want someone to employ me, insure me, and provide me with a job I don't totally hate.

That's about it!

Welcome to F2006 Central Works blog

Welcome to the Fall 2006 edition of the Central Works blog; it is our intention to continue the discussion of the readings here. In your first blog entry, please introduce yourselves though there is no need to divulge a lot of personal information.

Throughout the semester you will be responsible for your own entry but also for a response to everyone else's blog entry.

Semester wrap-up

Thanks to everyone who kept our Central Works blog alive during the spring semester. I thought that Wes, Anna, and Nisha all did a nice job of summarizing and critiquing Central Works articles. Thanks also to Stuart Selber of Penn State (and one of the editors of Central Works), for blogging with us.

While the media and the public seem to notice only the political blogosphere, we used our academic blog for a pedagogical purpose. Seems to me that blogs work well in this context.

I hope to keep this blog alive with another 477/577 course. Check back in next fall for a new edition.

Cultrual differences in Tech Comm

It’s no secret that globalization is growing. As companies expand into many countries, there is a growing diversity among the people who work for these companies. With this diversity comes the inevitability of cultural clash. Cultures can differ on how they conduct collaboration projects, what values are held, and how communication is conducted. Deborah Bosley knows this and addresses how these culture clashes can be understood and overcome in her article “Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Whose Culture is it Anyway?”. Early on, Bosley defines culture as “an established set of values and a way of thinking and behaving that is passed from generation to generation” (468). She clearly makes the statement that multicultural communication has to begin “with the position that differences exist” between various cultures (467). If this is not accepted, then true communication cannot exist. Bosley gives four cultural characteristics that influence group behavior, the first being group or individual emphasis. Although Western cultures emphasize the individual more than the group, that is not the case in many non-Western cultures. These cultures value the group collective over the individual. Tying in to the first characteristic is the second characteristic: achievement and responsibility. In Western cultures, the individual is praised for their personal achievements and how they distinguish themselves from the group; not so in other cultures. In these cultures, achievement is defined “in terms of how many contributions they make to the group” (469). Group decision is the third characteristic that Bosley talks about. More specifically, how different cultural groups come to decisions. Western cultures believe that differing viewpoints can lead to a better decision making process, but this is not so with other cultures. In Japan for example, preserving the group harmony is valued over the final decision, so it is common for group members to agree with others despite any thoughts they may have to the contrary. The final differing characteristic is in thinking and communication skills. Western cultures usually spell out the problems in their writing, while non-Western cultures rely more on social and emotive responses. Asian culture for example “use context to convey much of the information. . . More of the message is left unspoken and is accessed through non-verbal cues and interpretations” to decide what is being said (471). Although this would be frustrating to a Westerner, it is common in another’s culture. Bosley finishes her article by giving ideas on how these cultural differences can be understood and overcome. The biggest being actual participation in cross-cultural groups. Participating in such groups can help group members “exchange information about the communication styles of their culture,” which can lead to a better understanding of their behavior and of cross-cultural communication (472).

As I read this article, I thought of the International Tech Comm class I took a few semesters back with Dr. Mackenzie. Many of the ideas we talked about there are similar to what Bosley points out in her article. Western cultures tend to be more individually centered than others that focus more on the “group think” idea. As the field of technical communication globally expands, it becomes more important for us to realize the different values between cultures and acknowledge them. Bosley makes the important observation that the only way we can truly recognize these differences is by openly discussing them in a cross-cultural group. We can read about the differences and study them, but it’s important to have that first-hand knowledge. If I were to take a technical writing position in another country, I would not want to go in without an understanding of the differences that may exist. Without that understanding, I would most likely make some sort of mistake or faux paus that would not be ideal. Essentially, it all comes down to proper communication, that’s what our field is based so I think it only makes sense that we practice what we preach.

Our Present Shaping our Future

There comes a time when we must consider what the future will bring. We must look at where we currently are, what has led us to this point, and what it will eventually lead to. If his article “The Shape of Text to Come: The Texture of Print on Screens” is any indication, Stephen Bernhardt knows this concept very well. The very first sentence in Berhardt’s article states that “changes in the technology of text invariably trigger changes in the shape of text” (410). Throughout his article he elaborates how true this is, how electronic text has altered the production, reading, and limits of text. Bernhardt gives nine dimensions for understanding the framework of electronic text. Before he gives these nine dimensions, he does point out that “electronic text does not create a totally new rhetoric but depends for its design on the strategies of paper texts” (410). The following are the nine dimensions that vary electronic text from paper text.

1. Situationally Embedded: In paper, the text can stand alone from a situation’s context. The text can be taken anywhere that the user wants. An electronic text though is “more embedded in the context of the situation” (411). The texts become a part of the system that is being written about for easy access and learning by any user.

2. Interactive: Simply put, readers of electronic text “construct or reconstruct a text in their own image, bringing as much to a text as they take from it” (412). Paper texts merely exist to be read, but electronic texts can be interacted with via mouse, cursor, touch screen, or a number of other interfaces. Existing files can be changed, annotated, or moved in any fashion.

3. Functionally Mapped: Printed texts are mapped in only one way, drawing only a certain function for the reader. With the use of visual cuing in electronic texts, a number of functions can be achieved.

4. Modular: Through the use of structure, printed texts have self-contained chunks of information. Although the same is true of electronic texts, they can also allow for changes in the modules and link with other modules for quick access. This would allow for more informational access by the reader.

5. Hierarchically Embedded: Books and other print documents are not well suited to hierarchical or embedded text, one can only be read in a linear fashion. Electronic user though “can also read peripheral or supporting information” through the use of window environments (418).

6. Navigable: When reading a printed text, it can be more difficult and time consuming. With the use of electronic graphical browsers, readers can get “a visualization of the structure of information” while at the same time exploring nodes and sub nodes of information with relative ease (420).

7. Spacious: Although printed texts have a good deal of information for portable transport, they can become cumbersome as systems grow larger and more complex. However, no “similar physical constraint shapes electronic text” (421). Large amounts of information can be stored and take up only a small amount of physical space, making them much more transportational-friendly.

8. Graphically Rich: The writers of printed and electronic texts make use of fonts, text sizes, and whitespace to make their documents graphically rich. Electronic texts though make use of metaphorical directions and icons. For example, the trash can is a familiar image that many users will understand.

9. Customizable and Publishable: This comes down to how much power the user has over the document. Berhardt says that although “readers can annotate without the boundaries of hard copy. . .Text on screen can be changed” (423). This fluidity of electronic text can allow the user to adjust the document to their wants and needs.


After reading over Berhardt’s nine points, I had to agree with what he was saying. Electronic information has become a powerful influence in our society, whether it be the fields of academics, business, or government, it has changed how we write and convey information. Every point that Bernhardt makes seems to focus around the fluidity that electronic text seems to offer. We can rewrite it, link to it, reorganize it, we can do almost anything we want to it. The user has gained a great deal of power over text in the electronic realm. As more of us alter these texts, it could become difficult to decide which version is the most applicable one. Who really controls the text, the author or the user? I think that as time passes, the user will gain more and more power over the text, almost like becoming a coauthor of the documents. Does this mean that paper texts will be phased out? That depends on how dominant electronic texts become. I don’t see it happening within the next decade, but I do see paper becoming more outdated as time goes on. With the rise in the selection of downloadable books and literature from Amazon.com, we have already seen the beginning of the end for printed text. Only time will truly tell.