Don Bush's Intercom article

Wed Feb 7 07:36:29 MST 2007

I don't disagree with this list's responses to Mr. Bush's column.  He is
profoundly misinformed about what most of us research and teach and
about what technical communicators do in the workplace.  During my ten
years in industry, I did little of what he describes and did much of
what he claims technical writers don't do.  Nonetheless, I think we may
be too quick to absolve the academic community of responsibility for
such perceptions.

Let me speculate that Mr. Bush derives some of his notions from the
sorry fact that many technical writing courses are being taught by
people who have little or no experience or education in technical
writing. The field has too few qualified faculty, and so institutions
often turn to people with education and teaching experience in
composition--an inadequate background for teaching the various forms of
professional communication, despite the belief among many composition
specialists that "workplace writing" of any sort is just a subspecialty
of composition studies.

To illustrate:  At the request of a Southern university a couple of
years ago, I reviewed a syllabus, assignments, and supporting materials
for a course in business writing.  While the course designer seemed to
understand quite well the body of literature supporting a
Marxist-feminist approach to teaching composition, he or she showed no
evidence of familiarity with the literature or pedagogy of business
writing.  The primary course objective seemed to be equipping students
to go into the business environment for the purpose of subverting
capitalism.

Last year, when I chaired a search for a tenure-line position in
professional writing, we received some 80 applications, of which only
about 20 showed some knowledge of professional writing.  Most of the
rest came from composition specialists who claimed the ability to teach
technical and business writing.  And even some of the ten we interviewed
turned out not to really know the literature of the field, instead
reverting to composition studies when asked about research supporting
their understanding of professional writing.

I know and respect many faculty in composition studies, but their view
of technical communication is sometimes as misinformed as that of Mr.
Bush, and if Mr. Bush's perception of what we teach in the field comes
from the many comp people who have no experience in the field but
function in the guise of technical writing specialists, who can blame
him?

John Bryan

MA Program in Professional Writing

University of Cincinnati

________________________________

From: bounce-stc-ac-277548 at lists.stc.org
[mailto:bounce-stc-ac-277548 at lists.stc.org] On Behalf Of Lu Rehling
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 4:54 PM
To: stc-ac
Subject: [stc-ac] RE: Don Bush's Intercom article

Hi, Kathy--In addition to supporting you (as others have done) in noting
that Don Bush's February '07 Intercom article does not accurately or
fairly represent the work of technical communication specialists in
academe, I also want to note that the article strongly misrepresents the
work that technical communicators do in the workplace.

Most importantly, based on my own experiences working in industry and on
the many recent and ongoing experiences of other technical communicators
that I know of from STC colleagues and from interns in and graduates of
our program, technical communicators in industry are not just
keyboardists or tools jockeys. Even in entry-level positions, technical
communicators do indeed write about technical content, and they often
write collaboratively. The range of job options and career development
opportunities for technical communicators is not nearly as limited as
the article suggests. And even other articles that Intercom publishes,
especially in its "my job" features, demonstrate that fact. Of course,
the workplace-based research that we academics use to develop our
curricula also confirm it.

In addition, there are several other claims made in the article that are
off-base about workplace realities for practitioners. For example, even
just a check of STC's own salary survey would reveal that the idea of
making $90K salary in a career as a technical communicator is not, in
fact, a fantasy.

So, what bothers me is not just that Don's article is polarizing and
devalues the work that I do (although, yes, that is annoying), it's also
that the article devalues and misrepresents our entire field and the
work of our practitioner colleagues. as well. While I sometimes have
enjoyed Don Bush's idiosyncratic approaches in the past, this is not the
first time that I have found in his column much that seems to be based
on personal anecdotes, long-held (and possibly untested) fixed ideas,
extreme opinions, and stereotypes, rather than on broad experience and
field research. This particular column also is striking for its
discourteousness and somewhat mean-spirited tone (though, admittedly,
this may just be due to a failed attempt at curmudgeonly humor a la Andy
Rooney).

I understand that Intercom, as STC's magazine, may not need to be held
to same standards as its journal, Technical Communication, but its
columnists at least should be expected to demonstrate a constructive and
knowledgeable engagement with the prevalent issues and practices that
all of STC's members share, whether they work mainly in industry or
mainly in academe (and, of course, recognizing that many of us
effectively cross back and forth between those two "worlds").

Thanks for bringing this article to our collective attention, Kathy.-Lu

P.S. As others have encouraged, I will share my thoughts on the article
in question with the editor of Intercom, as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

Lu Rehling

Director, Technical & Professional Writing Program

http://www.sfsu.edu/~tpw <http://www.sfsu.edu/~tpw>  

Professor, College of Humanities

San Francisco State University

1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132

office: room 413, Humanities Building

phone: 415-338-3988

email: RehlingL at sfsu.edu <mailto:RehlingL at sfsu.edu> 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

-----Original Message-----

From: bounce-stc-ac-277434 at lists.stc.org
[mailto:bounce-stc-ac-277434 at lists.stc.org] On Behalf Of Northcut,
Kathryn

Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 2:56 PM

To: stc-ac

Subject: [stc-ac] Don Bush's Intercom article

Colleagues:

Colleagues:

I've just read Don Bush's "The Friendly Editor" column of February 2007.
I'm distressed by the article, even though the proverbial shoe doesn't
fit me. With this sort of characterization of my work within
publications that are supposedly promoting the profession, we are doing
ourselves a disservice to say the least. At best, Bush is misinformed,
and at worst, he's being malicious. I'd send this message to Mr. Bush,
but he lists only a snail mail address, no email.

I'm interested in hearing how others are reacting or responding to what
he's said, and if I'm off base in thinking that a column published in TC
reflects the position of STC toward "academicians" (a term I loathe).
Certainly there are factions within STC trying to build bridges between
university personnel and workplaces, but are we swimming against the
tide?

Although I could perhaps shrug this off, I told my students to join STC,
and they read this column, and they will take it to heart.

I'm concerned.

Kathy

Kathryn Northcut

Assistant Professor of Technical Communication

Department of English and Technical Communication

University of Missouri-Rolla

northcut at umr.edu

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