History of Technical Writing

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History of Technical Writing

• Introduction to Technical Writing
• ENGL 2311
• By
• Paul Watson
• Summer II 2008

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• 1860 Civil War
• 1862 Morills Act
• 1870 Decline in Humanities education among
  Engineering schools.
• 1916 Univ. of Cincinnati Princeton MIT
  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute start courses in
  Technical Writing.
• 1944 GI Bill

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• 1940 The Hammond Report.
• 1958 RPI starts first masters program in
  Technical Writing.
• 1990 Information technology boom creates need
  for software documentation.

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Why do we need Technical Writing

• The only good criterion of Technical Writing
  is, does it work.
• Mills and
  Walter 1973.
• Technical Communication has one certain clear
  purpose to convey information and ideas
  accurately and efficiently.
• 
  Johnson-Eilola
• Science and knowledge are enterprises of Truth,
  hence technical writing should convey Science in
  simple language devoid of ornamentation and
  literary creativity.
• 
  -Johnson-Eilola

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Contemporary thought on Technical Writing

• Science above all is a communal enterprise. The
  truth and knowledge that science seeks is thus
  correspondence of ideas, not of the material
  world, but other peoples ideas.
  -John Ziman
• Technical Writing should ground in communal
  rationality, than context-less logic.
  Carolyn Miller
  

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