Linda Gilmore
B. Childs, A College Course in Engineering Writing, College English, Vol. 21, No. 7 (Apr., 1960), pp. 394-396
As Robert J. Connors points out in his article, "The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America," the industrial revolution, and the resultant university engineering students, played a key role in creating a need for technical writers. Once it was discovered that practicing engineers could not write or communicate effectively, it became necessary to either teach the engineers to communicate more effectively, or to train others to do their communicating for them. An attempt at both occurred. In his article, "A College Course in Engineering Writing," Childs reviews the writing course he designed primarily for engineering students. His motivation was, "the serious current problems of our technological civilization: the incredible amount of technical, scientific, and engineering writing demanded of its personnel and the paucity of people even remotely qualified to write it" (p. 394)
Childs' states that the premise of his technical writing course was, "similar to Aristotle's definition of the function of rhetoric: to furnish the tools of persuasion for any given situation" (395). He then expresses his frustration with existing "handbooks," and proceeds to give an overview of his course, which included such things as, providing students with sample reports for review, writing letters, lessons on knowing your audience, report writing, and a 2500 word investigative essay. Childs states in his article that the students greatly enjoyed his class, though he gives no indication of the actual success of the class in regard to producing engineers who were also effective technical writers.
I find it interesting that even today it is common to hear people lament the inability of engineers to communicate their knowledge effectively. Engineering Departments seem to feel like they have more important things to teach their engineers, and do not want to spend time training them how to communicate when it knows the English Department is now producing technical writers to do it for them. This synchronicity between Departments has evolved over time through trial and error, and it seems that when deciding which is the better course of action, teaching engineers to do technical writing or establishing a separate field of technical writers to do their communicating for them, the latter won out.
The comment about handbooks is very interesting and I think it directly relates to what we've been talking about in class. From personal experience (which is not vast) the handbooks I have seen are generally just how-to manuals to meet the exigencies of genre: what makes a good proposal, how do you write a memo, etc. Other texts are far less practical and much more theoretical. It seems that the texts of technical communication mirror the schism between the line TC straddles between engineering and English. Do we advocate pure praxis in order to produce robots, or do we incorporate theory to produce problem-solvers? I, too, would like to see some sort of breakdown of his methods to see what kind of theory/praxis ratio was effective for him in the classroom and how well that translated outside of it after the fact. That could be a start for the program analysis assignment, or at least a lens by which to partially analyze a TC program. I think I might do something like that, now that I mention it.
ReplyDeleteI think the comment on the rhetorical aspect of his writing course is very interesting, and it again shows how important persuasion of the audience is in any kind of writing. I had not considered how an engineering writing course could've involved rhetoric, however, just as in technical communications it makes perfect sense. Any kind of writing is geared towards an audience whether it be technical/mechanical or creative in nature, and it only goes to show how influential rhetorical methods are. Very interesting indeed.
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