After two weeks of plague, I have dragged myself from the miry depths of sickness to produce a new article. While recovering, a philosophical quandary took a firm lodging within my brain. previous post, the heroic acts of writers often go unsung in the corporate world. An area where this phenomenon is of particular concern is among the ranks of technical writers.As I've suggested in a
One of the prevailing trends of late in this particular corner of the writing world is a policy of erasure. Technical documents should be toneless, impersonal, instructions absent personality. For instance, a blog post I read recently suggested that some of the policies taking hold within the industry are causing the proliferation of an "assembly line" approach that attempts to remove writers from the equation whenever possible. What could cause such a promotion of subalternity? The post's author suggests that it is something initially meant to assist technical writers: the topic authoring system.
To give a two-bit summary, topic authoring and more technological implementations of it, such as DITA, are methods for creating content repositories that allow for the easy reuse of pieces of written information, dubbed topics. These organizational systems make it so that there is a reduction in the redundancy of content since writers can simply pull in information that has already been created. Sounds great, right? Well, in theory, yes, but as I've indicated, there are drawbacks as well.
Under the law of topic authoring, no longer are writers to be concerned with narrative. Instead, each snippet of information should be self-contained and able to stand alone so that any document can incorporate it with ease. This, when implemented in a haphazard way, causes chaotic guides cobbled together from myriad sources that vary in tone, structure, and approach. For this reason the holy, impersonal statutes delineate certain varieties of topic that prescribe unyielding templates for information types, such as procedures, explanations, and references.
You may ask why I take issue with this. To put it in a phrase, these standards promote absolutism. They strive for a unified whole that, through the uncertainty of language, is rendered always already incomplete (see my electronic music article for more on this). Okay, great, but what's the alternative? If you'll permit me, I've got a few ideas.
First of all, we need to cease the overdefinition and erasure of the writer within and from the writing process. Even the STC, one of the preeminent organizations in the technical writing field, seeks to alter their title away from "technical writing" to "technical communication." In principle, this seems broader, but in actuality it removes the agency of the writer. The act is no longer in their hands. They are now simply cogs in a great, inexorable machine that churns out instructions. Instead, I think writers should embrace the power their name represents. They are the directors of language's play. If we place the same creative value on technical writers that we do on other writing professionals, such as copywriters, the results might be surprising.
Once this initial shift in philosophical perspective happens, a more effective harmonization between technical writers and other professional divisions can be established. The breaking down of these artificial walls will allow a dialog across the many corporate areas dealing with the written word. When the lines of communication are flowing, synchronicities in thought can be achieved that will improve company-wide branding and stylistic recognition.
Only one key realization is needed to bring this to fruition: technical writers are marketers too. Their words contribute as much to the success of a corporate endeavor as front end advertising processes do. If customers have a unique experience even when looking for solutions to difficulties with a product, they will have an even more vivid recognition of specific brands and will be more likely to return for more service. Remove status, remove fear, leave only the words. Then, we can understand value beyond what reductive structures define for us.
