The last lecture ´91 [technical communication]

The author presents three concepts which he considers most significant for managers and technical communicators. He begins with a discussion of the differences between the reflective and presentational modes of writing which contain many of the professional problems of technical writers, and then returns to the relationship of the communication process to the technical work from which it springs. In this first concept, the two processes, frequently seen as tag-on, are actually parallel and highly interactive. The second concept features a group of four demands which the process places on technical writing professionals, (the role of reader-advocate, examining alternative structures, overcoming the difference between the writer/reader views of the writing, and separating writing and revising). The third stresses directing the writing process and the interactive roles of managers, technical staff, and technical writers