Technical Writing And Language: A Philosophical Consideration

Matthew Smith TWC 531 February 22, 2006 Technical Writing and Language: A Philosophical Consideration Introduction There are many books and articles about technical writing that consider language in terms of grammar, syntax, or mechanics. One often reads about tone or audience analysis, but few truly delve into how language sets the tone for the target audience beyond the surface of positive and negative connotations of certain words. Fewer still consider language as the tool used to shape the ideas of the reader. The purpose of this paper, then, is to consider the proper use of language in Technical Writing and Editing. The scope is broad in comparison to most essays about Technical Writing in that this paper is not concerned with the fine points of editing, but the social and political implications of language.

Purpose of Technical Writing and Editing Technical writing and editing requires language that communicates reality, clarifies processes, and enables the reader to accomplish a positive goal, more than other genres. Is Technical Writing a genre? Yes. All writing requires creativity, Technical Writing no less than so-called Creative Writing. Each genre serves a different purpose and has different methods of communicating ideas. Poetry uses meter and tropes to evoke emotional responses. Fiction uses various narrative techniques to elicit the desired response: suspense from mystery novels, lust from romance novels, even nationalism from historical fiction. Journalism should use tightly worded, no-nonsense prose to convey objective facts of a story, but in reality it is one of the least

objective of all genres, as newspaper and its editors or owners use their writing to elicit reactions sympathetic to their ideology. Technical Writing must be objective. It is the job of the editor to make sure that the language used by the technical writer conveys no ideology, but strictly technical information. There is no room in technical publications for pushing a political agenda unless the technical publication is about a political process. For a technical publication to be used to further the aim of a political group is an abuse of language, which quickly transforms itself into an abuse of power.

The necessity of this topic Some may wonder if this paper is necessary; after all, what does technical writing have to do with politics and power? Now more than ever, society is driven by science and technology. Science is used as justification for many social programs and other forms of government spending. Technology has worked its way into society such that the role of technology serving people often seems to work in reverse—that people exist to serve technology. In this milieu, it is more important than ever for people to be aware of science and technology, the way those fields are used, and especially the way those fields are described to us. To be unaware of the language used is to be unaware of the forces moving us. Humans work and understand using language; there is no other way. To be ignorant of the language use in science and technology, or by those organizations pushing science and technology onto society is to volunteer oneself for manipulation. Technical writers and editors, whether they realize it or not, are at the forefront of this dark dystopian future that lurks under the utopian façade of the white plastic and sterile stainless steel world of technology. The only way to combat government and

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corporate manipulation of the population through science and technology is to remain keenly aware of language, and use it in a humane way, such that—as said above—technical writing communicates reality, clarifies processes, and enables the reader to accomplish a positive goal

Communicating Reality Several years ago, there was a concerted effort to eliminate language that presumed the reader or the subject was male. There was a legitimate reason for doing so. The number of women joining the workforce grew drastically, and fields that were once solely the domain of men were soon filled with women. The words “policeman,” “foreman,” “man hours,” no longer conveyed the reality of the situation. Instead, we began using expressions like, “Police officer,” “supervisor,” and “working hours.” These gender-neutral terms communicated the reality that the workplace had changed to allow women roles once held exclusively by men. This legitimate adjustment soon gave way to Political Correctness which reached its peak in the 1990’s. Words that really carried no negative connotation such as “handicapped,” were replaced by vague phrases like “differently-abled.” But what does that mean? Are not all people able in different ways? And it seemed that every time white Americans became accustomed to a non-offending term for Americans of African descent, the term changed, and the whites were castigated for not using the latest term. In the 40’s, “negro” was preferred; the 50’s, “colored”; the 60’s, “black”; in 70’s, “Afro-American”; the 80’s, “African-American”; the 90’s, the ever so vague “people of color.” In the recent few years rap music has made the unutterable N-word common, but one will doubtlessly not find that word in professional publications. But do any of these expressions accurately communicate the reality of who Americans of African descent are? Some do; some do not.

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The pendulum seems to have swung back toward center. On her website, Technical Editor’s Eyrie, experienced editor, Jean Weber, has excellent suggestions regarding genderneutral language that at once proves non-offensive and accurately reflects reality. She offers what not to do and what to do to help an editor make technical publications gender-neutral without producing a text that is, “awkward and does not mangle or revise the English language.” 1 In terms of how to approach ethnic, religious, and other potentially sensitive subjects or readers, one should refer to those individuals and groups in the way that they refer to themselves. There is a simple rule of thumb that is at once theoretical and very practical: Does this language communicate the reality of this human’s dignity? Writing and editing technical documents does not give one license to dehumanize the subject matter or the reader. Technology ought not to be synonymous with inhumanity, as is too often the case. In technical publications—more so than in other genres—language must always communicate reality. The first job of a technical writing and editing team is to make the reader familiar with the subject matter as it is—as it really exists.

Clarifying processes In the previous section the discussion focused on communicating reality, especially the reality of the subject matter as it is—as it really exists. From that, two observations can be made: first, the way to effectively communicate reality is to describe it with clarity; second, recalling the medieval philosophical maxim act follows being—if you know the reality of what the thing is, you will know what that thing is supposed to do. The first observation raises the question of how to write with clarity, such that reality is communicated to the reader with no ambiguity. The answer is to keep the sentence structure and 1

Technical Editor’s Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/ (accessed 2/20/06)

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vocabulary simple. In his essay, Politics and the English Language—from which this essay you are currently reading derives much inspiration—George Orwell shows us how high-sounding language in the form of Greco-Latinate words and complex sentence structure is often a cover for deception. His rules for writing are few: (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable.2 Indeed the fashionable language to which we are now subjected makes the meaning of things unclear, thus making it more difficult for us to act or react properly. One need only think of how “search and destroy” was replaced with “sweep and clear” in Vietnam, or how the death of innocent civilians is now called “collateral damage” in Iraq, to realize that ambiguity dehumanizes. And dehumanization leaves us shrugging our shoulders rather than mourning the death of a human who loved and was loved. This is deeply troubling. A technical editor may one day be called upon to take an unhappy fact and gloss it over with a glib expression. At that point writers and editors become instruments of political ideology rather than explainers of technology. At an even deeper level, writers and editors must then ask themselves if they want to be a part of a dehumanizing system or if they want to be humane and moral. There is no escaping the question by deciding not to decide. The authors of the

2

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” http://orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit (accessed 2/21/06)

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documents detailing standard operating procedures for gassing Jews at Auschwitz may have found comfort in the euphemism “final solution,” and the other figures of speech used to hide the fact that they were killing humans. At what cost did they soothe their consciences? Reality communicated with clarity seems now not just a philosophical abstraction, but a moral imperative. Reality communicated clearly means that the actions that are to follow become more selfevident. When you know what a thing is, you have a better idea of what it does, or what you should do with it. This is especially true for your audience when writing and editing instruction manuals or in documentation for new discoveries or technologies. At the beginning of the document, you must describe the thing for the reader. You must allow the thing to make itself known to you. Choose words based on what you observe about the thing, rather than you choosing words that impose an interpretation upon that thing. You will find that the word you choose is based on what that thing does. Therefore, when your audience reads your description, they already have an idea of what the thing does. You have clarified the process for them by communicating the reality of that thing in your technical document.

Enabling readers to accomplish a positive goal First, you have communicated the reality of your subject matter. That made it easier for you to clarify the process one goes through to use the thing, or it clarifies the actions of the thing itself. This now makes it possible for you to enable your reader to accomplish a positive goal as a result of reading your document. This is the goal of technical writing and editing: Technical publications enable readers to achieve something that they would not have been able to

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accomplish otherwise, or would not have been able to accomplish as easily had they not read the publication. Publications and documents that do not enable the reader to accomplish a goal are worse than worthless; they are oppressive. It will soon be time for most Americans to file tax forms. The laws are written such that no single human can understand them readily. The publications sent to taxpayers to enable them to do their taxes are such that people often do not file their own tax forms but rather pay an accountant to do them. This causes unnecessary social and political stratification. First, the tax laws (a form of technical writing) require a special class of people to interpret and decipher them, thus creating an environment ripe for abuse of power. Second, the tax form instruction manuals do not really clarify the process, thus requiring the paid services of a mediator between the power and the person. No matter what, the person has no choice but to lose assets—either to the power or to the mediators, or both—that could contribute to his or her independence and well-being. This is technical writing at its worst: reality obfuscated, processes obscured, and the people disabled.

Summary Bill Hart-Davidson, professor of Technical Writing at Mississippi State University, suggests that “good” technical writing 1) should be measured in terms of “communication events” and 2) cannot be reduced to a set of qualities in a single text that are often further reduced to basic rules (because maybe those rules would not necessarily transfer from one document to another).3

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Hart-Davidson, Bill. “Reconsidering the Basics of Technical Writing: What are the Basic Units for a Quality Writing Project?” 2004. (http://www.msu.edu/~hartdav2/cptsc2004.pdf accessed 2/21/06)

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I would submit that the three focus areas that I have discussed—communicating reality, clarifying processes, and enabling the reader to accomplish a positive goal—are “communication events.” They are moments of understanding by the reader—which is precisely what we want to accomplish with our work as technical writers and editors. These moments of understanding are what the readers want also, for that is when—whether they realize it or not—they are most human and most free. By discussing technical writing in the abstract as I have done in this paper avoids the pitfalls of a set of qualities—a mere list of dos and don’ts—that may or may not apply to more than one type of publication or document, and which certainly cannot go beyond a superficial view of what technical writing and editing means in a social and political context.

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