Technical Communication Texts

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Michael K. Gilbertson. Signs, Genres and Community in Technical Communication. Amityville: Baywood, 1992.

Three part theory of technical communication, beginning with semiotics, then genre studies, then community studies. The main argument of the communities section of the book is that technical communication is best understood, and best managed, as people in identifiable groups creating documents together for consumption by other groups. This provides a good model for a writing classroom because it is rooted in actual business practices that students will certainly encounter once out of school. But, because the text is focused on professional practices of technical communication, linking it to pedagogy may be difficult.

Miller, Carolyn R. "What's Practical about Technical Writing?" Technical Writing: Theory and Practice. Bertie E. Fearing and W. Keats Sparrow, Eds. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1989.

Miller suggests that, though scholars denigrate the action-centered "bread-and-butter" writing that business relies on, they allow businesses to define what they teach in the classroom while exerting little influence over the practices of the businesses where their students will work. Her definition of practicality provides a good starting point for questioning the aims of the writing class, but her conclusion that rhetoric be understood and taught as a mode of conduct, rather than production, might be a tough sell in a core writing classroom of business and engineering majors.