Aligning Inner and Outer Visions of Technical Communication: Reflections Beyond Traditional Technical Writing    

Technical communication is often misunderstood by those outside the profession or the academic field. These outside perceptions of our work, generally based on extremely limited and narrow notions of the field, can influence the opportunities available to technical communicators. In this paper, three faculty members from the University of Washington's Department of Technical Communication describe their academic assumptions and research activities that range far beyond traditional areas from technical writing such as writing, editing and production. They describe projects that represent the expanding boundaries of the field of technical communication, spanning domains (including medicine, corporate, and public service), methods (including contextual inquiry, content analysis, case studies, and log file analysis), and solution types (including content management, user driven content, computer mediated communication, and strategic management of systems). What these projects share is abroad vision of the field of technical communication and a broad vision of the contributions that technical communication professionals have to offer.

Haselkorn, Mark P., Geoffrey Sauer and Jennifer Turns. IEEE PCS (2002). Articles>TC

Expanding the Scope of Technical Communication: Examples from the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington    

Argues that the technical communication field is expanding far beyond traditional areas of writing, editing, and production. Describes research at the University of Washington that helps clarify the expanding scope of our field.

Haselkorn, Mark P., Geoffrey Sauer, Jennifer Turns, Deborah L. Illman, Michio Tsutsui, Carolyn Plumb, Tom Williams, Beth E. Kolko and Jan Spyridakis. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>TC