1.2 Technical and Business Communications Theories and Possible Applications

How might a technical writer most effectively communicate tasks and procedures or explain products and services in a way that will be easy to digest? Exploring some basic theories of technical communications will help answer this question.

Effective technical writing and communication serves a useful purpose for every organization at any level. How do we begin? We must begin with a theory and then see how or if it is feasible to put into practice.

The following theories as applied to technical communication are not exhaustive, but for the purposes of this course they are useful and applicable. A theory is a way of thinking about and understanding technical writing and communication that would lead to an appropriate or successful outcome.

Classic Rhetorical Theories in Technical Communication

Classic theories in technical communication suggest this vocation is at the intersection of humanism and utilitarianism, or a humanities-oriented versus utility-oriented writing and communication binary.

To illustrate, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), founded in the mid-19th century, has a long history of churning out some of the most talented engineers and mathematicians in the world; in fact, there are 40 Nobel Prize winners amongst its graduates.1 MIT’s graduates in technology and engineering have gone on to found or co-found companies that produce a combined revenue of 2 trillion dollars globally—producing the equivalent of the 11th largest economy in the world.2 MIT was also effective in instructing its students in how to effectively communicate about technology and engineering, and popular theories in technical communication sprung from universities like MIT and Oxford.3

In 1899, when the university was in its infancy, one of MIT’s instructors, named Robert Grosvenor Valentine, decided his first-year engineering students needed to learn how to write in a way that allowed readers to digest their studies and findings. This style of technical writing Valentine taught was considered utilitarian and was “writerly-focused”—using a linear process in explaining engineering processes and procedures.4

A generation after Valentine taught at MIT, Frank Aydellotte, also a professor at MIT and AT&T’s first writing consultant (1917–1918), focused on the “readerly” (literary) style, or humanistic style of communicating technical subjects.5

Aydellotte’s contributions to technical writing theories, and those of his contemporaries in the 20th century, made popular this humanistic approach to technical writing. Subjects like rhetorical theory in technical writing were eventually absorbed by the humanities departments of most universities, while the writerly, or utilitarian, focus taught by Valentine lost favor.6

With the advent of the internet and the resultant eruption of new technologies, this 20th-century readerly-focused style of technical communication is swiftly evolving into something more fit for the 21st century and beyond. Technical communication is swinging back toward a more writerly focus, headed straight toward designerly theories and hypertext theories in technical communication—a “middle of the road” axis between the two.

Writerly Theory in Technical Communication

Writerly theory at its very basic level describes technical processes and procedures in a linear fashion, and is focused on the engineer’s or scientist’s experience of explaining the process or procedure, rather than being focused on the reader as an audience.

Readerly Theory in Technical Communication

Readerly theory is focused on the narration of the technical processes and procedures. It gives readers more context, may use hyperbole or allegory to illustrate points, may deviate from a linear process, and is reader- or audience-focused in its intent.

Designerly Theory in Technical Communication

Designerly theory is useful when communicating large design-centered concepts, like architecture or engineering, and distilling those concepts into smaller fragments. Scientists and mathematicians often work in the direction opposite to architects, starting from a theoretical framework and working outward or upward to explore new concepts. This perspective is called “designer discipline.”7

Designers or engineers, on the other hand, often take a large concept and distill it downward, taking a perspective called “maker’s knowledge.” Designerly theory is bidirectional in the understanding that theory and practice must inform one another. This type of technical communication is based around a designer’s or engineer’s experiential knowledge and the relationship to the theories on which that knowledge is framed.8

Hypertext Theory in Technical Communication

Hypertext theory allows the reader to navigate technical communication in a nonlinear way—where readers are able to consume different facets of technical processes or procedures using links, footnotes, references, charts, graphs, and so on.

The World Wide Web enables readers to experience technical communication in entirely new ways—using hyperlinks, search histories, data, and insights with the intent of giving the reader many different reference points to easily navigate the text or information in digestible ways.