Introduction

The future of Technical Communication is something that we are all, as either practitioners, academics or students, keenly interested in. What is the future of our chosen discipline? What exactly is it that a practitioner in the field does today? Doubtless, if you've ever talked to someone outside the field, whether friend or co-worker, the question, "What is Technical Communication?" has come up. How do we answer this question? Why is it important how, you might ask? Unless we know what Technical Communication is how will we ever have a unified concept or theory to drive our discipline? This paper, however, is not necessarily about defining Technical Communication. I will explain through examining one sub-discipline of Technical Communication, Usability, we may see an example of the beginnings of a pattern of professional development.

Identity Crisis

The field of Technical Communication seems to be in the midst of an identity crisis. It is divided against itself, almost to the point of having multiple personalities. The community has been actively discussing and debating for decades which personality should be dominant. Before we go into more detail, a brief review of our present status is necessary before proceeding to a discussion of a possible future.

I don't think it will shock or surprise anyone when I state that Technical Communication is not (yet) a profession. First, before we can attempt to become a profession we need to know what defines Technical Communication. Some would claim that a definition is irrelevant and that we should not bother spending time or resources on. Donald E. Zimmerman and Michel Lynn Muraski state in Technical Communication (1995) that we should simply focus on our own personal career development and in this way earn recognition in our particular workplace (622). Similarly, Pamela Ecker in the same issue of Technical Communication writes that since Technical Communication is "multi-disciplinary and constantly evolving" that we "should simply get on with our work" and not get bogged down in trying to define what it is we do (570). These approaches may have appeal to individuals who currently hold positions in the field, but what does it do to progress the field for those just entering the workplace? Moreover, what appeal would this vision of the field hold for current and future students of Technical Communication? Shall we tell them that upon graduation they are essentially on their own? To do so puts the burden of proving the validity of the discipline on each individual, or it forces them to find some niche to fit into and adapt as best they can to the demands of their workplace. Thomas S. Kuhn strongly states that to be a part of a profession, you first need to be able to define what it is you do. As he states:

The more rigid definitions of the scientific group has other consequences. When the individual scientist can take a paradigm for granted, he need no longer, in his major works, attempt to build his field anew, starting from first principles and justifying the use of each concept introduced. That can be left to the writer of textbooks (1962).

The same holds true today. If we balk at creating a definition for Technical Communication, then we are dooming ourselves to individually build our field anew.

The Marks of a Profession

So, besides not being clearly defined, why is Technical Communication not a profession? This question and how to become a profession are often discussed in Technical Communication journals. What is it that motivates such a "major preoccupation" ( Nadziejka) for our field. Maybe it's a good idea to define what a profession is as it relates to our discipline.

The word profession is defined as, "An occupation, such as law, medicine or, engineering that requires considerable training and specialized study." This definition is further expanded on by Marjorie T. Davis in her article in Technical Communication (2001). She draws a parallel between the development of Technical Communication and the development of the professions of Medicine and Engineering. Davis, in her article, cites Vern L. Bullough's The Development of Medicine as a Profession (4-5), in which he lists the following tasks involved in developing a profession:

1. Developing a specialized body of knowledge
2. Institutionalizing this knowledge in universities
3. Relying on professional societies to qualify practitioners
4. Developing codes of ethics
5. Enjoying increased status (including money, power and respect)
6. Being viewed by members as a "terminal occupation" that members did not leave

Points five and six are not tasks that can be singularly sought after. They come along with recognition as a profession and time, so I will not discuss them here other than to say that they are obviously desirable. So, if we are to continue growing into a full profession we need to address each of the remaining topics.

Specialized Body of Knowledge

Certainly, if you were to ask any number of practitioners in the field what they do you would get a wide variety of answers. That technical communicators hold a wide variety of positions is not the problem. In fact, the diversity allowed by being a technical communicator is a strength. What is a problem and a weakness is that we have no unifying vision, nothing we all "profess".

As I stated before, Kuhn supports the concept of defining a specialization, or paradigm as he termed it. To work under a common paradigm has a unifying effect on a field. Thus to develop a paradigm for our field would be to unify our efforts and the direction of growth for the whole field. This unification under an established paradigm has the benefit of making entering practice easier as well as bringing higher esteem for the field. Patrick Moore (1996) also agrees with this when he writes:

One of the effects of standards is to unite many people into one team that works in a coordinated way to solve the large, complex problems of organizations and nations. The team as a whole acts as an individual to solve the problems that no individual could possibly manage alone (109).

How often do you think medical students are asked what they will do after they graduate? The answer is so obvious that the question is never asked. More likely, they will be asked what type of specialized practice they plan to work in after they graduate. This is a particularly good example for us to follow since it allows for recognition as a profession, but also allows wide variety of specialized areas of practice. Developing specialized areas of knowledge within Technical Communication is a topic I will return to later in greater detail as I discuss Usability.

Institutionalizing this knowledge in universities

Continuing the comparison to Medicine or Engineering, these disciplines were first deemed important because of their value to society before they were brought to the university. There were practicing physicians and engineers long before there were university programs in which to learn how to practice. These trades matured into professions through a "dual focus on practice and education." (Davis 140) The purpose of institutionalizing these disciplines was to ensure that new practitioners would be well equipped to practice. To draw on Kuhn again, the Academy took the practitioner and established a dominant paradigm for the field, which over time grew into a profession. We can draw on this parallel by looking at Industry to find what is important for us to focus on, and then allowing the Academy to conduct the research to establish solid theory, which can then be applied in the workplace. Using this model to develop theory and a standard of practice in the Academy, based directly on the needs of Industry, would allay the concerns voiced by Moore . In his article, entitled Instrumental Discourse is as Humanistic as Rhetoric (1996), he states that a concern for our field is that the universities are not adequately preparing students to enter the workplace because they do not follow a curriculum that addresses the needs of future employers of Technical Communication students (104).

The Role of Professional Societies

In any organized field professional societies play the important role of unifying the community. These societies help unify the community of practitioners by creating a discourse community, as James P. Zappen discusses at length in his article The Discourse Community in Scientific and Technical Communication: Institutional and Social Views (1989). What Charles Bazerman (1988) writes regarding written discourse communities also applies here. As he writes,

Having sent our text out into the world, we need to be open to what experience and thought others bring to the published formulations. The evolution of continuing work will assign a social meaning and pragmatic role for our formulations; our understanding of and reaction to that social meaning will influence our future investigations and formulations. To keep the conversation going, we must constantly reread the dynamics and meaning of the conversation and our place in it (330).

Anyone who has read professional publication over some time (or perhaps condensed into a shorter time span) will note that the dialogue going on changes and adapts. This is one function of such organizations.

Another function is self-regulation of the discipline. Examples taken from the medical profession would be the American Medical Association or each state's medical board. These organizations develop standardized exams by which graduating students are licensed as professional medical practitioners. There is currently no such example in the field of Technical Communication. One problem that is faced in creating such a body is who would decide who is on the "board" and what the standards would be. Davis states, "No existing academic organization is broad enough to establish such a [standard] alone. The professional societies must be the primary agents to initiate the broader discussion." (143). If we are concerned with the further development of our field then we need to be actively involved in professional societies, such as the Society for Technical Communication and the IEEE Professional Communication Society. If we, as individuals, would like to have some influence over the future of our field then it would be wise to participate in our professional organization.

A Code of Ethics

It might at first seem like a strange thing that Technical Communication should need a code of ethics. Really, what is there that could be unethical in a communication field? There is quite a lot, actually. I am not going to address the use of rhetoric here, but it can be easily argued that language and rhetoric can be misused as easily as it can be used for good purposes. One area that involves ethical issues is actually the development of standards of practice, which I discussed in the previous section. The reason for these standards is very clear. They are meant to protect both the medical community as well as the greater social community from potential harm. Moore clearly describes how this applies to Technical Communication when he writes:

If we do not pay more attention to standardization and to instrumental uses of language, especially communication in competitive technological institutions, then more people will perish in disasters such as those in Bhopal, in Chernobyl, and with the space shuttle Challenger; more people will die from badly applied medical, electronic, and chemical technologies; and more people will find the rapidly expanding and vitally important data processing market beyond comprehension and thus beyond use (115).

The importance of ensuring practitioners meet an (as yet un-established) standard has greater significance than the world's perception of Technical Communication or even what our salary might be next year. Misunderstanding of documentation or instrumentation created by a poorly trained technical communicator can have consequences as deadly as a poorly trained surgeon. We have a moral obligation to the public that must not be ignored.

Usability is Setting the Standard

Professional development for Technical Communication is not only possible, but it is currently underway. The Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) performed investigations to determine if there is support for a certification program for Usability professionals. They found that there was "enthusiasm for creating a certification program based on the international standard for a human-centered design process, ISO 13407." ( Quesenbery 1) The ISO 13407 standard of proposed competencies for practitioners of Usability or user-centered design defines what a professional in this sub-field of Technical Communication does. Not only that, it lists core competencies and skills. This means that if this document or a variation thereof, were to be used to structure a certification exam we would have the beginnings of Usability being recognized as a profession. A significant hurdle remains, that was beginning to be studied by the UPA at the time they published their findings, which is the need for an established body of knowledge. Once established, this body of knowledge "could then be used as the basis for a professional development plan, curriculum and self-assessment tools" ( Quesenbery 2).

The reason that Usability is on the forefront of establishing its professional status is largely because of market demand. There is a definite need and desire in the community (Industry) for the services of Usability specialists. This is driven by consumer demand for software and products that are simple and intuitive out of the box. Computers are increasingly being integrated into every aspect of our lives. Even children's toys often have a computer control module incorporated inside of them. If the child is confused about how to use the new toy they were just given, chances are they won't play with it -- at least, not in the way intended. The same holds true for adult "toys" or tools. When a person buys a piece of productivity software they want to be able to simply install the software and start using it immediately, with as little training as possible. If the tool creates more work than it relieves (even if only initially), by having poor usability, then the user is likely to abandon the tool and buy a competitor's product. This is the driving force in Industry and the reason companies are seeing a real need for Usability and for Technical Communicators trained to fill this need.

Since there is an established need for trained Usability specialists in the Industry, the Academy needs to rise to meet this need, as well as to take a partial lead role in defining what a practitioner does. I say a partial lead role because there must be a balance between the Academy and Industry driving training of practitioners. The Academy's role is to research and refine theory and methodology so that those who will be practicing (and soon may be certified) as Usability specialists will all be of professional quality. Just as medical schools provide a type quality assurance in training their students to rigid standards, programs that teach Usability should all have as clearly defined standards. To graduate students who are not well versed in the current methodology and theory behind practice is to cripple the reputation of the whole community of Usability practitioners.

Once this standard is in place professional communities, such as the UPA, would be able to create a certification program. Academic and standards development do not necessarily have to be created serially. Much like usability practices should be implemented from the beginning of product development so should be the establishing of a certification program in parallel with the establishing of a standard curriculum in the Academy. This could take place if there is good communication between the Academy and the associations working on the certification standards. Again, the two need to work in unison. While this would be a complex process, it would help alleviate the sense of inequity that is felt by both communities at the thought of the other forming the standards -- and can be read between the lines of writers on both sides. As in all things in life, there must be balance. In this case, a balance between the Academy and Industry is necessary. The two should complement each other instead of compete with each other.

Specialization -- a Model Borrowed from Anthropology

If it isn't apparent yet, the reason I have brought Usability into this discussion is because it is loosely following the pattern of professional development set down by medicine and engineering. I say loosely because it seems that we are, as things are progressing now, more likely to develop specialized areas of practice as professions while Technical Communication itself still does not hold such status. This is in contrast to the two aforementioned professions, which developed in the opposite direction; they became a profession and then branched out into specialized sub-disciplines. However it occurs this is vital to the development of our field. As long as Technical Communication continues to be nebulous in its definition it will be impossible to develop past its present stage of evolution.

Throughout this paper I have compared Technical Communication to Engineering and Medicine because of their professional evolution. I would like to draw another parallel, from another discipline that might, at first, seem to have nothing in common with ours: Anthropology. Anthropology, the study of human cultural development, has at its very core principles that we can learn from because it studies the development of our audience. One of the foundational tenets of Anthropology is the defining of requirements necessary before a community can be considered a "civilization" (Perry, et al. 1992). The six defining characteristics necessary are listed below as a comparison to elements required for professional development.

Even though this comparison is drawn somewhat tongue-in-cheek, there are some valid points that can be taken from it. We do see all these elements involved within professions like medicine and engineering. There is a reason that they are all required. The majority of these are agreed upon, but some elements are missing from previous requirements lists, most notably "specialists" and "discourse writing". Moore would seem to agree that specialists are a requirement when he writes that specialization is required as our discipline continues to branch out into more and more technically diverse fields (103). Kuhn could also be read as stating that a discourse community is required in order to be considered a scientific or professional community (21-22). Professional awards, or something similar, may not fit as well into the comparison, but one could argue that most, if not all, professional communities have awards to honor exceptional professionals in the discipline. Thus one could argue that before Technical Communication could become a profession (or civilized) it must first build its foundations more firmly. We have established our past. Now we are on the path to building our future, and if we keep on this path the future promises to shine brighter that the famed Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria .

Conclusion

As I have discussed in this paper, for Technical Communication to develop into a full profession it must adopt several principles. Most lacking at the present time is an agreed upon body of knowledge and a standard of practice or certification process. For an example of how we can achieve this I have looked to Usability. This specialized sub-discipline is moving the fastest toward achieving these goals. This mirrors (being identical, yet opposite) the professional development of Engineering and Medicine. If we could continue this process in other sub-disciplines within Technical Communication, then we would see ourselves become part of a true profession before much longer.

References:

Bazerman, Charles. "Writing Well, Scientifically and Rhetorically." Shaping Written Knowledge. Madison, Wisconsin : Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1988 (pp.318-332).

Bullough, Vern L. The Development of Medicine as a Profession. New York, NY: Hafner Publishing Company, Inc., 1966.

Davis, Marjorie T. "Shaping the Future of Our Profession." Technical Communication, 48(2), (2001): 139-144.

Eaton, Angela. "The Academy/Industry Binary: The Effect of Distance Education on the Debate."

Ecker, Pamela S. "Why Define Technical Communication at All?" Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication 42(4), (1995): 570-71.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions., 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970 (Preface & pp. 1-22).

Moore, Patrick. "Instrumental Discourse is as Humanistic as Rhetoric." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 10, (1996):100-118.

Nadziejka, David. "Profession( al,ism): Terms for Technical Communicators?" Technical Communication, (1994): 114-16.

Perry, Marvin, Myrna Chase, James R. Jacob, Margaret C. Jacob, Theodore H. Von Laue. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics & Society; Volume I: To 1789. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.

Quesenbery, Whitney. "Building Blocks to a Body of Knowledge for User-Centered Design: To Certify or Not to Certify." Society for Technical Communication SIG Newsletter, 9(1), (2002).

Zappen, James P. "The Discourse Community in Scientific and Technical Communication: Institutional and Social Views." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 19, (1989): 1-11.

Zimmerman, Donald E.; Muraski, Michel-Lynn. "Reflecting on the Technical Communicator's Image." Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication 42(4): 621-23.