Technical Communication Quarterly Jan 1992

Between efficiency and politics rhetoric and ethics in technical writing

Cezar M. Ornatowski San Diego State University

Abstract

Traditional textbook rationales for the technical writing course locate the essence of technical writing in objectivity, clarity, and neutrality, and the need for teaching it in its usefulness to employers. Such rationales, however, are unable to accommodate a notion of ethics and responsibility: if the writer merely serves the interests that employ her by reporting facts in an objective way, how can she exercise choice when ethical problems arise? An alternative view is to see technical writing as always rhetorical and involved with potentially conflicting agendas and interests, with objectivity, clarity, and neutrality serving merely as stylistic devices in the writer's rhetorical toolbox. Technical writers are rhetoricians who continually make ethical choices in serving diverse interests and negotiating between conflicting demands. The recognition of the fundamental rhetoricity of technical writing is the first step towards accommodating a meaningful notion of ethics into the technical writing curriculum.

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
1992-01-01
DOI
10.1080/10572259209359493
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Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism writing pedagogy teacher development technical communication
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (20)

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  5. Smith (2000)
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  6. Dombrowski (2000)
    Ethics and Technical Communication: The Past Quarter Century
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  7. ORNATOWSKI (1998)
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  8. Henson et al. (1998)
    A Service Learning Approach to Business and Technical Writing Instruction
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  9. Markel (1997)
    Ethics and technical communication: a case for foundational approaches
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  10. Savage (1996)
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  11. THOMPSON (1996)
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  12. Johnson-Eilola et al. (1996)
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  13. Selber (1995)
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  14. Scott (1995)
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  15. Weiss (1995)
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