Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Apr 2007

Two Centuries of Progress in Technical Communication

Bradford R. Connatser

Abstract

A common aphorism in the halls of education is that the writing skills of Americans decline over time. Compared to the “golden age of letters,” so the argument goes, each subsequent generation of writers is worse than the last. Although contemporary readers and educators commiserate over encounters with bad writing, a fair comparison of 18th century American exemplars to modern American exemplars reveals a significant advance in clarity, an advance that technical communicators can be proud of. To demonstrate the advances in expository writing over the past two centuries, the author compares what the authors of the U.S. Constitution did with their limited resources to what modern professional communicators do with their abundance of resources. Many of the communication problems that were pervasive when the U.S. Constitution was created have since been remedied by insights emerging from the fields of linguistics, human factors, and cognitive psychology, among others.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2007-04-01
DOI
10.2190/y2t7-4672-8u65-u85t
Topics
multimodality technical communication voice and style

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Redington (2017)
    Methodology on Trial
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Moran et al. (2012)
    A Bibliography of Works Published in the History of Professional Communication …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Andrus (2010)
    A Legal Discourse of Transparency: Discursive Agency and Domestic Violence in t…
    Technical Communication Quarterly

Cites in this index (4)

  1. Connatser (1999)
    Last Rites for Readability Formulas in Technical Communication
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Connatser (1997)
    The Evolution of the Speech Instinct in Silent Reading: Implications for Techni…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Connatser (1997)
    A Phonological Reading Model for Technical Communicators
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  4. Allen (1990)
    The Case Against Defining Technical Writing
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Also cites 1 work outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1037/h0043158
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 5 View in citation network →

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