Abstract
The present confusion over what technical communication is or ought to be is a temporary condition brought on by challenges like those issued by Paul Anderson, John Brockmann, and Jack Selzer. They have raised important issues which challenge practices and assumptions which many of us in the field have accepted tacitly. However, the weaknesses they have identified in the disciplines of theory and pedagogy do not necessarily indicate the failure of those disciplines to come of age. Thomas Kuhn's concept of “paradigm” suggests that such criticism may actually indicate new growth in already mature disciplines.