ENGL 810: Debate Paper #1: Professional and Technical Communication: Who are we, and where do we belong?

Coppola, Nancy W. "Professionalization Of Technical Communication: Zeitgeist For Our Age Introduction To This Special Issue (Part 1)." Technical Communication 58.4 (2011): 277-284. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Sept. 2012.

Malone, Edward A. "The First Wave (1953--1961) Of The Professionalization Movement In Technical Communication." Technical Communication 58.4 (2011): 285-306. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Sept. 2012.

Rentz, Kathryn. "A Flare From The Margins: The Place Of Professional Writing In English Departments." Pedagogy 1.1 (2001): 185. Project Muse. Web. 6 Sept. 2012.

Professional and Technical Writing shares many of the same debates and dilemmas as its parent discipline, English Studies: as a broad and varied specialty, it struggles for recognition, a unified identity, and a focused body of knowledge. Amidst this struggle, we hear a familiar cry: “We cannot be recognized by others if we can’t even recognize ourselves” (qtd. in Coppola 277). According to Coppola, Edward Malone, and Kathryn Rentz, professional and technical writers face an identity crisis that problematizes their position among both practitioners and scholars.

In Coppola’s introduction, she asks key questions that I hope to explore in future debate papers: what are the core competencies of technical writing, and “how do we determine whether our core competencies align with those of professional stakeholders?” (Coppola 280). She points out that Technical Communication is an outcome-defined profession that readily responds to changes among clients, practitioners, and technology, and this ever-changing environment further problematizes its definition of a body of knowledge and core competencies (Coppola 279).

Coppola also points to omissions made in English Studies discussions, particularly in the influential textbook used in our class, English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), which contains chapters on all specialties except technical communication. It is often lumped with Rhetoric and Composition, for better or for worse. At the worst, it simply doesn’t belong there: according to Rentz, “No, professional-writing and composition courses, as they’re currently taught and understood by those within the fields, are not the same” (188). At best, combining them under the umbrella of Rhetoric and Composition can promote recognition. Coppola lauds the efforts of our very own Louise Whetherbee Phelps for successfully convincing the National Research Council to merge Technical and Scientific Writing with the code for Rhetoric and Composition, thereby achieving strength in numbers. 

Malone traces seemingly modern debates among practitioners back to the 1950s, showing that the field has always had the same identity issues: professional organizations, body of knowledge, ethical standards, certification of practitioners, accreditation of academic programs, and legal recognition. He argues that true professionalization of Technical Communication is achieved, in part, through formal academic training; however, Rentz points out that, despite the growing curriculum, it is often overlooked and ignored by English departments due to its relationship to other disciplines and the fact that it may represent “an embarrassing compromise with capitalism and the technostate” (186). Professional and Technical Writing represents an awkward bridge between English and other departments. According to Malone, technical writers have been urged to double major or get their degree in Engineering instead, and the “service nature” of the field doesn’t exactly endear it to English departments. In fact, a 1955 Code of Ethics has writers repeat the following: “my present and my future depend on the products of science and its workers in all levels” (293).

Ultimately, Coppola, Rentz, and Malone point to the same problem:  professional and technical writers are homeless in both the market and the academy, and they need to unify and even join forces with related fields in order to find a home.

ENGL 810 Reading Journal 1: The life and times of English Studies

To help sort out some of the initial reading material in ENGL 810, Major Debates in English Studies, I wanted to generate a rough timeline. The following has been borrowed from English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline by Bruce McComiskey and The Evolution of College English: Literacy Studies from the Puritans to the Postmoderns by Thomas Miller. I'll add in material from the third book (if time allows) once I finish that reading. The better phrasing would be that the following material has been borrowed from Miller and McComiskey and butchered by... me. Here goes:

• 5th, 4th Century BCE: In "Athenian democracies," schools began to form, and "Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum" were models for future institutions of higher education (McComiskey 4). The curriculum: "trivium (rhetoric, grammar, logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music)" (McComiskey 4). Law, medicine, and religious studies came later. 
• End of Middle Ages: "Some teachers (magistri) began to concentrate... on specific disciplies" (McComiskey 4-5). Rhetoric was deemed important in this ancient version of liberal education. Can't accomplish much if one can't communicate well.
• 17th, 18th Century: Birth of the "modern" university, rise of "enlightenment/rationalism" (McComiskey 5). Germans shaped the "modern" university, and part of that shape exists in the divide between arts and science (Naturwissenchaft/arts vs. geisteswissenschaft/sciences). 
• Early 19th Century: "philology emerged out of German universities and... joined with English studies" in order to legitimize the study (McComiskey 8). Philology = "the investigation of the history of languages, the uncovering of their relationships, and the reconstruction of lost proto-languages" that later became comparative linguistics (McComiskey 8). Philologists at this time studied literature as "examples of evolving language in a cultural context" (McComiskey 8). Branded their work as the science of language and literary studies.
• 19th Century: Creative writing emerges "to link literary appreciation with literary production" and as a reaction against language as science studied by technical philologists (McComiskey 9). Divide between technical philology and creative writing led to an identity crisis in English studies.
• 1862: Morrill Act of 1862 passed by U.S. Congress: "In every state one or more land-grant universities designed to train a new citizenry," (one trained in sciences and technology) "tuition free, for careers in agriculture, mining, and mechanical engineering" (McComiskey 6). These institutions followed after the German "modern" university model while liberal arts colleges maintained a Medieval "humanistic" education. "English emerges as a discipline" (McComiskey 6).
• Early 1900s: English departments assume responsibility for first-year composition courses. Birth of Current Traditional Rhetoric, birth of the study of pedagogy led by John Dewey in 1898, and the drop in prestige for rhetoric as a study (McComiskey 9, 13). Rhetoric professors became overworked and underpayed (McComiskey 10).
• 1900s: Divide begins between philologists and new linguists. Philologists focus on written texts, linguists begin to focus on speech as primary importance (McComiskey 14).
• 1902: Philologists begin to gravitate toward anthropology, seceding from English departments.
• WWI: Patriotism led to the growth of American Literature studies.
• 1924: Linguistics Society of America was established. Renewed interest in literary criticism and composition, and creative writing emerged as philologists departed, particularly creative writing as a "means for unifying the two main functions of English departments - the teaching of writing and the teaching of literature" (McComiskey 16).
• WWII: Military defense needs put pressure on the university to focus on science and technology. English departments face the knife with serious budget cuts.
• 1950s/Post-WWII: Technical Philology becomes comparative linguistics. Rift occurs between creative writing and literature. Creative writing courses now taught by writers, not critics/scholars (McComiskey 21).
• 1950s-1960s: English studies devalued, seen as too narrowly focused on literature and out of touch with current issues. Study of literature saved by the cash cow known as first-year composition "without composition the study of literature as we know it simply would not exist" (McComiskey 18).
• 1960s: Literary canon changes shape, including more women and minorities (McComiskey 22).
• 1970s: "era of national and state-mandated competency testing" creating scrutiny against all humanities disciplines and their worth (how do you statistically show the benefit of English studies, the self-worth, the empathy?) (McComiskey 20). This era saw a "collapse of jobs and majors as well as culture wars" (Miller 7). New Criticism emerges in literary studies.
• 1870s-1980s: Disenchanted young scholars turn away from humanistic approaches toward practical arts, linguistics, composition, pedagogy, and creative writing (McComiskey 24). Job growth emerges in Rhet/Comp due to "changes in professional structures rather than trickling down from elite institutions" (Miller 9).
• 1980s-1990s: Critical pedagogy emerges, bridging all areas of English studies. Specialties in English studies is most prominent: "there is little place for the generalist" (McComiskey 29).