Response to Carliner

I appreciate that Carliner has reframed the professionalization discussion. Instead of discussing the “external struggles” involved in professionalizing the field, he examines the internal struggle and divisions that “do not fall along the well-documented fault lines of academe-industry relations.” Carliner’s central claim, that there is not a unified view of professionalization for the field, and the spectrum of viewpoints he posits has helped me widen my view of the professionalization process.

Carliner’s spectrum of views (formal professionalism, quasiprofessionalism, and contraprofessionalization) are presented to define the tensions within the industry but they are also informative of the “external struggles” he mentions as well. If there is no consensus within a field about the professionalization process, it will necessarily create external struggles because employers are not bound to any standards of professionalization.

I agree with Carliner that the contraprofessionalist stance is resisting and undermining professionalization because practitioners at that end of the spectrum will take any jobs or work available according to the whims of the marketplace. If that practice is allowed to perpetuate itself, the work of standardizing training and certification and organizing an agreed-upon body of knowledge becomes impossible. This undermines the branding of the profession as well, as Carliner points out.

Perhaps I have unwittingly internalized the prevalent free-market philosophies of our times because I cannot object to the contraprofessionalist acting in a self-interested manner. After extensive reading about the professionalization process, I value the effort and think it is important for technical communication (and other fields), but, within our current economic structure, I do not see how can the formal professionalist end of the spectrum can truly control the movement.

Thoughts on Coppola, Hallier & Malone

I came to this course with no background knowledge of technical writing. As a result, it has taken me some time to get acclimated to what it is and what is/has been at stake in the professionalization of the industry.

When I read Light’s “Technical Writing and Professional Status,” my understanding of the industry, the importance of professionalization, and the thinking behind the design and sequence of this course all coalesced.  Hallier and Malone’s discussion of the article demonstrates why this might have happened. That article is indeed seminal as it is still being discussed and put forth as a watershed moment in the progression of technical writing as a professional industry. For me, though, the article illuminated so much about the field not because of its importance in a lineage of scholarship but more so because it is just an excellent piece of writing.

Coppola’s discussion how technical writing fits in the contemporary market economy contains a tension I cannot reconcile. I enjoyed her opening statement in part two that we live in an age of irony. The irony here being that just as technical writing is emerging as a profession, professions are being devalued. Part of this devaluation of professions is the demand that workers be mobile and flexible. According to Coppola, technical writers are in a position to thrive because the relatively nascent profession demands flexibility and broad knowledge and skills of its practitioners. I do not understand this. She claims that technical writers have “the integrated skill sets…to navigate the complexities of rapidly shifting work structures.” That seems more like the regression professionalization rather than the affirmation of it and that technical writing will be marginalized and devalued as it has sometimes been in the past. 

Response to Light and Malone

Light’s examination of status seeking helped illuminate the stakes involved in the drive for professionalism discussed in articles by Savage and Faber. I have no familiarity with the work The Status Seekers mentioned by Light, but the phrase “status seeking” has always held negative connotations in my mind. Light’s claim that “The existence, intensity, and importance of the psychological and emotion-laden urge for social status cannot be brushed under the rug” seems to hold to this negative connotation at first glance. However, the author’s subsequent discussion and claim that it is a serious effort which involves “professional esprit” and personal satisfaction. I am in agreement that these things do matter and status in the eyes of general society can contribute to them. The combination of esprit, satisfaction, and status lead – I would claim – to the elevation of the quality of work one does. This is not a connection I was making when reading previous articles. The drive for and achievement of professionalization of a field can improve the quality of work done and improve the happiness and satisfaction of its practitioners.

Malone’s examination of the “first wave” of professionalization of Technical Writing also helped me better understand the article by Savage. By attaching a specific “narrative” of actual working professionals to Technical Writing’s development of professional organizations, ethical standards, certification, and accreditation of academic programs, I could again better understand the stakes of the movement.

The articles by Light, Malone, and Faber all demonstrate to me the enormity of the task of professionalization in general. This task for Technical Writing seems even more enormous when considering the project of collecting a body of knowledge for the field as discussed by Malone (and Dr. Bridgeford in a recent post).

These issues of professionalization are relevant to the educational context in which I am currently working. I began working in Adult Basic Education (ABE) because I was attracted to serving a more diverse and underserved population than I was in teaching high school. In my time working in ABE, my past teaching experience has been valuable, but it has not been sufficient on its own. ABE is a field with its own theoretical foundations, and I have had to do a lot of research to refine my practices for the student population that I now serve. It is a still burgeoning profession with organizations like COABE leading the growth of the profession in some of the same ways Technical Writing grew as outlined by Malone.

Job Ad Analysis

This memo presents an analysis of five job advertisements in the professional/technical communication field. The goal of this analysis is to provide an overview of how information is presented in the following categories: employer information, job title, job duties, qualifications, and skills. This overview will provide you with ideas to consider as you craft your resume and cover letter for a position within the field of professional/technical communication.