English Language and Literature Commons^™

Fragment Of An Analysis Of A Case Of Technical Writing, Bonnie Noonan

Faculty and Staff Publications

At the time of this study, I was primarily a compositionist becoming acclimated into the field of technical writing. I was used to teaching "universal" concepts of the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, editing, and proofreading) and historical concepts ofrhetoric (writer, audience, purpose). Furthermore, I am a liberal, from the 70s no less. I emerged into my young adulthood believing that positive social change could be effected primarily by resistance to corporate culture, a culture I perceived as antithetical to individuality. In this study of one document produced by one writer in a large corporate organization, however, I noted a dynamic, …