Tech Comm Identity Project

As a researcher and writer for the Tech Comm Identity Project, I conducted qualitative research on how and to what extent students define themselves as technical writers. The Identity Project includes a digital archive with stories from and for technical writers and the book We are the Stories We Tell: The Power of Identity in the Age of Content. I was tasked with developing a strategy for the book and digital community based on accepted best practices as well as firsthand interviews with technical writing students.

To better understand identity building for technical writers, I drew from a comparative analysis of model documents. I also conducted interviews and small focus groups with technical writing students. This research informed a publication and archive structured with identity narratives—stories by working professionals who exemplify the breadth of job opportunities in tech comm. I contributed a story about my journey from creative writer to technical writer and how identity building has helped me reconcile being a writer at heart with becoming a writing professional. I also prepared a summary of my research on identity development and maintenance among student and professional technical writers.

Project Category: Usability Research

Deliverables: Comparative Analysis, Interviews, Identity Narrative, Conference Proposal

Client: Tech Comm Identity Project Team

Timeline: September 2019–December 2019

Software: Microsoft Word

Comparative Analysis

My guiding question was, How do we label the technical writing profession, and how do we label ourselves as technical writers? I looked at a number of model resources and asked myself which elements were successful and how these lessons could be applied to our current work on identity. One of the first things I noticed was the great variety in how and whether different sources defined technical writing. Some focused almost exclusively on job opportunities for writing and editing in highly scientific projects. Others addressed technical writing as an umbrella term for writing, editing, usability, web design, graphic design, and audio or video work. Either way, I believed an overview explaining how broadly or specifically a given book defines “technical writer” would prove helpful to students.

Interviews

We are the Stories We Tell is meant for every learner, whether at the undergraduate or graduate level, but introductory technical writing students represented an important sub-group for the Identity Project team. Because few high school graduates enter technical communication programs with a well-developed sense of what a technical writer is and does—there is typically little opportunity to engage with tech writing projects at the high school level—the first year is a critical time for enculturation and identity building. That said, in the fall we interviewed tech writing students about how they’d matured since their early experiences with the curriculum. Many discussions touched on new majors’ confusion about the definition of a technical writer and issues of professional identity. Some students felt overwhelmed with new possibilities, but others wished they had learned about specific career opportunities sooner. These differences in opinion highlighted the challenges of teaching or taking an introductory course and provided needed insights for designing a more streamlined experience.

Identity Narrative

The Identity Project team wanted to help new technical writers understand the breadth and limits of their profession—i.e., to validate the range of paths for technical communication ambassadors while establishing some boundaries for the discipline. We landed on the idea of storytelling. What if we invited technical writers to contribute stories about their working definition of tech writing as a mechanism for identity building?

We decided to call them identity narratives. An identity narrative would read like a story, relate to a technical writer’s sense of self or profession, and demonstrate the values of tech comm. We would publish the stories in a digital archive—whether contributors told them in writing or read them aloud—and use select identity narratives for the book We are the Stories We Tell: The Power of Identity in the Age of Content.

The first story our team received was “Technical Communication is a House with Many Rooms with Many Doors” by Mark Baker, who spearheaded the “every page is page one” movement in web design. “A mansion with many rooms” is a good framing tool for technical communication. The walkthrough of Baker’s many different job positions could help orient introductory students who don’t yet appreciate the versatility of their skill sets. That lines up with some feedback from my interviews, especially the consensus that many students enter the program with a limited sense of technical writing or wish the diversity of avenues or opportunities had been spelled out for them at an earlier chapter in their professional development.

My sample identity narrative, which was created to demonstrate to prospective authors what was meant by the term identity narrative, is about managing identity during my transition from creative to technical writer.

Conference Proposal

I wrote a proposal for the Tri-City Tech Comm Conference in Saginaw, Michigan. (This proposal was accepted, although the organizers canceled Tri-City Tech Comm.) My proposal addressed identity problems in tech comm, evidenced by conflicting messages in resources for beginners and identity issues cited by students of technical writing, and foreshadowed how the Identity Project could resolve or mitigate issues with identity building and facilitate programmatic and professional enculturation. The audience was to be comprised primarily of students from Saginaw Valley State University.

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