Technical and Professional Writing: Changes Over the Years

As a student who is a freelance writer and who is also majoring in Professional and Technical Writing, I can personally attest that much - perhaps nearly the entire field - has changed since the early 1990s, when the internet was first becoming a commercially viable tool capable of providing technical, specialized, and informative content to consumers, peers, and companies needing the material professional and technical writers can provide.

Perhaps my best exposure to the changes, though, comes from the fact I have been pursuing professional writing since my youth. During the early 1990s, the extent of technology in my writing was a Smith-Corona electronic typewriter; my public reading audience was who I reached with a children's book I had on sale at a local bookstore and the editors I sent my manuscripts to (via postal mail). Indeed, my writing experience was much like many others at the time, before the internet as we know it today reached the masses. This essay, therefore, is written primarily from my personal field experiences which, thankfully, for the purposes of this essay, reach back to before the dawn of the World Wide Web.

Technical Writing and Professional Writing: How it Was

Even before the advent of the World Wide Web, in its conventional commercial use as we know today, technical writing was already benefiting from computer technology. Desktop publishing programs and word processors had been making the writing process more efficient for technical writers. However, desktop publishing and word processing programs were also creating a need for more technical writers while bringing more technical writers into the field.

Without the internet, these computer-generated documents had to be printed and distributed to the vendors, companies, and individuals who requested them. Distribution methods included sending printed documents as well as floppy disks containing the written programs. With postal mail service the primary means of transferring the documents to clients, turnover time could take days or weeks.

Professional writing, too, has seen vast changes since the early 1990s. As with technical writing, professional writing (a loose term referring to writing for any number of commercial purposes, ranging from writing newspaper and magazine articles to copywriting for advertising) was being executed with desktop publishing and word processing programs during the 1980s. Typewriters, too, were often employed in creating professional communication documents before the early 1990s. However, unlike technical writing, which generally includes documents that explain complex terms to lay audiences, professional writing, as a whole, can be distributed through numerous distribution channels.

In the 1980s, professional writing took the form of articles written for newspapers, magazines, and books; written advertising appearing in various sites; and writing, directions, and labels on packaging. Professional writing, by the way, also included written work done for some computer programs, such as entries for CD-ROM computer encyclopedias and other software applications where text played an important role.

Writers who compose manuscripts had to send their work through postal mail to publishing houses and publishers; this process meant waiting, sometimes, weeks to get the manuscript delivered to the desks of the recipients and meant a very long turnover time from the author's typewriter to the publisher's typesetting department.

Becoming a technical writer or professional writer meant having to attend college courses on campus. This meant having to schedule course attendance and commuting. For some, the nearest college offering a technical or professional writing course was too far to attend without having to physically relocate.

Technical Writing and Professional Writing: How it Is

Technical writing and professional writing has undergone somewhat of a renaissance since the inception of a commercially viable internet. Why? Because once the internet came online to an ever-growing audience composed of hundreds of millions of "new" customers, the need for written content to fill the vast internet (and the needs and niche markets relating to its expanding audience) created countless opportunities for written content to be produced - with profit for the writers and the websites on which the material appears a reality. The internet has suffered from a terrible epidemic, however, and that is poor spelling and grammar.

As Laura Anderson highlights in her book, The Proofreading Handbook, "On-screen proofreading can be more difficult than proofreading from a printout" (2006). Why is this so important? As all technical and professional writers can attest, the internet is full of spelling, grammar, and style errors. Before the internet, most written work made for public consumption was carefully edited and proofed with a fine-toothed comb, and the incident of numerous errors in any single body of mass media content were relatively scarce. Today, even the best writers sometimes neglect to conduct thorough proofing. Because experienced writers and communications professionals know on-screen proofing is difficult to do without missing some errors, they still turn to print outs to do some of the final editing and polishing (Sabin, 2005).

Technical writing, too, has undergone some changes since the 1980s. While technical writing still requires the writer to simplify scientific and field-specific jargon for lay audiences - and distribution channels still include print, such as for instruction manuals - the internet has now opened up a whole new realm for technical writers to share their work. In fact, technical writing is often seen within the message boards of various technology troubleshooting websites and message boards. "Online help" is, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, a major area of growth for technical writing (2007).

While print media still is a primary focus for some professional writers, the internet is where writers are finding an audience - and a future. Newspaper readership is down, which is mainly a side effect of the internet's widespread penetration. With many venerable titles going out of business (and many others threatening to stop production in the coming years) and moving exclusively to the internet, writers are now finding work as contributors to online media. Websites and weblogs, too, have become a haven for professional writing. Many writers are now hired to compose blog postings, and content on websites commonly is written or proofed by professional writers. Professional writers, too, can now send manuscripts to publishing houses and editors via email, saving both time and postage money. In fact, many publishing houses now use email as their only means of manuscript submission. Still, though, the majority of companies still require professional writers to use postal mail to submit manuscripts and queries.

Being a technical or professional writer is also easier now. The Occupational Outlook Handbook remarks:

Laptop computers and wireless communications technologies allow growing numbers of writers to work from home and on the road. The ability to e-mail, transmit and download stories, research, or review materials using the Internet allows writers and editors greater flexibility in where and how they complete assignments (2007).

Clearly, the same goes for students who are in the process of obtaining degrees in technical and professional writing. Online degrees are allowing many people to enter the field of written communications without having to reschedule their lives around the needs of attending classes on campus, which was the case before colleges began offering writing degree programs online.

In Conclusion

The internet has been an absolute boon for the writer. While it has meant the decline of some print media, the internet has benefitted both the writer and the reader. Audiences now have readily accessible information at their fingertips. Writers have an increasing number of forums within which they can compose new material, exposing their work to a global audience and, often, making substantial pay for their efforts. The internet is the defining forum of communication today, and professional and technical writers are helping to lead the way to making the internet the primary place for people to access information, entertainment, and exposure to the ever-growing collection of human knowledge.

References

Anderson, Laura. (2006). McGraw-Hill's proofreading handbook(2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor. (2007). Occupational outlook handbook, 2008-2009 edition: Writers and editors. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos089.htm

Sabin, William A. (2005). The Gregg reference manual(10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill