What is the importance of technical communication in the engineering field

[bronc1]

What is the importance of technical communication within the engineering field?

 

[techcomdame]

Technical communication serves a number of purposes in engineering and other technical fields:

• it is a way of facilitating communication about projects and ideas throughout the industry,
• it is important in documenting discoveries, designs, products, and methodologies,
• it helps convey information about the field to non-technical people and external agencies for the purposes of support, administration and funding,
• it contributes to usability of designs, and
• it provides information for end users so they can understand and enjoy the resulting products and processes.

A good technical communicator need not be an engineer; the technical communicators' skills are in clear, concise and correct communication, in a variety of media, in print and online. They are content experts rather than subject matter experts, but they know how to take dense complex material and rework it to suit a particular audience.

An engineer's brilliance is even more evident when their work is explained by a good technical communicator.

 

[xxChrisxx]

You have a good idea.
You can't let people know about it.
You may as well not have had the idea.

Thats about it.

PS This smacks of a homework essay question.

 

[bronc1]

Thanks techcomdame for the great insite.

Mike

 

[berkeman]

PS This smacks of a homework essay question.

Agreed. Moved to the Homework Help forums. Too bad that the newbie responder did the OP's work for them.

 

[berkeman]

What is the importance of technical communication within the engineering field?

Welcome to the PF, bronc1. In the future, please post homework/schoolwork questions in the Homework Help (HH) forums here at the PF.

What are your own thoughts about the question that you pose? There are a number of points to be discussed past what techcomdame has mentioned so far...

 

[techcomdame]

Yah, I got trolled. Oh well, live and learn. Sometimes I'm too much of an evangelist for my own good. Karma applies, however. If he's saying "thanks for the insite (sic)" his teacher is definitely going to know he didn't write it. That would get a nice zero from me, and an academic warning on his file.

Still, it would be nice to see a discussion on technical communication in the engineering field. I won't hope for that here.

 

[story645]

Still, it would be nice to see a discussion on technical communication in the engineering field. I won't hope for that here.

Start a thread in the general engineering section and see what happens. A discussion on tech communication has sort of started multiple times in various threads, recently near the end of the engineering for nerdy thread.

 

[techcomdame]

Not likely. The moderator has duly chastised me for my good faith response to an inappropriate post. Nice welcome to the forums. It's all yours.

 

[story645]

Not likely. The moderator has duly chastised me for my good faith response to an inappropriate post. Nice welcome to the forums. It's all yours.

*shrugs* I've been trolled on these kinds of posts too, and I should know better as I've been a writing tutor for a couple of years now. It happens to almost everyone 'cause it's really hard to strike the balance between helping someone and doing the work for them, and often people think the two are the same thing. So learn from this thread, but don't let it stop you from discussing what you care about.

I don't think that berkeman was saying that you can't discuss the topic, just that this probably wasn't the best thread to do it in as much depth as you really want to. You can probably take the discussion to another thread without much worry, as it really is worth discussing. And really (like you said), any professor worth his salt will probably catch out a student cribbing your responses if it's totally off from his style.

 

[bronc1]

Yah, I got trolled. Oh well, live and learn. Sometimes I'm too much of an evangelist for my own good. Karma applies, however. If he's saying "thanks for the insite (sic)" his teacher is definitely going to know he didn't write it. That would get a nice zero from me, and an academic warning on his file.

Still, it would be nice to see a discussion on technical communication in the engineering field. I won't hope for that here.

techcomdame my question was not for me to write an essay on. I'm new to this site, so sorry for posting in the wrong area. We aren't all perfect like you all think you are. My question was an interview type of question. It was to see what people of such backgrounds new. You all are full of your selfs. Quick to jump the gun. I did give you credit for what you wrote me as if being interviewed with the question I asked. I was impressed that I learned something from your answer. Not impressed anymore. Again I am sorry for posting in the wrong area. People do make mistakes. This was NOT to write a paper with. I really wanted to know what someones thoughts were with a background of Technical Communication.

 

[bronc1]

Welcome to the PF, bronc1. In the future, please post homework/schoolwork questions in the Homework Help (HH) forums here at the PF.

What are your own thoughts about the question that you pose? There are a number of points to be discussed past what techcomdame has mentioned so far...

I am sorry for posting in the wrong area. People on this site are good to let you know that. My question was an interview type of question. I wasn't writing a paper on it.

 

[bronc1]

*shrugs* I've been trolled on these kinds of posts too, and I should know better as I've been a writing tutor for a couple of years now. It happens to almost everyone 'cause it's really hard to strike the balance between helping someone and doing the work for them, and often people think the two are the same thing. So learn from this thread, but don't let it stop you from discussing what you care about.

I don't think that berkeman was saying that you can't discuss the topic, just that this probably wasn't the best thread to do it in as much depth as you really want to. You can probably take the discussion to another thread without much worry, as it really is worth discussing. And really (like you said), any professor worth his salt will probably catch out a student cribbing your responses if it's totally off from his style.

It was an interview question. Maybe I didn't word it properly but that's what it was. I was not writing a paper on it. This was to give me an idea of the importance of technical communication in the work field.

 

[berkeman]

I am sorry for posting in the wrong area. People on this site are good to let you know that. My question was an interview type of question. I wasn't writing a paper on it.

But the "interview" was for school, correct? The main point of the PF rules and guidelines for students, is that we want you to learn how to learn, not just give out answers. The more students learn to do reasearch and reading and learning on their own, the better for all of us. Asking for answers in a web forum is not doing research.

And good on you for giving attribution to the forum response in your report, er, interview summary. That's a good thing.