by Jesika Giron
Are the current technical communication programs giving students the skills they need to be successful in the work force? What skills are needed to excel in this field? These are the questions that technical communication students and educators alike must consider as the field of technical communication continues to evolve. Both of the articles discussed in this essay discuss rethinking the curricula and goals of technical communication programs in terms of what is needed in the workplace, although each from a slightly different perspective.
In “Workplace Realities and the Technical Communication Curriculum: A Call for Change,” Paul R. Meyer and Stephen A. Bernhardt propose that technical communication curricula integrate more of a concentration on “workplace literacy.” Workplace literacy means having the skills necessary for successful entry into the workplace (Meyer 86). These include not only traditional reading, writing and math, but also having a good work ethic, personal development skills, interpersonal skills, adaptive reading and writing skills, and basic computer skills.
An important part of workplace literacy is having the behavior and social skills that make a good work ethic. This means being reliable and having a good attitude, a pleasant appearance, and a good personality (Meyer 90). According to the National Center on Education and the Economy, a primary concern of more than 80 percent of employers is finding employees with good work ethics. They look for people who can work independently and function as team members, who are responsible and dependable. Integrating these things into a technical communications curriculum means offering assignments that entail real-life problems, that get students to work within time and resource constraints, and to work together with classmates and people outside of the course (Meyer 90).
Personal development skills include having a well-defined sense of self, high motivation, and the ability to set high goals. They also include having leadership skills and knowing how to work effectively (Meyer 91). These are qualities that enable people to recognize a good worker who knows how to take control and get his/her job done in a workplace environment. Furthermore, there is a demand for people who can learn continually. “What people learn in school might carry them a short distance, but new jobs, new technologies, and new patterns of work organization quickly make obsolete what people learn in school” (Meyer 92). Since it is now common for there to be constant learning, training and adaptation to change in the workplace, the skill of constantly being able to learn is a necessary one (Meyer 92). When considering personal development skills, teachers and students must ask themselves, how are technical communication programs helping to develop students’ self-motivation and their ability to self-direct their own learning?
Also important to workplace literacy are interpersonal skills such as oral communication, negotiation, and teamwork. Being able to listen, negotiate, compromise, participate in group discussions, persuade and direct others, defend positions, and offer criticism are all beneficial skills in the workplace (Meyer 92). Although having good oral communication skills was once mainly the role of mangers, today these skills are being expected of workers at all levels, and people with strong interpersonal skills are valued in the workplace. In the classroom, interpersonal skills can be taught with role-playing assignments and assignments that put students in contact with human resources in the university and the community, beyond using the traditional in-class presentations (Meyer 93).
According to Meyer and Bernhardt, in education environments, students are often viewed as passive information absorbers, but this approach is not designed to create workers who will take “active participatory roles in work settings that businesses and industry demand” (Meyer 93). That the field is called technical communication and not just technical writing shows that the job of technical communicators entails more than just writing documents and reports; it consists of a balance between written and oral communication (Meyer 93).
The reading and writing skills necessary in the field of technical communication differ from the strategies used in most universities, which are aimed towards the behaviors of students, not the behaviors of workers (Meyer 94). Technical communication programs should consider the paperwork demands of office and production environments, which entail adaptive reading and writing abilities, say Meyer and Bernhardt. Office reading includes sifting through large quantities of information, and navigating, searching and skimming naturally occurring texts such as thick manuals, large information systems, and regulations or specifications for technical processes. In this way, workers “use documents, not read them” (Meyer 94).
As for workplace writing, businesses build and assemble documents instead of creating them from scratch. For this type of writing, students need to know the fair-use rules for graphics and written materials and how to document sources (Meyer 94). They will not be writing research papers with long bibliographies, but rather memos, short reports, briefing papers, overviews, notes, and instructions. In the workplace, reading and writing are treated as information skills (Meyer 94).
Basic computer skills are also necessary for workplace literacy. Since basic computer skills are becoming basic skills in general, these skills are necessary for the workplace. Computers have become information tools and now hold a place next to reading as a basic way of working with information (Meyer 94).
Thus, according to Meyer and Bernhardt, to prepare students for success in the workplace, technical communication curricula need to include more of the specific skills that will be used the workplace environment, namely having a good work ethic and personal development, interpersonal, adaptive reading and writing, and basic computer skills. In the article “Fitting Academic Programs to Workplace Marketability: Career Paths of Five Technical Communicators,” Loel Kim and Christie Tolley offer a few additional ideas on what academic programs need to include to successfully prepare students for the workplace. According to Kim and Tolley, the technical communication job market is competitive, and the field is constantly evolving, so it is up to education programs to send out students who are well-trained with the right skills (376). There is a gap between academic programs and the needs of the real world, say Kim and Tolley.
Willard Dagget suggests that since technology is constantly changing and evolving, it is a “fool’s game” to focus on any particular trend or market in the corporate world (Kim 377). Kim and Tolley cite Bernhardt as recommending a “broad-based grounding in rhetoric and technical communication, as opposed to niche-marketing programs toward specializations” (377). Since “conditions and trends morph quickly, programs should offer a foundation that will out-live these changes” (Kim 377).
To help identify what workplace needs should be included in academic programs, Kim and Tolley interviewed five former masters’ students who now work in a variety of technical communication positions. These interviews found that mental agility, audience awareness, the ability to learn and transfer information, persuasive writing skills, project management, the ability to continue learning , and domain knowledge (depending on the intended career) were most important to workplace success.
Since conditions in the job market can vary widely, they found that mental agility would help students succeed in the corporate world (Kim 382). Not only do problem-solving and analytical skills help students write and communicate better, they could also help them to deal with unstable job markets. Skills in networking, job searching, interviewing, professional presentations, and internships would help technical communication graduates succeed in the field (Kim 382).
All five graduates mentioned audience awareness as one of the skills necessary for doing their jobs well, since understanding the audience is key to writing successful technical documents (Kim 382). Another skill related to audience awareness is persuasion, or the ability to discern the most effective logical, ethical or emotional appeal to an audience. This skill allows the writer to shape work effectively for different audiences (Kim 383). Also important is the ability to learn and transfer information, or to encounter a new product, understand it, and transfer this knowledge to a novice user in an appropriate document. Doing this requires the writer to “synthesize and hierarchize complex information to discern which information the user needs” (Kim 383).
Furthermore, the graduates also found that the ability to learn continually during their careers was needed, as also noted by Meyer and Bernhardt. Employers anticipate a certain learning curve when an employee is hired, but afterwards, changes in technology, business plans and in the organization necessitate further training (Kim 383).
Another important skill is project management. A combination of problem solving, organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills are necessary for professionals who often work on a project-by-project basis, as many technical communicators do (Kim 383).
Lastly, in cases where a student wants to specialize in a particular area, specific domain knowledge can be helpful. All students need to master some level of technology as an expected standard literacy, but more specific tools vary depending on the particular job or area of technical communications (Kim 382). The five graduates interviewed found that possible lack of knowledge of specific applications was never a barrier to qualifying for a job, though four out of five of them use technology heavily in their jobs (Kim 382).
The experiences of the five graduates emphasize their abilities to handle different kinds of jobs based on their rhetorical, analytical, and writing skills more than on having specific computer expertise. This idea is also supported by research on technical communication education. For instance, Geoff Hart claims that hiring on the basis of “tool skills” ignores the fact that someone’s ability to format text is a small part of their value as a technical communicator (Kim 378). According to Hart, employers should instead seek qualities like being able to learn and transfer information and being able to empathize with an audience and understand its needs, which are some of the skills that the graduates interviewed had found helpful in the workforce. Hart claims that most technical writers have enough skills on their own to master new software in a matter of weeks (Kim 378).
In addition, Norton and Worth, looking at patterns in job advertisements, note that in 1998, interpersonal skills were requested in advertisements 38 percent more than before, falling behind technological skills by only 12 percent (Kim 378). This is the same emphasis on interpersonal skills described by Meyer and Bernhardt.
The article by Meyer and Bernhardt and the article by Kim and Tolley each highlight different skills that they believe should be given more emphasis in technical communications curricula to prepare students for the workplace. One stresses the work ethic, personal development, interpersonal, and adaptive reading and writing skills that they categorize under workplace literacy. The other emphasizes mental agility, audience awareness, the ability to learn and transfer information, persuasive writing, project management, continual learning, and in some instances domain knowledge.
Although not all of the skills mentioned in these two articles are the same, they have something in common. They both stress having the right attitudes, technical writing skills, and a specific understanding of the workplace environment over having specific technical skills. It can’t hurt to have specialized technology skills. However, with technology constantly changing, -- and continued learning an established part of technical communication jobs, -- a technical communicator should be prepared to do the tasks required in the workplace environment, and to have the correct attitudes and interpersonal communication skills. These are the skills that will get them the furthest in their professions.
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Daggett, Willard. “Make Curriculum Fit the Future.” The Education Digest. Vol. 60 (1994): 8-13.
Hart, Geoff. “Ten Technical Communication Myths.” Technical Communication. Vol. 47 (2000): 291-298.
Kim, Loel, and Christie Tolley. “Fitting Academic Programs to Workplace Marketability: Career Paths of Five Technical Communicators.” Technical Communication. Vol. 51 (2004):376-386.
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