The origins of technical writing instruction in the United States with a survey of technical writing texts 1908-1977

Today we take technical writing courses for granted. Many universities and colleges offer such courses; engineering students are often required to take them. In fact, a growing number of institutions offer degrees in technical communication. Yet, at the beginning of this century, there was not one textbook devoted to technical writing. At best, the English courses in engineering curricula were the same as those for any other major. In 1911 the first technical writing textbook was published. This thesis examines the advent of technical writing as a subject separate from standard English composition and the development of textbooks from 1911 to 1979. A review of engineering journals from 1890-1910 reveals a number of articles critical of "engineering English." These articles demonstrate an awareness of the need for training in technical writing. T.A. Rickard's Technical Writing (1908) and S.C. Earle's Theory and Practice of Technical Writing (1911) are the first book-length responses to this need. Although Rickard's book is a handbook rather than a textbook, it sets important precedents and begins to codify the rules of technical writing. Earle's text is of the greatest impact; for, as the title suggests, the book states the theories of technical writing and then puts those theories into practice. Examples of good technical writing are drawn from genuine technical reports. The influence of Earle's book can be discerned in most of the texts that followed. Clearly, there is a direct descent from the first technical writing textbook to those used today. There are, however, some books which do not follow Earle's pattern. These variant texts also show a lineal descent, but from later, more theoretical books, such as J. Raleigh Nelson's Writing the Technical Report (1940).