Critical Power and Power Tool Power in Tech. Writing

The problem the authors explore in Critical Power Tools relates to the need for a greater level of critique when it comes to methods for implementing effective technical communication pedagogy. As Scott, Longo, and Wills claim, “Cultural studies approaches can help us and our students review technical communication as regulated by and enacted by power” (p. 13). Recognizing the presence of this power dynamic in our practices as teachers is the first step, in the author’s minds, to being able to critically analyze the meanings and reasoning that are perpetuated in our technical writing classrooms.

By using the ideas of famous theorists, the authors are able to apply the thinking used by such famous scholars as Foucault, De Certeau, and Habermas to establish the basic point that it isn’t enough to simply know what to teach and how to teach, but also teachers should understand methods for translating critique into “ethical civic action” (p. 15). Since technical writing has typically been viewed as best taught through a transmission relationship between teachers and students, the authors show that much of the greater meaning embedded in pedagogy gets ignored and taken for granted by the teacher so that they are left unable to articulate the true reasons for communicating in technical settings in a way that goes beyond wrote understandings of forms.

The first section of Critical Power Tools focuses on theories that apply to technical writing. Slack, Miller, and Doak outline student’s transitions “from neutral conduits to implicated translators to responsible authors” (p. 22) to emphasize the fact that students play a crucial role in deciding and forming technical communications-based genres. Dilger talks about how the goal of making technical communication highly user-friendly in fact undermines the intelligence of users and creates users who are complacent in the process of understanding not only what they are doing, but also how and why they are doing it (p. 22).

The section rounds out with discussion surrounding the streamline nature of usability and how email emulates American societal goals of efficiency and minimal distractions. Katz explains that instead of creating a perfect work environment by making communication more fluid, the advent of email has also brought with it new considerations surround how a worker’s time is suppose to be spent and what constitutes the difference between reading work emails and private emails—or those that one is paid to read and those that are just otherwise present in the same inbox (p. 23).

By understanding these situations from a critical theory perspective, the authors believe students would be enable to have a greater foundational understanding of these issues surround technology and usability and therefore will become much more responsible users/authors of various technical dispatches. Some questions that occurred to me as I read are:

·      What do you all think about email and whether or not one should be allowed or able to access private emails during work time if they are appearing in the same inbox?

·      In what scenarios might it be okay for a worker to manage and decide how they use their computer time on their own?

·      Are there situations in current times that you all might see as allowing for workers to do as they please as long as work continues to be done?

·      Have any of you ever felt like something has been made “too” usable?