The Trouble with Technical Writing is Freshman English

Replacing freshman English with technical writing seems logical because the freshman course stresses essays by uninformed students directed to well informed teachers, who encourage the inductive pattern and pay more attention to the writer than to the communication. Moreover, essays are rarely encountered after college. Technical writing, despite its misleading name, is applicable to all fields because it emphasizes efficiency, precision, and communicative effectiveness. The information flows from the knowledgeable to the uninformed, is normally arranged deductively, and focuses upon the reader. Intellectually and rhetorically demanding, it belongs in all professional training.