Back in the classroom. (Editorial).

Since becoming editor of Technical communication in 1996, I've used this column to express my views on a variety of topics that I think are important to our field. This editorial is different because I'm writing about my life as well as my ideas about the profession. As you can see from my contact

LIFE CHANGES

I began my career 25 years ago teaching writing, writing pedagogy, and the occasional literature course in the English department of a large state university. I enjoyed the teaching, but after a bad experience with the tenure system, I decided to leave the academic world and work as a practitioner in technical communication. I had no intention of ever returning to the classroom.

Since 1984, I've been very happy working first as a contractor, then as an employee, and finally as an independent consultant in technical communication. For several years, I led a small software documentation team. In all these jobs, I learned a lot; I gained extensive experience designing, writing, and editing print and online information products; and I had a great deal of fun in the process.

Since becoming editor of this journal in 1996, I've found myself thinking more and more about the relationship between academics and practitioners in our field. Reducing the gulf between the classroom and the workplace has been a major goal for me, something I've written about several times in these pages.

Over the past year, I've also been reflecting on what I call "life after the journal." I don't intend to rival my distinguished predecessors Frank Smith and Stan Higgins, who served 18 and 15 years, respectively, as editor. Although I plan to continue in the job for a few more years, it will eventually be time to entrust this publication to the care of someone else. And so I've been contemplating several questions about my future. What would be the best way to round out my career? What new challenges beckon?

Since 1996, I've been teaching occasional courses in the master's programs at Mercer University and Utah State University. I've taken pleasure in sharing my practical insights with other experienced professionals, and I've particularly enjoyed the opportunity to contribute in a small way to the development of two innovative online programs. So a few months ago, after 6 years of breathing virtual chalk dust, I decided to return to academe full time,

As this issue goes to press, I've relocated from Aiken, South Carolina, to Macon, Georgia, and begun my duties as a professor of technical communication and director of the MS program in technical communication management at Mercer.

IDEAS CAN CHANGE US

I've always thought that one of the most important functions of education is to challenge commonly accepted ideas. I believe that the article "Cruel pies: The inhumanity of technical illustrations" in last August's issue of Technical communication did just that. In the article, Sam Dragga and Dan Voss argue that graphics used to communicate information about injuries and fatalities ignore the human beings behind the statistics, and suggest that technical communicators should adopt a more humanistic approach to visual communication.

Although they may not have changed many minds, Dragga and Voss obviously touched a lot of readers' hot buttons. I received dozens of letters to the editor in response to "Cruel pies," more than prompted by any other article published during my tenure (many of the letters were published in the November 2001 and February 2002 issues). I also assigned the article to a graduate technical editing class this past spring as the basis for a discussion on the editor's role in designing and selecting graphics, and when I asked the class at the end of the term to identify the three most significant things they had learned about technical editing during the course, one of them observed,...the whole discussion regarding ethics and technical illustrations really got into my psyche. I'm still thinking about that one, and I cannot look at illustrations without thinking about that article.... [the] authors... certainly changed the way I look at using illustrations. Even though I really can't say I agreed with the premise, th e article changed my perspective.

The problem is that too many technical communication practitioners seem to be looking for affirmation and are uncomfortable with challenge. They believe that academics in the field are so absorbed in theory that they miss the point of what technical communicators do. I'll admit that I've read books and articles, and listened to presentations at conferences by technical communication faculty that made me wince because they seemed to have no practical application. At the same time, I've read and heard many more ideas presented by academic colleagues that dared me to look at my craft in a different light.

I'm convinced that "Cruel pies" was an educational experience for me, my students, and other readers of the journal because it challenged commonly accepted truths and made us look at what we do in a new light.

Technical communication is an applied field. Rhetoric, cognitive science, information design, and human factors are a few of the disciplines we draw on to understand those who use our information products and technology, the process of communicating with them, and the most effective ways to present information. On the other hand, most academics in the technical communication community are graduates of programs that emphasize theory and frequently ignore application. It's not surprising, then, that many of the dissertations, books, and articles that they write deal exclusively with theory and give less attention--if any at all--to practical application.

The question we must all ask is whether a book or article that expounds a theory or reports the results of research but does not describe any practical applications is useless or irrelevant to practitioners. The lack of practical application may make it less accessible to practitioners, or it may mean that those in industry will be less likely to appreciate its significance. It seems to me, however, that if there is a failing here, it is on both sides of the academe-industry divide.

If STC membership is a fair gauge, academics comprise less than 10% of the technical communication community. If they want their ideas to circulate beyond the ivy-covered walls, academics would do well to make them more accessible to practitioners. At the same time, practitioners need to open their minds to learning things more intellectually demanding than the next release of FrameMaker or ColdFusion, and above all, they need to be receptive to challenges to the way they think about their field and approach their work.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

There will probably always be a tension between academics and practitioners in technical communication, just as there is in most disciplines. That's not a bad thing. Indeed, one could argue that such a dialectic is essential for a field to thrive. Looking back over the past 40 years, we can see that pioneers in academic programs such as Jay Gould, Tom Pearsall, and Jim Southard challenged their practitioner colleagues to look at new ways of approaching their craft from standpoints that probably seemed as farfetched to some at the time as they are commonplace today.

Take audience analysis, for example. I wonder whether, in the 1960s, when these trailblazers pointed out that technical documents have readers and don't exist in a vacuum, at least some technical communicators in industry didn't think, "What use can all that rhetorical theory possibly be to us in the trenches?" The universal acceptance of this theoretical application today is a characteristic of our profession's growth during the past half century.

Nevertheless, I find it disheartening that many practitioners dismiss theory and research out of hand. Too many of us look for formulas--such as avoiding passive voice and limiting the number of items readers must hold in short-term memory--without understanding the grammar, rhetorical theory, or cognitive science research from which these mantras have been derived. Too many of us fail to understand that not every verb phrase that includes a form of to be is a passive and that occasional use of passive voice can be effective. And virtually none of us understands the point of George Miller's research on short-term memory.

So where does that leave us?

It seems to me that effort on both sides of the academe-industry divide is essential to understand who we are and why we need both parts of our community to make a whole. Academics need to better appreciate the fact that without practical application, their theory and research is pointless to anyone but some other academics. And practitioners need to acknowledge the important role that research and theory should play in their work practices and product design.

Furthermore, all of us need to do a better job of communicating within and between the two parts of our community. If practice does not inform theory and research, and if theory and research don't inform practice, our profession is the poorer, and we all lose.

I think the potential for interplay between academe and industry is an exciting possibility. It's one of the most important reasons I'm back in the classroom.