Was it just me or did today’s class start to feel like a 300-level Philosophy class? Personally, I enjoyed the subject a lot because individual perception and personal interpretation are two topics that continually blow my mind. I love how EVERYONE sees, feels, reads, and rationalizes EVERYTHING differently. I know there are some “absolutes” and in conversation we tend to agree with each other on a variety of things but I believe we never truly understand exactly what the other person is thinking. There are too many nuances and too many signals where we can differ, too much background and situational knowledge to consider. This isn’t a bad thing and often it isn’t enough to cause a problem because most of the time it goes unnoticed.
In the case of technical writing however, we all read into things differently and come up with differing ideas of what they mean. Today’s article by Carolyn Miller theorized about the difference between scientific logic and fact and the message the writing portrays. When it comes down to it, most scientific expression is based on “scientists” (in the loosed possible sense) trying to come up with a concise way to represent the facts to the audience, whoever it may be. And even if it is their peers or the average public, neither was there to witness the discoveries and no one will inherently know how the scientist felt. There is a disconnection between what happens and how we explain it, and that missing piece is the failure of words to satisfy the need.
I think one of the things Miller was getting at, as outlined at the end of the article, is that technical writing doesn’t need to be an exact science and but rather a device to bring the audience (whoever cares about what is being written) together. It creates a community or culture around a subject and can be discussed as it is interpreted by individuals as to what the meaning truly is about.
"There is a disconnection between what happens and how we explain it, and that missing piece is the failure of words to satisfy the need."
ReplyDeleteI agree with this and I think all of us encounter this regularly. We all experience those times when we feel like we understand something, but when asked to explain... blank.
I think that is a major part of rhetoric: being able to accurately explain what you're thinking or feeling so others can understand.
I can see how scholars in the past thought as rhetoric as a bad thing. Like you stated, we all have different interpretations, and when we alter our writing to "bring the audience together" it can be taken as fooling or changing the audiences mind.
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