Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy

Introduction

Scientific and technical communication can be defined as a process of gathering, organizing, presenting and refining information. It is also a process of persuasion which often appeals to objectivity to convince an audience. Finally, it is a process inevitably shaped by its contexts, and which is improved when it recognizes its contexts.

Let's consider the three parts of this definition. The first part is that scientific and technical communication is a process of gathering, organizing, presenting and refining information. Consider, for example, a technical problem most of us have faced: preparing a dish according to a cookbook recipe. If you are making the dish the first time you are likely to follow closely each of the steps. And although you are satisfied with the result, you have ideas for making the dish better. Next time you may not follow the steps in order; you may add certain ingredients, subtract others; you may use different utensils; you may cook the dish for a longer or a shorter time. Eventually you may come to see the recipe as a rough outline to which you make adjustments to suit your tastes or your guests' taste. In short, you have made a new recipe. You may document such changes in the margins of the cookbook or commit them to memory; or you may communicate them to others, in, for instance, a telephone conversation to a friend. Viewed in context and as part of a process, the cookbook recipe is encouraged to evolve.

This analogy applies to the process of scientific and technical communication. When faced, for instance, with writing a proposal for the first time you are likely to follow a pre-established form slavishly. And although you satisfied with the result, you may have ideas for adapting the proposal to make it more persuasive. Next time you may not rigidly follow a standard format; you may accent certain sections, downplay others; you may use different sources of information; you may prepare different versions of the same proposal. Eventually you may come to see proposal form as a rough outline to which you make adjustments as you learn more about its purpose, the needs of the audience and your relationship to them. Although the formal elements of the proposal are constant, they are neither permanent nor should they dictate content.

The second part of the definition states that scientific and technical communication is a process of persuasion which often appeals to objectivity to convince an audience. Scientific and technical communication is fundamentally persuasive. When writing a proposal or manual you always try to convince someone of your recommendations. Still, an audience lends information greater credibility when it is considered objective. But strict objectivity is elusive, absolute objectivity is impossible. At best, the presentation of a study or experiment strives for the most honest and balanced account of what happened, and so attempts to be objective. Scientific and technical communicators cannot help but have personal feelings and biases about their work: after all, it embodies their interests and beliefs.

You cannot see what happens behind the scenes as a journal article or set of instructions is developed. And while experimental articles in science may be based on fact, they typically derive from situations that are anything but objective. An "objective" text is the result of choices by the authors about which information to present to the reader. The basis for these choices is found within the contexts in which scientific and technical communication occurs. By learning these contexts you can apply the persuasive strategies of scientific and technical communicators, such as appeals to rationality, pragmatism, experimental "elegance", simplicity, success, altruism, in your own practices and recognize them in the practices of others.

Finally, scientific and technical communication is a process inevitably shaped by its contexts, and which is improved when it recognizes its contexts. Neither science nor technology stand apart from the social and historical change born in a world of developing nations, interdependent economies, shifting political ideals, global communication networks and diminishing natural resources. Practitioners in science and technology usually view and interpret the effects of social, historical and economic change on their work within cohesive organizational contexts. Professional organizations allocate resources, fix requirements for people entering the field, and establish and regulate relationships among practitioners. The organizational structure of science is so strong as to influence each stage in the research process, and each stage in the process of scientific and technical communication.

Over time, as scientific and technical fields became highly organized something was gained, efficient production, but something was lost, critical, long term scrutiny of practices beyond the laboratory and workbench. Researchers became confident in their methods as the natural sciences evolved and grew exclusively dependent on the work of others inside the field. Theories and facts were uniformly accepted by community members. The written text was neither the focus of scientific activity, nor was it the only means to convince people of the facts. In order to convince other researchers (and lay persons) of the truth of a particular claim, scientists could mobilize a number of "nontextual" resources such as laboratory equipment, numbers and references to the work of other researchers. Subsequently, the goals of scientific and technical communication became indistinguishable from the goals of efficient scientific and technical production. Yet these goals often remain at odds with broader concerns about public welfare. Nevertheless, we confer a special status and authority on scientific knowledge. Scientists and lay persons share the belief that science is universal and unaffected by language and society. If we concede science is autonomous from society, then many people argue it would be best to leave scientific research to its own devices.

Science, on the contrary, is not autonomous from society. During the Vietnam war era, for example, the public began to question the societal ends of science and technology. In what direction were science and technology headed? Was the "military-industrial complex" implicated in an immoral war? Should scientists make decisions regarding the public welfare? As taxpayers supporting research and development, the public demanded a voice on how their money was spent. Scientists countered that the public made hasty judgments and failed to consider the overall benefits and complexity of scientific research, aspects of which were beyond a layperson's comprehension. Today, mutual suspicion among scientists and laypersons persists. On one hand, the lay public argues that scientists and engineers are corporate and government pawns. On the other hand, scientists and engineers claim that the lay public cannot render any judgments until they learn first-hand about science and technology. The fears and presumptions of both scientists and laypersons continue to substitute for critical reflection and sustained dialogue.

Understanding Conventions

Effective scientific and technical communication is essential to all professions and fields of study in an industrialized society. The qualities we attribute to effective scientific and technical communication, accuracy, clarity, precision and thoroughness, correspond to our understanding of what makes science and technology work effectively. For example, a physicist writing a journal article must show clearly how specific ideas and procedures are used in order for colleagues to test her hypothesis. If the experiment is replicated, the biologist succeeds in doing good science, but only to the degree she accurately and persuasively communicates her concepts to a specific audience. The methods and research of science and technology have evolved as the professional standards and conventions of scientific and technical communication have evolved.

The conventions of scientific and technical communication extend beyond writing, to the way people speak, listen, read, and present and comprehend visual images about science and technology. Academic disciplines and professional organizations rely on standards for the proper presentation of information in newsletters, journals, manuals and other sponsored publications. By learning and following the conventions of their profession, scientific and technical communicators have a specific idea of how to effectively communicate to their peers. However, the people who use and are affected by the conventions of scientific and technical communication are not just scientists, engineers and academics, but are taxpayers, neighbors, heads of households and citizens casting a vote. Scientific and technical communication evolves from the complex social roles we all share. In order for scientific and technical communication to achieve focus, it must accommodate these complex social roles. We must learn not only how to use the conventions of scientific and technical communication, but to realize where those conventions come from, what boundaries they set, how we understand their subject matter and how they affect the choices we make.

Too often the process of scientific and technical communication is presented exclusively as a series of prescriptions, how one ought to write a process description, how one ought to write letter of compliant or how one ought to give an oral presentation, for example. Formal prescriptions and standards are important and necessary tools of the trade. They encourage a technical document (whether proposal, business letter, set of instructions, or scientific article) to be comprehensive, organized, and "user-friendly." And there is a sound rationale for such standards: scientific and technical communication is dense, highly specialized and difficult to comprehend even for specialists; standards of presentation help to make such information understandable. Further, such standards suggest agreement within a community, shared knowledge and the possibility of agreement between the writer and reader, or speaker and listener.

But their danger is that conventions encourage us to do no more than duplicate standard formats and criteria; consequently we forget their origins, their specific contexts and their purposes. On one hand, the structure of scientific and technical communication itself encourages an audience to believe in the ideas being presented. On the other hand, the images of science and technology we derive from journal publications and textbooks is of a systematic, dull, bloodless activity unaffected by the affairs of ordinary people.

Far from passionless, science and technology have many characteristics of other professions and activities about which people care deeply. By only following sets of procedures, you will neglect the specific dynamics of scientific and technical communication. The practices you will be taught embody a series of historical choices and social negotiations that continue to be discovered and developed in light of what we learn about science and technology. When the prescriptions and procedures for scientific and technical communication are seen out of context, they reinforce our perception of science and technology as distant and inert. However, science and technology are no one thing, and our views of scientific and technical communication are constantly changing.

The practices of science and technology define ourselves and other human beings in deep and sustained ways. And in so doing science and technology have been painted as both our liberators and our oppressors. How we, as individuals seeking fulfillment or as members of social groups demanding liberation, come to terms with the power and practice of science and technology will determine how we know the world and our places in it.

Meaningful communication and decision making regards science and technology in context. Understanding science and technology in context consists of examining and translating the language, theories, explanations and interests of one group into the language, theories, explanations and interests of another groups. For example, one can talk about biology in sociological terms such as "values", "social class", "power" and "institutional structure." Similarly, one can talk about social behavior in biological terms such as "evolution", "mutation", "adaptation" and "heritability." Talking about one discipline or profession in terms of another shows certain similarities. As well, translation and communication across disciplines, like communicating with different cultures, brings to light differences of which participants are not aware. By considering the relation of science, technology and society in context, you will intellectually challenge the accepted notions and images of science and technology. By challenging those notions, your communicative practices will achieve greater depth, precision and thoroughness necessary for effective scientific and technical communication.

You will face increasing specialization in your profession and the professions of others with whom you will communicate. Increasing specialization can lead to misunderstood technical communication on two related fronts. First, while specialists are educated in much the same way, the meaning of technical terms and jargon can have subtle, but significant variations. Terms such as "trait", "fitness", "selection", or "allele" vary in meaning among population, biometrical or molecular geneticists. Absent reflection by the communities using these terms, variations in meaning can lead not only to miscommunication but errors in research and can ultimately affect the direction of a given field.

Second, there are common words which are often adopted as specialist terms. Words used daily such as "frequency", "success" and "solution" have specific connotations in given contexts. What, for example, counts as "success" for stock brokers and experimental psychologists are, of course, two different things. However, beyond obvious differences the unexplored use of common words by different groups can lead to unwarranted assumptions and groundless agreement.

Image and Revolution

Upon review in 1964, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions touched off intense academic debate. The debate centered on if philosophers in the first half of the century had mischaracterized natural science, and, if so, how this mischaracterization could be revised. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions opens:

History ... could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. That image has previously been drawn, even by scientists themselves, mainly from the study of finished scientific achievements as these are recorded in the classics and, more recently, in the textbooks from which each new scientific generation learns to practice its trade. Inevitably, however, the aim of such books is persuasive and pedagogic; a concept of science drawn from them is no more likely to fit the enterprise that produced them than an image of a national culture drawn from a tourist brochure or a language text.

Kuhn's appeal to historical evidence put into doubt fundamental assumptions, held by researchers studying science and scientists alike, about the growth, conduct and outcomes of scientific practice. Many readers of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions concluded that to avoid the mistakes of some philosophers, an understanding of science must come from an interdisciplinary perspective including the history and sociology of science. Kuhn observed that science is a communally structured activity in which similarly trained researchers possessing a common world view attempt to solve a defined set of problems. Scientific progress begins with a commitment to a shared set of concepts or paradigm, within which researchers work until they find questions they cannot answer. Eventually researchers come to a point where they must abandon the old paradigm and adopt a new one. The moment of change makes for a scientific revolution. The clearest illustration of Kuhn's notion comes in the procession of paradigms asserted in physical theories of the universe, (regarding the structure of the solar system) from geocentric theory to heliocentric theory, and (regarding laws governing the physical universe) from Newtonian theory to relativity theory.

The significance of Kuhn's work extends well beyond revising traditional views of science. Many academics and professionals took The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as a blueprint for turning their fields in to a "science." The lesson taken from Kuhn was that the most distinctive aspect of science was a community's commitment to a single paradigm. Academics and professionals speculated that if they could reach a unified theory or get practitioners to apply a uniform set of methods or standards, their fields would gain tangible success, rapidly progress, and acquire influence. In the desire to mimic science, however, many academic disciplines and professions have transformed an image of science for their own use.

The Noble Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar, a pioneer in the field of immunology, observed: "What scientists do has never been the subject of a scientific ... inquiry. It is no use looking to scientific 'papers', for they not merely conceal but actively misrepresent the reasoning that goes into the work they describe." Medawar suggests that in order to understand the process of science, the "objectivity" of published scientific research cannot serve as a guide. If true, then the process of scientific and technical communication involves much more than following the writing conventions of an academic disciplines or profession, or uncritically accepting the assertions of scientists.

If Kuhn and Medawar are right, if the images of science provided in published research and textbooks are both "active" misrepresentations and as superficial as the illustration of cultures drawn in tourist brochures, then technical writers are responsible for constructing those images. The challenge for scientific and technical communicators is in getting beyond the "tourist brochure mentality" to a more accurate and meaningful expression of the activities of science and technology. The image of science as unaffected by its contexts is prominent in scientific and technical communication, and it is an image which we must examine critically and redefine. One solution is to integrate many perspectives on issues involving science and technology. From the points of different disciplines and institutions, found in part in the readings in this book, we will develop a critical appreciation of the practices of science and technology. Out of these contexts, we will construct ways of communicating about science and technology not only to similarly trained experts, but also to laypersons.

Science is currently the defining institution of Western culture. The issues found in the contexts of scientific and technical communication not only influence but are influenced by the disciplines, fields and professions you now study. Together we will primarily look at science and technology in their historical, social, philosophical, psychological, economic and rhetorical contexts. Obviously, no one begins communicating about science and technology by going through this checklist. And while the work of scientists and technologists should not be reduced to "just rhetoric" or "just motivated by economics", neither should scientific and technical communication be reduced to "just presenting information" nor "just reporting observations." Your ability to explore and communicate the complex activities that are subjects of scientific and technical communication will be significantly improved by bringing science, technology and society in context.

Historical Contexts

During the rise of early-modern science in England, Robert Boyle (1627-1691) and fledgling group of "experimentalists" sought to make the laboratory a place where the needs and desires of a larger society were met. The laboratory would be a place where treatments for disease, more accurate weapons or improved crop production could be discovered. Anyone seeking knowledge about nature, and how to apply it, would submit to the authority of experimental results, much as we submit to the authority of evidence presented in a judicial court. However, the status of the laboratory as a "body politic", a place where the lay public actively participated in witnessing or performing experiments or as a restricted space occupied by professionals and British Royal Society members, was hotly debated.

After the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England in 1660, science took a pragmatic turn. In granting the Royal Society its charter in 1662, Charles declared that the study of nature be conducted without interfering in, or interference from, the affairs of church and state. Nature was to be considered apart from society. Accordingly, the experimentalists legislated against speech and experiments about politics, metaphysical and theoretical entities which could not be agreed upon as matters of fact by the community. Topics on which the community agreed were presented according to a negotiated set of standards. Boyle reiterated the king's sentiments by stressing the need for a restricted experimental space. The uneducated public, many of whom had questions regarding "metaphysical superstitions", could not enter this space. Science required trained, credible witnesses who could properly interpret the outcome of experiments. Scientific practice required consensus. While open in theory, experimental practice was closed to all but true believers.

Challenging Boyle's conception of an experimental science was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes argued for a more public, democratic experimental space. He conceived of science as doing "natural philosophy", a more speculative form of determining fundamental principles of nature through debate conducted among philosophers and the public in an open forum. Opening intellectual inquiry to the public, Hobbes reasoned, would help avoid the corruption that went on behind closed doors. One of the major differences between Boyle and Hobbes turned on who, experimentalists or philosophers, would serve as the model for a citizen pursuing knowledge. Hobbes was less concerned about the impact his speech would have on church and state. Knowledge, for Hobbes, was the product of human actions. To separate scientific knowledge from other public affairs was, at best, artificial.

Boyle won the debate. One reason given for the survival of early modern science was the ability of the experimentalists to adapt the activities of their community to the political landscape. Science survived where other intellectual enterprises were condemned because it protected the larger political and social order, while offering the possibility of economic reward. The world in which we live seems more like Hobbes': you could, in theory, wander into a campus laboratory and see science in action. In practice, however, it is more like Boyle's. Access is usually reserved for "authorized personnel." Further, the public does not understand much science. The public's lack of understanding can be attributed to ignorance, apathy or frustration in trying to penetrate the scientific language.

You can apply knowledge of the historical events leading to the development of boundaries around science to specific aspects of your own profession. In some capacity you will determine who gets access to certain information, materials or areas of your workspace. By restricting access you empower some people and alienate others. You must determine if certain subjects or procedures require open debate of should be closed off. Of course, the same decisions by other people, in government, in positions of power above you, will provide you with, or prevent you from having, information for making decisions affecting your own life. From an historical context, you can examine the basis for decisions in your own practice, and for participating in public debates regarding the social influence of science and technology.

Social Contexts`

If we study science and technology as distinct cultures embedded in a larger society what do we find? Robert Merton, the founder of the sociology of science, described scientific conduct as following from a set of four principles (or norms), "universalism," "disinterestedness," "organized skepticism" and "communalism." "Universalism" directs that claims of truth be evaluated by the standards of a community, not by an individual's standards. "Disinterestedness" directs the practitioner to value the advance of scientific knowledge rather than value personal gain. Accordingly, a scientist should remain disinterested about their personal stake in the result of a experiment, their primary objective is adding to the storehouse of scientific knowledge. Of course, scientists are people too; tensions exist between what one should do and what one is doing. "Organized skepticism" directs the testing, confirmation or falsification of claims empirically before they can be accepted as true. Finally, "communalism" directs the collaborative development and open sharing of knowledge among the members of the community. Merton's norms describe conduct we associate with the virtues of the scientific method. However, misconceptions abound, on the part of laypersons and practitioners, concerning the existence, function and influence of norms of scientific conduct.

The philosopher Karl Popper claimed that the testability of scientific theories that marked their difference from unscientific theories. He proposed the idea that a theory is potentially scientific only if it could be falsified (refuted) through contrary observations. Popper also articulated a number of rules and criteria that should govern scientific experimentation. Two sociologists, Michael Mulkay and Nigel Gilbert interviewed thirty-four scientists to track the influence of Popper on actual scientific practice. Only a few scientists had read Popper in any detail, and many doubted the influence philosophy of science had on laboratory practice. Mulkay and Gilbert determined the reasoning of scientists "... depends on highly personal judgments ... (and) each individual scientist continually disagrees with his colleagues Popperian interpretations." (1981) Mulkay and Gilbert concluded that rules of experimentation are open-ended and do not entirely determine scientists' actions.

Sociologists have also turned their attention on technology. Technology has long been regarded as an irresistible force. For most of the nineteenth and twentieth century, technology was understood as nothing more than applied science. Seen in context, technology is something quite different. For instance, automobile manufacturing over the last seventy years has undergone several great changes. But these changes were not brought about by the technology itself; rather, they were brought about by aspects surrounding the technology. Sociologists, historians and philosophers have come to redefine technology as part of a system composed of several integrated components such as machines, raw materials, workers, finances, management and other systems. Technological artifacts can be studied as the point of intersection among several forces within a larger network.

By extending your work into contexts other than the specialties in which it was developed, you begin to build cultural bridges. Scientists and technologists are, after all, a kind of culture; they use a specialized language, employ rituals, undergo training, adopt curious dress, involve themselves with peculiar artifacts, they even have initiation rites. The lesson of studying science as a sociological and anthropological phenomenon is to understand that the best chance for understanding comes when the practices of cultures are regarded in context. As scientific and technical communicators, we can apply our awareness of the origin of ideas, knowledge and conduct within in social contexts in reaching out to other professions and organizations.

Scientific and Technical Communication in Context
Chapter 1: Part 1

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey

Book Contents

Chapter 1: Part 1

Scientific and Technical Communication in Context Chapter 1: Part 1

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey

Book Contents

Chapter 1: Part 1

Scientific and Technical Communication in Context
Chapter 1: Part 1