In February, 1979, I was hired by a computer company called Digital Equipment Corporation to write the user manual for a general ledger accounting package. I have an MBA in accounting and operations management – mathematical process control – from Boston University, so I knew how a general ledger worked.
Word processing has changed how we write, for the worse according to some literary critics. See ‘Has Microsoft Word affected the way we work?’ by John Naughton in the January 14, 2012 issue of The Guardian and ‘How Technology Has Changed the Way Authors Write’ by Matthew Kirschenbaum in the July 26, 2016 issue of The New Republic.Personally, I agree that it has changed how I work - for the better. Using a typewriter, changing the material was difficult, often involving White-Out or perhaps even pulling the page out and re-typing it entirely. This made it easy to lose my train of thought. With a word-processor, I can write material, modify it as I go, and easily revert to a previous version. And I can try different wordings to see which is clearer or gives a better readability score. So, overall, and especially after my general ledger user manual fiasco in 1979, I could never give up my word-processor.
3
4
WYSIWYG authoring is useful but there are periodic arguments about whether it leads authors to focus on formatting content rather than on writing it – appearance over substance. Here’s one example, ‘Word Processors: Stupid and Inefficient’ by Allin Cottrell.Personally, I agree with some of his positions but I think word processing as it currently exists is too entrenched to change in the near future. Also, and interestingly, Cottrell’s position ties in well with the emerging need for content in HTML or XHTML that has no format of its own but that can use multiple stylesheets for single sourcing.
5
WYSIWYG authoring, plus the ability to insert and position graphics electronically, has sharply reduced the role of the graphic designer. That’s not to say that a graphic designer couldn’t do a better job, just that graphic designers are no longer needed.
Authoring support tools like spell-checkers and readability analysers in word-processors sharply reduced the role of editors. (When I was at Digital Equipment Corp in 1982, there were, as I recall, about 20 writers supported by a formal editorial group. Today, I’m surprised and pleased if one of my clients has even one editor on staff.)
Many managers wanted computers in their offices because computers were cool, but didn’t want to actually use them because typing was considered to be secretarial work. So, some unsung marketing genius coined the term ‘keyboarding’ instead.
Typing pools were almost entirely female because management viewed typing as a secretarial function. The advent of word processing caused debate about whether it would perpetuate the typing pool as a so-called ‘pink ghetto’ or open new avenues for advancement for women. My experience from Digital Equipment was the latter. One woman who started as a typist became one of the coordinators of the company’s export control compliance programme.
The culture of technical writing changed. In 1980, my department got two word-processors for the writers to share. Soon after, the manager told me that he had offered jobs to two writers, both of whom turned him down on the grounds that 'technical writers don't use computers'.
The culture of technical writing changed. In 1980, my department got two word-processors for the writers to share. Soon after, the manager told me that he had offered jobs to two writers, both of whom turned him down on the grounds that ‘technical writers don’t use computers’.
In the same vein, one of the greatest presentations in the STC conference’s Beyond the Bleeding Edge stem, which I started in 1999 and managed until it ended in 2014, was a retrospective look at changes in writing culture by a speaker who showed a video of a presentation he gave in 1980 entitled ‘why technical writers should be allowed to use computers’. It’s one of the funniest but most meaningful presentations I’ve ever seen at a conference. (Why meaningful? Because it examined a huge technical philosophical shift in technical communication. Why funny? Because, almost on cue, the older attendees looked at each other and said “I remember those days!” while the younger attendees looked at each other and said “No word processors? No way!”)
and
Users of word-processors, primarily Word these days, break all kinds of rules to make sure the document prints well. But these users rarely consider that their documents may have to be converted to HTML or XHTML for use online. So, breaking the rules, often using local formatting rather than styles, seemed to have no down-side but now causes frequent problems.
Related to the prior point, management tends to view word-processors as akin to typewriters and thus doesn’t train the users on how to use the tool effectively and correctly. The result is usually chaos.