A Brief History

of
Technical Writing
 Plato and the Greeks
Was Plato the first technical writer?

• Writing steals memory and

understanding; the written word is
a mere copy of reality, unable to
ask or answer questions.

• Human beings gain wisdom

through contemplation and oral
communication with others.

• Plato was concerned that writing

undermines ethics.
The Greeks sought balance between:
• Episteme - knowledge of (truth, beauty, justice)
• Techne - know-how (of a craft or art)

Plato rejects this balance. Plato’s book The Republic is a

manual for implementing an ideal society. Plato prescribes
that those capable of episteme should rule over those
practicing mere techne.
Muhammad ibn Mūsā
al-Khwarizmi

• A Muslim cleric, al-Khwarizmi lived

in Baghdad, Iraq.
• He wrote his most important works
between 813 - 833 A.D.
• The first software documentation
writer
• Responsible for documenting the
Indian decimal number system
An extant page from
al-Khwarizmi’s book,
circa A.D. 830
‘The Compendious Book
on Calculation by
Completion and Balancing.’

Today, his book is referred

to simply as ‘Algebra.’
The Renaissance
Modern science began its bloom in the early 16th
century, making advances in scientific fields like
medicine and astronomy.
Prior to books, technical knowledge was transmitted
orally and by example through apprenticeships.
Gutenberg’s Printing Press
The printing press, invented in the mid-
15th century, established five new trades
in technical communication:
• Type founding
• Printing
• Publishing
• Editing
• Bookselling(4)
 The Twentieth Century
Political leaders put technical ideas to horrific uses during
the twentieth century.
World War One and Two began a new era in technical
communications, mainly as a result of weapons
manufacturing.
Many of the fields in which technical writers work today
would be less developed if not for the exigencies of war.(5)
The Soviet state systematically
kept documents on persons
arbitrarily imprisoned and
executed.
A bureaucrat found them and
secretly began collecting the
names of victims. He was able
to present his evidence publicly
in 1986.(6)
In effect, the Soviet state’s
impeccable document
management provided
evidence of its past atrocities
leading to its illegitimacy and
eventual downfall.
 Corporate North America

Contemporary technical writing began with the booming

post-war economies and new consumer goods requiring
new kinds of documentation and genres of technical
communication.

Today, technical communication operates in a business

environment; however, the U.S. government is both
history’s largest investor in science and technology and the
world’s largest producer of technical communication.
The Future of Technical Writing?

“I’ll send you the

instruction manual
by Thursday.”
 Bibliography
1. (emphasis added) Longo, Bernadette. Spurious Coin. A
History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing. State
University of New York Press. 2000.
2. http://technical-writing.learnhub.com/lesson/1661-history-of-
technical-documentation
3. Frederick M. O’Hara, Jr. A Brief History of Technical
Communication.
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Vz33XMtTsIkJ:www.stc.org/confproceed/2001
/PDFs/STC48-
000052.pdf+history+of+technical+communication&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Remnick, David. Lenin’s Tomb. Vintage Books. 1994.
7. http://www.proedit.com/technical_writing_history.asp
8. Frederick M. O’Hara, Jr. A Brief History of Technical
Communication.