Pirsig and Technical Writing

Technical writing is an art form that is just coming into its own. Where journalism and copy writing assume a general audience technical writing is directed towards a very specific target audience, the audience who encounters the technology for which the piece is written. To demean the relationship of the machine to the man is to demean the man. It is very important for the technical writer to know and understand the audience for which they are writing. They need to create a persona (narrative voice) that is not offensive; a nanve user on manual page 2 is transformed or enlightened by the very act of reading, into a sophisticated 'chooser' knowledgeable enough to make a choice decision among options listed on page 35 or beyond.

In Pirsig's world, there are basically two types of people: romantics and classics. To Pirsig, a romantic is one of those who is more impressed with the way the mu

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nual for the sake of the manual. It is required reading to utilize the machine or code upon which it is based. Pirsig noticed this by viewing that most technical manuals were more tech and less writing. He also observed that the technical writer appears to write in a way as to assume that there is only one way to put the machine together for use by the user, a linear way of thinking. The reason for this thinking is, in a way, elementary. Scientists and engineers are taught to think linearly. They are taught to begin with the widgit and eventually bring one back to the widgit. What they are incapable of seeing in this inward to outward approach is the art of the widgit itself. By focusing entirely on the inner workings of the widgit, they lose sight of the widgit. Their writing appears more as mathematical formula sets. Chunks. This chunk fits neatly into this next bigger chunk. While chunks are important, so is something Pirsig refers to as 'gumption'. To Pirsig, gumption is ôthe psychic gasoline that keeps the problem-solving process going. While some seem to be born with an abundance of gumption, gumption is not an endless commodity. Increasing the reservoir of good spirits come from avoiding traps that suck the gump
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1229
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)