Connors, R. J. (1982). The rise of technical writing instruction in America. In J. Johnson-Eilola & S. A. Selber (Eds.) (2004), Central Works in Technical Communication (pp. 3-19). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

In Robert J. Connors’s (1982) article “The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America,” he traced the “instruction in technical writing from its beginnings in a few schools of engineering, through its lean times, when it was a poor cousin in literary studies in English departments, to its present eminence as a center of vital scholarly and pedagogic activity” (p. 4). Connors explored the evolution of technical writing by discussing the creation of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, the opposition between English teachers and engineering teachers, the integration of English in with engineering courses, the need for technical communication due to WWII, the importance of the writer-reader relationship, the need for professional speech, and the creation of a new profession. Connors’s purpose was to demonstrate the progression of technical communication and highlight the hurdles technical writing had to overcome to exist in the accepted state that it’s in now. Connors’s intended audience was college students and professors wishing to learn more about the origins of technical communication. Connors laid out a logical sequence of events for how technical communication came to exist, which was both informative while still being surprising.