Kimball, M. A. (2006). Cars, culture, and tactical technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 15(1), (pp. 67–86). https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq1501pass:[_]6

In Miles A. Kimball’s (2006) article “Cars, Culture, and Tactical Technical Communication,” he examined, “two cases of extra-institutional technical communication: the documentary cultures surrounding Muir’s (1969) How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive! A Manual of Step by Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot and Champion’s (2000) Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250 (p. 67). Kimball inspected the centering of the user in the design process, distinguishing the difference between strategy and tactic, the two tactics available being bricolage and la perruque, the emergence of Muir’s automotive manual and how it humanized the technology by showing not just the ideal but how to keep the car alive, the Champion’s automotive manual allowed insights on how the user could become the producer, and the contradiction of the resistance of the strategic power by using the culturally created narratives. Kimball’s purpose was to demonstrate “the growing importance of technical communication in everyday life as a matter of production as well as consumption” (p. 84). Kimball’s intended audience was individuals with a limited understanding of technical communication in need of having their perspectives broadened. Kimball had a unique and compelling angle into how technical communication can be shaped by the user to fit their own needs, but calling it “tactical resistance against authoritarian control” seems out of the scope for the context provided (p. 81).