Teaching technical communication with the community model: some questionable side effects

The paper traces the development of the communication model of community as a framework for teaching technical writing. It first explores the idea of community discourse conventions as they were adapted from T.S. Kuhn´s (1970) model of “normal science” within an autonomous scientific community. It then adds the idea of unconventional discourse practice within the community, as adapted from Kuhn´s model of “revolutionary science.” The paper argues that teaching technical writing using only discourse conventions inhibits a students´ ability to contribute to innovations and change within an organizational community. Adding a critical component to the teaching better prepares students to contribute to the community´s continual improvement over the long term