Technical communicators: who do they think we are?

Through a variety of pathways, we find ourselves within the profession of technical communication. Some communicators stumbled into the profession while others, within the last decade, may have entered with a degree in technical communication. Whatever the mode of arrival, the debate continues as to the status and value of our profession (A.D. Reilly, 1993 and C.R. Silva, 1992). Who “they ” (our customers and other professionals) think “we” (technical communicators) are is important to determining our status, our effectiveness, and our reward. Perhaps “we,” as technical communicators, have more leverage in determining what “they” perceive than we realized