Technical Communication

History of Technical Communication as an Activity

In a sense, technical communication has been around since people began describing tools, weapons, places, or techniques to others. Many ancient drawings and texts could be called forms of technical communication, including astronomical charts, calendars, maps, diagrams, and instructions. These kinds of technical texts can be found in almost any ancient culture, including those in Egypt, China, Mesoamerica (Mayan), Mexico (Aztec), and Mesopotamia (Babylon). Indeed, ancient illustrations and descriptions of tools, weapons, devices, agricultural practices, topography, irrigations systems, and weaponry go back thousands of years. Ancient Greeks and Romans used sophisticated forms of technical communication to record and convey their architecture, hydrology, science, engineering, medicine, and warfare throughout their empires. Even books of natural magic and occult from the Middle Ages might be considered forms of technical communication, because they described procedures for using prescribed methods to achieve specific goals.

In the 15th century CE, technical communication emerged with the invention of the movable [Page 866]type printing press and the availability of inexpensive paper. The printing press allowed books and pamphlets, including those with technical or scientific information, to be cheaply printed and widely distributed. Until the printing press, technical manuscripts were copied individually by hand and were not widely distributed. Consequently, technical information was primarily written down for storage in libraries and saw very limited distribution. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church was ever mindful of any texts that appeared to be spreading the occult or seemed to contradict church doctrine. The invention of the printing press and the availability of inexpensive paper brought down many of these barriers, as extensively documented by historian Elizabeth Eisenstein. The emergence of a printing industry also initiated new careers, such as those of professional writers, editors, illustrators, proofreaders, and indexers, that still form the foundation of technical communication today.

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