Technical Writer/Subject-matter Expert Interaction: The Writer's Perspective, the Organizational Challenge

SUMMARY r Reports perceptions collected from technicalwriters about interactions with subject-matterexperts r Argues that SMEs and technical writers cannotfully alter their relationship without strategicmanagement support Technical Writer/Subject-matterExpert Interaction: The Writer’s Perspective,the Organizational Challenge MARTHA F. LEE AND BRAD MEHLENBACHER INTRODUCTIONI n1991DebbieWalkowski,atechnicalwriteratDigitalEquipment Corporation, published an article in Tech-nical communication entitled “Working successfullywith technical experts—From their perspective.” De-spite her admission that “a writer’s conduct is not (andshould not be) solely determined by an engineer’s expec-tations” (p. 67), Walkowski’s findings suggest that aspectsof the interpersonal relationship between writers and tech-nical specialists can be controlled by writers. The appeal ofher data is that writers—who tend to be audience-orientedto begin with—can gain some insight into the perceptionsand prejudices of engineers toward writing and the role ofdocumentation in high-tech settings.Walkowski surveyed 19 software engineers in hercompany and asked them two questions: “What qualitiesdo you most appreciate in a technical writer?” and “Whatqualities do you least appreciate?” The engineers’ re-sponses fell into five categories.