Sense and Sensibility in Technical Documentation

1 January 1993

journal article
Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Vol. 7 (1) , 63-83
https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651993007001004

Abstract

This article analyzes postaccident investigation reports from a feminist perspective to show (a) how the conventions of public discourse privilege the rational (male) objective voice and silence human suffering, (b) how the notion of expertise excludes women's experiential knowledge, (c) how the conventions of public discourse sanction the exclusion of alternative voices and thus perpetuate salient and silent power structures, and (d) how interpretation strategies that fail to consider unstated assumptions about gender, power, authority, and expertise seriously compromise the health, safety, and lives of miners—and in a broader sense—all of those who are dependent on technology for their personal safety.

Keywords

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:

Normal Accidents
Published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH ,2000
The Rhetoric of Decision Science, or Herbert A. Simon Says
Science, Technology, & Human Values, 1989
Two Faces of Power
American Political Science Review, 1962