the function of the preface:

More specifically, early claims for the “legitimacy” of technical writing focus almost exclusively on the cultural, social and professional centrality of technical writing in the workplace: technical writing organizes “the operations of modern institutions” and determines both the corporate identity of the organization (Miller, 1979; Fennell and Miller, 1991) and the differing professional identities of “people within” the organization (Longo, p. 1). In fact, given the “documentary” nature of reality in post-industrial organizations, technical writing constitutes the practice and record of work (Dobrin, 1987).