the legendary preface: the early sentences

Caught between the conflicting demands of the workplace practices and the humanities approach of the English departments in which technical writing programs are housed, technical communication has struggled for “legitimacy” as a mature academic discipline since the early development of technical communication research in the 1970s (Staples, 1999). Although technical communication has attained “disciplinary maturity” (p. 153), the recurring themes that emerged during the struggle for legitimacy continues to motivate the direction of research in the field.