As teachers of writing, rhetoric and professional communication, constantly we remind our students to analyze their audience and to start their work by considering what their audience expects and how they can best persuade them. So when considering how best to teach technical communication to college students, we as instructors should consider our audience, and how we might best instruct them.

Consider a student in my 10 AM ENL 266 (Technical Communications) course, we’ll call him Jake (Fabricated student). As his instructor, I see Jake for three hours a week, but what is going on in his life between that time?

Jake is a computer science major, a degree track which notoriously takes a lot of time out of his week. In addition to his coursework, Jake works at Mcdonald’s in order to supplement his income while in school. Once a month, Jake has an obligation to do a duty weekend with the National Guard, which he joined in order to pay for school.

This type of workload is typical for the majority of my students, if they are not Computer Science majors, then they are Mechanical Engineering Majors. If they don’t work part time at Mcdonalds, then they work part time on campus at a Work-Study job. If they are not in the National Guard, then they live at home and have to contribute to their household workload.

Each of my students have a lot of responsibilities and commitments outside of my classroom, and these responsibilities take a large toll on their cognitive load. Imagine Jake’s cognitive load in preparation for a Monday class with me: The weekend before my class Jake fulfilled his monthly National Guard drill weekend, which took a massive toll on his mental state as well as prevented him from doing his homework or studying for his classes. Immediately before my class he sat through an incredibly technically difficult computer science lecture which introduced him to new concepts in computer engineering. Immediately following my class, Jake has to work his scheduled six hour shift at Mcdonald’s. 

During the one hour that Jake attends my class, he likely will not have his full focus on the lecture that I present. Jake shouldn’t face the responsibility of diminishing his workload for my class, so how can I as his instructor make my class easier for him without diminishing the lecturer that I plan to give?

Well, we might find the answer in the very thing that we teach; our language. If Jake enters a classroom rife with technical language and rhetorical jargon, this will inevitably add cognitive load to his already hectic day and prevent him from learning my planned material. Alternatively, if Jake comes into a classroom where I have recognized the stress on his cognitive load, and adjust my language accordingly, this would greatly increase his ability to learn in my class.

Luckily for us, a framework for making our material easier to understand already exists in plain language studies. Put plainly, plain language is using language which is easily comprehensible, and is free of complicated jargon and frivolous words and phrases. In “Engaging Plain Language in the Technical Communication Classroom” Kira Dreher highlights the importance of plain language in the classroom;

“Plain-language experience can help students characterize their expertise in recognizable, marketable ways outside the classroom. It can serve as a launching point to introduce more specialized technical communication expertise in areas like healthcare, government, and the sciences, since these fields and others have developed specific forms of plain language for their unique audiences and tasks.”

If we imagine Jake in a scenario in which my lecture is built off of plain language, perhaps he comes to my class in the middle of his hectic schedule and builds the tools to comprehend the technically complicated parts of his week in simple terms. Perhaps equipped with the tools to communicate in simple terms he better communicates with his peers during his duty weekend which lessens the cognitive load of his duty weekend. Perhaps these tools allow him to better communicate with his computer science professor, which helps him understand his material and get a higher mark in the class. Then, perhaps these factors allow him to feel less stressed and ultimately put more emphasis on my class further equipping him with the tools to succeed.

Then he may carry on this compounding effect to his job, where he will better communicate with his coworkers as well as his clients. Then he will have the capability to better communicate at his job as a computer scientist. This will have the additional compounding effect of the utilization of plain language in his field, which may make his workplace more effective at communicating with those who are not technically proficient computer scientists. These types of plain language guidelines have been effective in other highly complicated fields;

“Plain-language guidelines have become a strategy in these fields to solve communication problems, effectively prioritize audiences, and save resources. Effective plain-language strategies, such as those showcased by the U.S. federal government and organizations like the Center for Plain Language, coincide with the goals and best practices of technical communication.”

An important note to end this post, that our students are the future of their respective fields, in the case of my students that field is engineering. If we as rhetoricians want a future in which highly technical information is communicated simply then we need to model this for our students in the classroom.