After we published last week’s poll, we received several comments that indicated we had a few large gaps in the list of “soft skills” technical communication professionals need to “survive and thrive.” Kell C noted that “analytical thinking” is crucial, and encompasses inquisitiveness, skepticism and being business-minded. Indeed, we’ve seen numerous threads on the email discussion list and a number of good blog posts and articles decrying the apparent loss of critical thinking skills, not only in technical communication, but in business generally. Some critical thinking abilities are pretty obviously important if you plan a career in the field—gathering information, interpreting data, identifying problems and workarounds—but others seem at first glance to anathema to our daily work. For instance, is it appropriate to draw conclusions in technical writing, or do we really function more as objective journalists?
Wikipedia, always a great place to start (emphasis on the concept of start) research, describes critical thinking as “thinking about thinking.” It then goes on to list a number of critical thinking abilities that bring back fond (well, maybe not “fond”) memories of undergraduate classes in rhetoric and Socratic theory. So we’ve compiled that list into this week’s poll to get a sense of which skills practicing technical communicators really use—or want to use—in their daily work.
Do you find that you’re lacking in any of these abilities? How would mastery of the ones you’re not strong in impact your career development, or the project you’re working on now? Sometimes going back to the basics, whether it’s a review of grammar and syntax rules, proofreader’s marks, or HTML tags, gives us a fresh perspective and the chance to make measurable improvements in our work. We can’t help but wonder if a refresher course in critical thinking would also improve our performance, both in terms of our profession and of our ability to contribute to the organizations that employ us. Or maybe it’s all overrated philosophical gobbledygook? Do we need to sacrifice critical thought for speed in order to make the latest deadline? Share your opinions with us, by posting a comment or starting a thread on the email discussion list.
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