Ongoing attempts to define technical writing are inevitably confounded by
problems caused by an excessively broad focus, which obscures the basis and
usefulness of the definition, or by an excessively narrow focus, which
arbitrarily-and sometimes oddly-relegates samples of writing as in or out
of the realm of technical writing. Technical writers have been doing their jobs
for far too long without a definition to be satisfied with a one- or two-sentence
catch-all definition, and such a definition may result in dividing technical
writing into two (or more) cultures.
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