TC Myths

All technical communication myths in place.


Site purpose

I created tcmyths.com to collect and study myths expressed by and about Technical Communication. My goal is to learn more about these myths and share that with all technical communicators. My findings from this study will appear periodically in my blog and in other publications. Participation in this study requires agreement with the study’s Informed Consent.

Site comments and other feedback

While collecting and researching these myths, I found that empirical information about them and their application was scarce. To help fill the knowledge gaps in these myths, each page has a comments section so that you can contribute more information.

To post comments on this site, you must have a Disqus account and have accepted the informed consent to participate in the study.

Comments you add to the web site will be public and can be viewed by anyone, whether or not they are logged in or have a Disqus account.

Each myth topic also has an option to provide anonymous feedback.

Accept or review the informed consent to participate in the study.

I retain the copyright of this site’s content. You are welcome to link to this site and quote from it with proper attribution. All other rights are reserved. If you would like to use the site’s content more extensively, please get permission, first.

Your comments are yours. By entering your comments in this site, you grant me a transferable, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to reproduce your comments, in whole or in part, here and elsewhere. If I cite or quote your comments, I will attribute them to you. Basically, you’re giving me permission, in advance, to quote your comments here and elsewhere.

Comment guidelines

My desire is that you will use the comment blocks to contribute your perspectives and experiences so that we can all learn from each other.

To that end, I ask that your comments:

  1. Be nice and respectful. Disagreement is fine in the form of, “I had a different experience when…” or “Jones contradicts Smith when she says…” (and include Jones’ citation). But, not in the form of, “You’re wrong…” or “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
  2. Be as factual as possible.
  3. Be about your personal experience and that you make that clear in the comment. For example, “I have seen…“
    –or–
    Cite a published source if they are about someone else’s experience. Your citation should be detailed enough for us to look it up. For example, “Smith talks about this in his blog post at http://www.example.com/interesting-page.”
  4. Not be another myth. New myths should be suggested for consideration rather than added as a comment to a topic.
  5. Be withheld if you can’t follow the guidelines. I will delete comments that don’t follow the guidelines.

Content from this site, including comments, will be reviewed and studied periodically for purposes of academic research, study, and publication.

If, at anytime, you decide that you no longer want your comments to appear in this site, delete them or contact me.

Thank you!

Thank you for your interest and contributions!

Robert Watson, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor, Technical Communication
Mercer University School of Engineering
tcmyths@tcmyths.com