The dispute for authority between the seemingly disparate disciplinary camps of theory and practice is a longstanding and well-documented tension within the field of technical communication (Miller, 1979, 1989; Sullivan & Porter, 1993). As a result, technical communication scholars have issued various calls to reimagine and refocus the field around a variety of disciplinary identities with foci ranging from highly theoretical work to primarily practical matters (Johnson-Eilola, 1996; Kimball, 2017; Pringle & Williams, 2005; Slack, Miller, & Doak, 1993). There is an apparent divide between academics and practitioners of technical communication: the latter sees the abstract work of the former as disconnected and out of touch with the constraints and realities of actual workplaces. In other words, the relevance and applicability of theory to practice is quite often left wanting or perceived as missing altogether.
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