Rhetoric as social act: Cicero and the technical writing model

In recent years, a new pedagogical model has arisen in the teaching of technical writing, one of “technical writing as enculturation.” A close examination of this model reveals not only its relation to the workaday world of modern technology but also its roots in classical, especially Ciceronian, rhetoric. Our awareness that the model is both modern and classical may, in fact, enable us to carry its amplification and refinement even further.