Why Technical Writers Should Read "Women in Technical Communication"

From typewriters to touchscreens, Sharon Burton has collected a history of experiences written by the women who did the work

Technical communication sometimes behaves as if it sprang fully formed from the forehead of Silicon Valley sometime around the invention of the help file. It did not. It was built over decades by people doing the work, adapting to change, and figuring things out long before someone slapped the word “innovation” on a conference slide.

That is why Women in Technical Communication: From Typewriters to Touchscreens: a history by the women who did the work, edited by Sharon Burton, deserves a place on every technical writer’s reading list.

This anthology brings together firsthand stories from women who helped shape the profession across more than fifty years of change. From typewriters to PCs to smartphones, these contributors did not merely observe the field evolving. They built careers in it, influenced it, and in many cases helped define it. Which is more than can be said for the occasional modern pundit who has been in the field for eleven minutes and is already announcing its complete reinvention. 😆

What makes this book valuable is that it preserves the voices of the women who did the work

Not the sanitized corporate version. Not the after-the-fact summary. Their own words. Their own experiences. Their own accounts of building careers, leading change, and making space for themselves in workplaces that were not always eager to make room.

Technical communicators document everything except their own history. We preserve processes, systems, and product knowledge with almost religious devotion, but somehow leave the story of our own profession sitting unlabeled in a cardboard box. This book helps fix that.

It also offers perspective at exactly the right time! As tech writers wrestle with AI, automation, and yet another round of people insisting the profession must now become something entirely new, this anthology reminds us that change is not new. Reinvention is not new. The need to adapt without losing the plot is not new.

Newer technical writers should read this book to understand the roots of the profession. Experienced practitioners should read it for recognition and context. Leaders should read it because professions are built by people over time, not by tools, hype, or somebody’s aggressively branded framework.

If you care about technical communication as a discipline, not just a job title, buy this book. Read it because the field needs memory. Read it because the women who helped build it deserve to be heard. Read it because a profession that forgets its own history is doomed to keep rediscovering itself like a man who loses his glasses while wearing them.

Women in Technical Communication, edited by Sharon Burton, is published by XML Press. Release date: March 30, 2026. Paperback: US $45.95. Ebook: US $29.95.

Contributors List