By Amanda Bingham, PTW Intern and MA Student
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Lourdes Fernandez, a George Mason graduate and former faculty member, to gain some insight into her time in the Professional and Technical Writing (PTW) program and to hear her perspective on the industry as a professional working in policy research.
Beginning her academic journey as a finance major, Lourdes worked for a number of years as a budget analyst before earning her master's in English literature. Wanting to focus on editing and technical writing, she entered the PTW program at George Mason and graduated with the Graduate Certificate in PTW in 2008. She then returned to George Mason in 2014 to pursue her PhD in Writing and Rhetoric, spending eight years as a student and eventual faculty member teaching courses in technical writing and rhetorical theory. Currently, Lourdes has made a transition out of academia and works as a survey researcher at a policy research firm.
When asked about how her time as a student has informed her current perspective on PTW, Lourdes shared that her perspective on writing hinges on writing as a "social and cultural practice" existing within a complex context and ecosystem. "I think that's what the tech comm certificate did for me," she said, "it made me understand how writing is a social and cultural practice, and technical communication itself can be situated in a workplace context. And if you understand that about it, you can be not only a much better technical writer, but a much better analyst and strategic thinker of how documents and people and interfaces and power dynamics all work together."
This is a thread that runs through much of her thinking on technical writing, beginning in the theoretical background she gained while at George Mason, including actor-network theory and rhetorical genre studies, and now applicable to her work in survey methodology and design. "I think I always got more out of the classes that are high in theory, not because they're particularly practical, but because they help me reframe how I think. And in the end very good technical communicators know how to think... they know how to strategically put a bunch of disparate things together in a way that meets the exigence."
But what about some practical advice for writers? First, Lourdes says, take advantage of your electives to gain that theoretical and methodological background. "You can always learn the tools, but it's much harder to get the theoretical and ethical frameworks after you're in the workplace." Second, embrace feedback as a part of the writing process. "As good technical writers," Lourdes notes, "[we] are ok with feedback that can be harsh, or that can be very, very specific." Finally, don’t be afraid of writing new things. You never know where your writing journey might take you.
April 28, 2025