The Society for Technical Communication (STC) reports that the United States Government has acknowledged technical writers as distinct from all other writing professions, so describing myself as a technical writer distinguishes me from a plethora of other writers. The STC were not successful in getting acceptance of a name change, though; the government preferred ‘technical writer’ to the term ‘technical communication specialist’. I agree that adding the word ‘communication’ gives a better indication of what technical writers do; however, I think the word ‘writer’ more specifically describes our activities.