…or do we really need a new word?

Other person: “What do you do?”

Me: “I’m a writer.”

Other: “Oh? What do you write?”

Me: “I do a lot of technical writing, along with…”

Other: “Technical writing? What’s that?”

Because exchanges like this are all too common for me, and because there is no single word that describes the types of writing that fall under the technical writing umbrella, I’ve taken advantage of my constitutional and Web 2.0-sanctioned right to:

• Coin a single word — infowriting – and
• Assign a straightforward definition to this simple Web 2.0 word — writing that aims to get work done, to change people by changing the way they do things (Killingsworth and Gilbertson)

Infowriting works for me. What do you think?