Practice, proficiency, professionalism

This paper asks what makes technical communication a profession, and its practicioners professionals. Is it the skills and the proficiency with which they are practiced? Is it, for instance, the use of readability formulas to construct sentences that guarantee comprehension? The author urges technical communicators as professionals to replace practices and standards of proficiency influenced by the technical aspect of the profession with a concept of professionalism based on elegance, as derived from the humanities.