The Dynamic Uncertainty of Hazardous Environments

But the uncertainties of wording and interpretation also reflect the material, geographic, and institutional uncertainties of a hazardous environment. 

Given the complexity and uncertainty of the geographic, material, and social environment in which they work, it is perhaps not surprising that inspectors produce incomplete and uncertain accounts of their experience. 

The Health and Safety Executive s report on the Bilsthorpe disaster stresses the unpredictability of rock behavior, the uncertainty of prediction, and the suddenness of the fall  

The problems of uncertainty and instability are multiplied in a large mine. A typical mine may have seventeen different sections working at the same time to develop three parallel entries or tunnels that are driven into the coal bed. Each tunnel is connected by crosscuts that produce the effect of a large honeycomb or set of interlocking chambers. In an active mine, stresses on the rock interact in three dimensions—changing the structure of the mine with each human cut, explosion, or rock fall. 

In such an environment, documents that construct a fixed and certain image of geographical space have only historical and limited value unless they are constantly updated. (Chapter 8 describes this problem in detail.) Con- 

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This chapter provides a brief overview of the most important sources of rhetorical uncertainty in technical documentation in the workplace the dynamic uncertainty of hazardous environments the variability and unreliability of human performance the uncertainty of what one agency calls premium data uncertainty in social structures and organizations and the rhetorical incompleteness of any single viewpoint. As the examples in this chapter demonstrate, the material and institutional uncertainty of hazardous environments affects documentation practices at all levels. But documentation practices can also contribute to uncertainty, particularly when writers depend too heavily on agency conventions to structure recommendations and conclusions. 

As Selber (1999) points cjut, researchers in technical communication have resisted rationalistic approaches that are blatantly system centered. Thus, despite what seems like a natural alliance in investigating the nature of deliberation, communication, and probabilistic reasoning in the context of high levels of ethical and political uncertainty, rhetorical theorists have not taken advantage of the insights and research findings of risk specialists to understand the nature of decision making in uncertain, dynamic, and hazardous environments. 

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