ABSTRACT
In 2009, Becky Jo Gesteland (McShane) argued that technical writers were uniquely situated to write Extensible Markup Language (XML) code because they could create their own tags using a metalanguage built with semantic tags. Ten years later she continues to maintain that in spite its automation (through various content management systems and WYSIWYG processing tools), XML remains a relevant language to teach students the rhetorical strategies involved in writing code, in organizing content, and in structuring information architectures. Moreover, the act of hand-coding reinforces the technical skills necessary for graduates to function in today’s workplace.
