The concept of the "implied author" often used in literary studies suggests that the requirements of the text demand a being different in significant ways from the actual author. A number of frequently occurring situations indicate that the same concept may be relevant in technical writing: multiple authorship, single-authored texts using the first person plural pronoun, the necessity to change "voices" for different audiences, and so on. The rhetorical and linguistic conventions of the implied author are intended to sustain the truth claims of the actual author. Verbal messages almost always fulfill more than one function, and the implied author shifts the linguistic hierarchy in favor of one or more of these functions and away from others. The implied author is valuable to technical discourse, for without such a rhetorical voice, authors would have no filter, no selective device, to shape the language in the text for a reader. (JL)