Infrastructures support and shape our social world, but they do so in often invisible ways. In few cases is that truer than with various documents that serve infrastructural functions. This article takes one type of those documents—technical standards—and uses analysis of one specific standard to develop theory related to the infrastructural function of writing. The author specifically analyzes one of the major infrastructures of the Internet of Things—the 126-page Tag Data Standard (TDS)—to show how rethinking writing as infrastructure can be valuable for multiple conversations occurring with writing studies, including research on material rhetoric, research that expands the scope of what should be studied as writing, and research in writing studies that links with emerging fields. The author concludes by developing a model for future research on the infrastructural functions of writing.

基础设施支持并塑造着我们的社会世界，但它们通常以无形的方式来实现。在少数情况下，这比具有基础结构功能的各种文档更真实。本文采用其中一种类型的文档-技术标准-并使用对一种特定标准的分析来发展与写作的基础功能有关的理论。作者专门分析了物联网的主要基础架构之一，即126页的标签数据标准（TDS），以展示将写作作为基础架构的重新思考如何对写作研究（包括材料修辞学，扩大应作为写作研究对象的研究，以及与新兴领域相关的写作研究。