In this article, I argue that technical reporting and documentation processes function to mitigate uncertainty and enable complex systems in the endeavor of big science. The argument draws on two years of field research investigating technical reporting and documentation processes at a federally funded supercomputing center dedicated to scientific research. A central question the study sought to answer was, “How does one build a new supercomputer?” One of the answers that emerged is that supercomputers are built by the genre assemblages of documents that mitigate financial, political, and technological uncertainties, and their attendant risks, that are inherent to technoscientific cutting-edge enterprises. Given their centrality, these genre assemblages function as essential infrastructure for the U.S. national laboratory system and for big science endeavors in general. In conclusion, this article argues that documentation that mitigates uncertainty serves an important infrastructural function for organizational life more generally.

在本文中，我认为技术报告和文档编制流程的作用是减轻不确定性，并在大科学的努力下启用复杂的系统。该论证基于两年的实地研究，该研究是在联邦政府资助的专门从事科学研究的超级计算中心进行技术报告和文档编制过程的调查。该研究试图回答的一个核心问题是：“如何构建新的超级计算机？” 出现的答案之一是，超级计算机是由各种类型的文档构建而成的，这些文档减轻了技术科学前沿企业固有的财务，政治和技术不确定性以及随之而来的风险。鉴于它们的中心性，这些类型的组合对于美国来说是必不可少的基础设施 国家实验室体系和一般的大型科学工作。总之，本文认为减轻不确定性的文档对于组织生活起着更重要的基础作用。