The Academic Job Market in Technical Communication, 2002-2003

Analysis of the academic job market in 2002-2003 reveals that 118 nationally advertised academic jobs named technical or professional communication as a primary or secondary specialization. Of the 56 in the “primary” category that we were able to contact, we identified 42 jobs filled, 10 unfilled, and 4 pending. However, only 29% of the jobs for which technical or professional communication was the primary specialization were filled by people with degrees in the field, and an even lower percent (25%) of all jobs, whether advertised for a primary or secondary specialization, were filled by people with degrees in the field. Search chairs report a higher priority on teaching and research potential than on a particular research specialization, and 62% of all filled positions involve teaching in related areas (composition, literature, or other writing courses).     

Advocating for Sustainability: A Report on and Critique of the Undergraduate Capstone Course

ABSTRACT

The authors provide an overview of what capstone courses do by presenting information from across the field based on materials received from and interviews with technical and professional communication program administrators and faculty. The authors then point to opportunities to improve the course. Finally, the authors argue for sustainable program development as the theoretical framework to perform programmatic work.     

Critical Engagement with Technology in the Computer Classroom

This article proposes a model for critically engaging technology in technical communication graduate curricula. While computers and writing studies concentrates on academic writing, the development of the field provides a model for engaging technological issues in professional and classroom contexts. Technical communicators have an ethical as well as intellectual responsibility to engage the interface between technology and culture. This article describes one example, a graduate class in information architecture, as a model for engaging the nexus of literacy, technology, and culture.     

Promoting inclusivity through and within teacher education programmes

Promoting inclusivity is a core aim for many teacher education programmes throughout the UK, USA, Canada and other highly diverse nations. However, despite this aim, teacher education programmes continue to face challenges in preparing teachers who feel confident in addressing issues of diversity and inclusivity in their classrooms. The purpose of this research was to present an in-depth examination of how one initial teacher education programme coherently promotes inclusivity through various pre-service programme structures and experiences. Data were collected from four senior programme administrators, 10 faculty members and 25 teacher candidates via interviews, focus groups and professional development journals. Results provided a complex analysis of programme coherence related to the multiple ways in which inclusivity was interpreted and experienced within the teacher education programme. Specifically, three different interpretations of inclusivity were identified across participant groups: integrative, dialogical and transgressive. Each of these interpretations were manifested in varied ways through programme structures of field-based placements, curriculum and pedagogies. Based on this analysis, the paper concludes by identifying critical issues related to the preparation of inclusive educators as a foundation for future research and teacher education development.     

Critical Engagement with Technology in the Computer Classroom

This article proposes a model for critically engaging technology in technical communication graduate curricula. While computers and writing studies concentrates on academic writing, the development of the field provides a model for engaging technological issues in professional and classroom contexts. Technical communicators have an ethical as well as intellectual responsibility to engage the interface between technology and culture. This article describes one example, a graduate class in information architecture, as a model for engaging the nexus of literacy, technology, and culture.     

Back to Basics: An Apology for Economism in Technical Writing Scholarship

An economistic version of cultural studies is important to technical writing scholarship presently because capitalism's broad trends find manifestation in and are affected by local practices like scientific and professional communication. By examining their own field against the backdrop of macroeconomic eras and pressures, technical writing theorists can obtain a better understanding of the sociocultural context in which their discipline is situated, and they can better map methods of effective political action for technical communicators.     

卓越工程师企业实践的培养模式探析

材料成型及控制工程专业卓越工程师培养计划是培养一批在本专业具有扎实基础理论和专业知识应用能力,工程素养和实践能力强的工程技术人才。因此,企业工程实践成为人才培养的一个重要环节,以本专业在共享集团的企业实践为例,对企业实践过程企业的管理、学习态度、评价机制等问题进行分析并对相关问题提出了改进措施。     

面向物联网的通信工程特色专业建设探讨

根据通信工程专业发展、国家中长期科学与技术发展规划的需要,结合学校办学特色和社会对高层次人才的迫切需求,提出面向物联网的通信工程特色专业建设方案,通过调整专业课程体系,开展研究性创新型人才培养,为国家培养全面信息化必需的高素质技术人才,为参与地方经济建设和国际前沿课题的研究提供有力的保证。     

Prediscursive Technical Communication in the Early American Iron Industry

Examining the discourse surrounding the charcoal iron industry between 1760 and 1860 in North America, this article suggests that, prior to the industrialization of work, technical communication took place in a prediscursive setting, an oral and physical world that we can just manage to glimpse even as we watch it recede. The letters of Robert Erskine written in 1770 illustrate the prediscursive methods of technical communication. By the 1860s, a flood of governmental, professional, and commercial publications appeared, each signifying the disappearance of this prediscursive world. This transition from prediscursive to discursive methods may mark one of the largest changes in the history of technical communication.     

Prediscursive Technical Communication in the Early American Iron Industry

Examining the discourse surrounding the charcoal iron industry between 1760 and 1860 in North America, this article suggests that, prior to the industrialization of work, technical communication took place in a prediscursive setting, an oral and physical world that we can just manage to glimpse even as we watch it recede. The letters of Robert Erskine written in 1770 illustrate the prediscursive methods of technical communication. By the 1860s, a flood of governmental, professional, and commercial publications appeared, each signifying the disappearance of this prediscursive world. This transition from prediscursive to discursive methods may mark one of the largest changes in the history of technical communication.     

Training Online Technical Communication Educators to Teach with Social Media: Best Practices and Professional Recommendations

ABSTRACT

The author reports on social media research in technical and professional communication (TPC) training through a national survey of 30 professional and technical communication programs asking about their use of social media in technical communication. This research forms the basis of recommendations for training online TPC faculty to teach with social media. The author offer recommendations throughout for those who train online TPC faculty as well as for the teachers themselves.     

课堂教学中完善推铅球滑步技术练习方法与手段之我见

铅球滑步技术的教学,国内外专家学者在初期教学手段上研究甚少。本文经过本人多年专业课教学及运动队训练实践,认为采用多样练习方法与手段,加大滑步练习的在课堂教学及训练中技术练习部分的比重,对建立正确的铅球技术概念和掌握合理的滑步技术以及与最后用力的衔接技术,效果比较明显。     

Educating Community Intellectuals: Rhetoric, Moral Philosophy, and Civic Engagement

This article encourages technical and professional communication programs to take on the challenge of educating students to become “community intellectuals.” The notion of educating future professionals for a career needs to be reconsidered in light of both current research concerning civic rhetoric and past practices in moral humanism courses. The triumvirate of rhetoric, ethics, and moral philosophy provides an effective foundation for reconfiguring existing pedagogy in the field and offers insights for nurturing community intellectuals.     

Response to Madelyn Flammia's “a desktop publishing course: An alternative to internships for rural universities”∗

Charettes offer a productive way of combining theory and practice to address some of the difficult matters of getting students to see and perform technical communication as students, professionals, servers, and citizens. This collaborative activity helps students prepare for an increasingly modular professional world by revealing the contingent rhetoricity of professional autonomy. Charettes can help technical writing programs and students integrate service and civic learning into the curriculum by using indigenous professional genres that actively demand stakeholder participation. The intensity and pragmatic force of charettes can assist students in building their ethos while working with fellow stakeholders. The wide range of possible documents involved in the process associated with charettes can help technical communication students and teachers explore the connections between rhetorical exigencies and genre and put their skills to good use in a culture where many are looking for new ways to build critical citizenship.     

Pedagogical Approaches: Using Charettes to Perform Civic Engagement in Technical Communication Classrooms and Workplaces

Charettes offer a productive way of combining theory and practice to address some of the difficult matters of getting students to see and perform technical communication as students, professionals, servers, and citizens. This collaborative activity helps students prepare for an increasingly modular professional world by revealing the contingent rhetoricity of professional autonomy. Charettes can help technical writing programs and students integrate service and civic learning into the curriculum by using indigenous professional genres that actively demand stakeholder participation. The intensity and pragmatic force of charettes can assist students in building their ethos while working with fellow stakeholders. The wide range of possible documents involved in the process associated with charettes can help technical communication students and teachers explore the connections between rhetorical exigencies and genre and put their skills to good use in a culture where many are looking for new ways to build critical citizenship.     

Beyond the Tyranny of the Real: Revisiting Burke's Pentad as Research Method for Professional Communication

This article answers Carl Hemdl's call for furthering critical approaches to research in professional communication by forwarding Kenneth Burke's concepts of symbolic action, dramatism, and the pentad. This article illustrates, through an analysis of data gathered in a case study of technical writers, how Burke provides us with tools that can produce more varied terministic screens for how critical researchers conceptualize, interpret, and analyze workplace communication.     

二年制高职数控技术应用专业人才培养方案

为了适应二年制高职数控专业教学改革的需要，为国家培养大批数控技术应用领域技能型紧缺人才，制定了二年制高职数控技术应用专业的人才培养方案，并介绍了该方案的特色和近期工作重点。     

Developing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Online Technical Communication Programs: Emerging Frameworks at University of Texas at El Paso

ABSTRACT

This article addresses emerging calls for online education and cross-cultural technical communication training, specifically by outlining and reporting on the development and sustainability of two online programs: the graduate online technical and professional writing certificate and the emerging undergraduate bilingual professional writing certificate at the University of Texas at El Paso. Data presented suggest cultural and linguistic diversity should be embedded and streamlined across all aspects of online technical communication programs.     

Technological Literacy: A Framework for Teaching Technical Communication Software Tools

Understanding technological literacy for technical communicators is crucial for effective pedagogy in technical and professional communication. Challenges of teaching technical communication students the functions and concepts of workplace software include the number of rapidly changing applications, a desire to focus on education over training, limited faculty expertise in software, limited resources for teaching software, and a desire to focus on technical communication principles. To address these challenges, the authors explore how to use a four-level framework of technological literacy along with existing resources to design a course to help students use, understand, and evaluate technical communication technology.     

1997、1998年师范本、专科毕业生职业道德与职业技能现状的调研报告

本文按照国家教育部面向21世纪教改计划项目要求,对近两年高师毕业生的师德和师能状况进行了调查和实证研究,分析了存在的问题,提出了改进方略：一是构建师德与师能有机结合培养的育人格局;二是提高高师院校教师素质;三是突出培养学生健康人格和良好的交际能力;四是切实引导学生自觉加强师德修养与师能锻炼;五是完善师德与师能培养的评估制度。