Research and Consulting in Technical Communication

Beginning with the premise that consultants occupy a strategic position for observing how research results are generated, applied, modified, or ignored in technical communication practice, this article reports on a project using interviews with seven successful consultants to gather insights into the creation and circulation of new knowledge in our field. The interviews revealed a surprising degree of uncertainty about the state of research in technical communication and the relationship of formal research to workplace experience.     

Three Recent Books on Research Methods in Technical Communication

ABSTRACT

In his 2013 article “Slow Ideas,” Harvard professor and MacArthur fellow Atul Gawande discusses two forms of disciplinary change. He describes two surgical innovations from the mid-19^th century, and traces why one (anesthesia) was easily and rapidly adopted, whereas the other (antiseptic) was accepted only slowly, over the course of decades. This happened because the more significant innovation (antiseptic) required a fundamental redefinition of the profession of surgery, including a significant rethinking of the field’s methods and values. Instead of “warriors against disease,” surgeons needed to become scrupulously sterile practitioners of cleanliness—and many, advanced in their careers, resisted such a change. This article contents that usability and user experience represent a similarly slow change in the field of techncial communication, and that we are still in the midst of transformations within our discipline which may require similar redefinition of scholarly work within this field.     

Technical Communication Research: From Traditional to Virtual

Researchers in technical communication have recently begun to take advantage of the interactions taking place via computer-mediated communication as a rich source for research. Yet, although research in cyberspace is growing, there are few guidelines for researchers to follow. This article reviews three forms of technical communication research methods (ethnography, rhetorical analysis, and surveys) and raises preliminary issues to consider when using such research methods in cyberspace. These issues include privacy and author permissions.     

Electronic Databases for Technical and Professional Communication Research

Electronic databases provide access to resources in business, communication, education, applied science and technology, and the social sciences. This article identifies the databases that monitor the journals most frequently cited by technical and professional communication researchers.     

The Impact of the Internet and Digital Technologies on Teaching and Research in Technical Communication

Technical communication practices have been changed dramatically by the increasingly ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. Yet, while those who work in the profession have been living through this dramatic change, our academic discipline has been moving at a slower pace, at times appearing quite unsure about how to proceed. This article focuses on the following three areas of opportunity for change in our discipline in relation to digital technologies: access and expectations, scholarship and community building, and accountability and partnering.     

Extralocating Faculty in Technical Communication

Tenure-line faculty—teaching onsite or online—are typically perceived as resident scholars and instructors who live local to their institutions. A geographically diversified tenure-line faculty, however, could also serve the education of students by bringing a wider array of influences and opportunities to the online classroom. Programs in technical communication must examine how to incorporate extralocated faculty and how to prepare willing and eligible faculty for extralocated teaching, research, and service.     

Climate Change Research Across Disciplines: The Value and Uses of Multidisciplinary Research Reviews for Technical Communication

The authors performed an interdisciplinary literature review of research on communication and climate change. The authors reviewed STEM, social science, and risk analysis journals to synthesize recent publications on climate change communication which could support research in technical communication. Several applications are proposed for technical communication research, including using this review to contextualize local qualitative work, to spur interdisciplinary projects and address gaps in multidisciplinary literature, and reconsider a role for advocacy in technical communication.     

What's Civic About Technical Communication? Technical Communication and the Rhetoric of Community

Although the concept of community has been advanced in technical communication as a moral reference point for civic rhetorical action, this concept is typically used in romantic, redemptive, and essentializing ways. This article argues for a radical and symbolic/rhetorical view of community, regarding it a discursive construct purposefully invoked by technical writers for strategic reasons.     

Emergent Feminist Technical Communication

The feminist approaches to technical communication that have emerged recently are largely liberal feminist or radical feminist in orientation. Liberal feminism arises out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and emphasizes equality and rights. It sees that women's opportunities to develop their intellects and talents and participate freely in the world of men have been thwarted by discriminatory practices. Radical feminism, in contrast, emphasizes differences between women and men, the limitations of patriarchal culture, and the characteristics of women's ways of communicating and knowing. The essays included in this issue, while multidimensional, primarily exhibit characteristics of both liberal and radical feminism.     

Emergent Feminist Technical Communication

The feminist approaches to technical communication that have emerged recently are largely liberal feminist or radical feminist in orientation. Liberal feminism arises out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and emphasizes equality and rights. It sees that women's opportunities to develop their intellects and talents and participate freely in the world of men have been thwarted by discriminatory practices. Radical feminism, in contrast, emphasizes differences between women and men, the limitations of patriarchal culture, and the characteristics of women's ways of communicating and knowing. The essays included in this issue, while multidimensional, primarily exhibit characteristics of both liberal and radical feminism.     

The US Intelligence Community's Mathematical Ideology of Technical Communication

Reading historical intelligence community documents primarily through the lens of Kenneth Burke's essay “Semantic and Poetic Meaning,” this article explores the history and stakes of the intelligence community's ongoing commitment to a problematic model of language use. The essay argues that the intelligence community's pursuit of a “mathematical” ideology of language is an attempt to render language “neutral” and to divorce rhetoric from ethics in ways that Burke anticipated, and with negative consequences for the generation of written intelligence reports and national policy decisions.     

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).     

The CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication: A Retrospective Analysis

This article presents the history, purposes, outcomes, and significance of the CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication during its first five years. It analyzes the topical areas and research methods of the 34 dissertations nominated for the award from 1999 to 2003, as well as the evaluations of the judges. Methods of the nominated dissertations are interpretive (41%) and empirical (59%), but many dissertations combine methods. In the empirical category, qualitative methods (17) outnumber quantitative methods (3). The most frequent topical areas are workplace practice (8), rhetoric of the disciplines (7), and information design (6). Topics that are not widely investigated include issues of race and class and international communication.     

试析我国国有银行信息管理系统的技术发展

主要从计算机技术方面谈一谈我国国有银行信息管理系统的发展及各系统的特点。     

Video Games as Technical Communication Ecology

With an ecological approach to the genres that circulate within communities of practice, this article traces the overlap between technical communication and online gaming communities in terms of their rhetorical uses of technical communication genres. Through shared practices, technologies, and epistemologies, online gaming environments call upon gamers to become technical communicators and provide opportunities for technical communicators to apply their expertise within the gaming industry.