Institutionally Mapping Professional Writing  

We think it is critically important-especially in a time of declining budgets-for professional writing programs to position themselves in a vital and robust location in the university, and probably outside it as well. What institutional location(s) can best guarantee that professional writing thrive, and also provide it an opportunity to have significant impact?

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and James E. Porter. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Shaping Local HIV/AIDS Services Policy through Activist Research: The Problem of Client Involvement      

This article argues that professional writing researchers can help shape public policy by understanding policy making as a function of institutionalized rhetorical processes and by using an activist research stance to help generate the knowledge necessary to intervene. My goal is to argue for what activist technical writing research might look like, lay out an understanding of institutions that is helpful for influencing public policy, and illustrate the promises and the problems of both positions by using the case of a study focused on local HIV/AIDS policy making. According to this way of thinking, professional writing researchers can impact policy by helping change the processes by which policy gets made.

Grabill, Jeffrey T. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>Biomedical

Sites of Critical Action for Technical & Professional Writing: Community, Corporation, Curriculum, Computing  

Our presentation will explore four potential sites of critical action for programs in technical and professional writing/communication: community, corporation, curriculum, and computing. Some of these sites have already received attention in the field (e.g., corporation); other sites are relatively un(or under-) examined (e.g., community).

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and James E. Porter. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>TC

Toward a Critical Rhetoric of Risk Communication: Producing Citizens and the Role of Technical Communicators      

In this article, we build on arguments in risk communication that the predominant linear risk communication models are problematic for their failure to consider audience and additional contextual issues. The 'failure' of these risk communication models has led, some scholars argue, to a number of ethical and communicative problems. We seek to extend the critique, arguing that 'risk' is socially constructed. The claim for the social construction of risk has significant implications for both risk communication and the roles of technical communicators in risk situations. We frame these implications as a 'critical rhetoric' of risk communication that (1) dissolves the separation of risk assessment from risk communication to locate epistemology within communicative processes; (2) foregrounds power in risk communication as a way to frame ethical audience involvement; (3) argues for the technical communicator as one possessing the research and writing skills necessary for the complex processes of constructing and communicating risk.

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and W. Michele Simmons. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Communication>Risk Communication