Keeping the Rhetoric Orthodox: Forum Control in Science      

Academic disciplines certify knowledge through publication in scholarly journals; therefore, peer review of journal articles is one method of authorizing someone’s speech.  It is possible, however, to see peer review and other strategies as methods by which elites silence or de-authorize voices that pose a threat to their status.  This article discusses four methods of forum control--peer review, denial of forum, public correction, and published ridicule.  Examples are drawn from cases in science.

Sullivan, Dale L. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Scientific Communication>Rhetoric

Paper Technical Communicators as Facilitators of Negotiation in Controversial Technology Transfer Cases    

When Monsanto attempted to release transgenic wheat in the upper Midwest of the US, localization efforts to accommodate stakeholders were unsuccessful. This paper explores this case briefly and suggests a new role for technical communicators as negotiators of technology.

Sullivan, Dale L. IEEE PCS (2005). Articles>Intellectual Property>Collaboration>Case Studies

Political-Ethical Implications of Defining Technical Communication as a Practice  

Let me present one possible version of the history of teaching writing in the last century and a half. When the tradition of classical rhetoric was restricted to composition in the nineteenth century, teachers of writing found themselves teaching service courses, usually defined as skills courses. Furthermore, having lost touch with the classical tradition, they began to teach writing particularly suited to current needs and, by extension, to teach thought forms that imitate modern consciousness —- a form of consciousness largely molded by forms of production, or technology. As Richard Ohmann says, much modern composition instruction reflects this technological consciousness: it casts the writing process in terms of problem solving, stresses objectivity and thereby denies a writer's social responsibilities, distances the interaction between writer and reader, deals with abstract issues, and denies politics (206). As a result, teachers of writing indoctrinate students, turning them into the sorts of people who will fill the slots available in our technological society.

Sullivan, Dale L. JAC (1990). Articles>Rhetoric>History

Why Do Students Entering a Major in Technical Communication Resist the Introductory Course?  

I have been teaching HU2600, Introduction to Technical and Scientific Communication, a course in which students are introduced to the major and the profession for the last three years. Students have resisted this course during, and previous teachers report that the resistance preceded my taking over the course. I believe that students' resistance is tied, first, to the nature of technical communication education. Using C. S. Lewis's definitions, I point out that teaching the technical communication curriculum is not technically the same thing as educating the student; nor is it equivalent to offering students the chance to pursue 'learning' for its own sake. Rather, it is training aimed at producing a specialist. As such, the technical communication curriculum is what Lewis calls a composite curriculum chosen for the student by those who understand the profession better than they do. Add to this definition Jacques Ellul's claim that education in the technological society attempts to make people happy doing things they would normally not choose to do (348), and we arrive at an accurate, though unflattering, description of the project of 'educating' majors in technical communication.

Sullivan, Dale L. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>TC