The Big Chill: Seven Technical Communicators Talk Ten Years After Their Master's Program    

Recounts the experiences of seven professionals entering the field and the ways their perceptions of the profession and roles within it have changed. Explores the variety of roles technical communicators are expected to assume

Wilson, Greg and Julie Dyke Ford. Technical Communication Online (2003). Academic>Education>Graduate

Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory    

This article uses qualitative material gathered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to construct a model of the rhetorical activity that occurs at the boundaries between diverse communities of practice working on complex sociotechnical systems. The authors reinterpret the notion of the boundary object current in science studies as a rhetorical construct that can foster cooperation and communication among the diverse members of heterogeneous working groups. The knowledge maps constructed by team members at LANL in their work on technical systems are boundary objects that can replace the demarcation exigence that so often leads to agonistic rhetorical boundary work with an integrative exigence. The integrative exigence realized by the boundary object of the knowledge map can help create a temporary trading zone characterized by rhetorical relations of symmetry and mutual understanding. In such cases, boundary work can become an effort involving integration and understanding rather than contest, controversy, and demarcation.

Wilson, Greg and Carl G. Herndl. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Collaboration>Rhetoric

Technical Communication and Late Capitalism: Considering a Postmodern Technical Communication Pedagogy    

This article proposes a postmodern reconceptualization of technical communication pedagogy to make student and professional agency a major concern, especially because technical communicators must compete in a global economy that rewards flexibility and penalizes inflexibility. Postmodern mapping metaphors and Robert Reich's methodology for training 'symbolic-analytic' workers are used to suggest ways in which a postmodern approach to technical communication could be taught.

Wilson, Greg. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>TC>Education