The Lack of Annual Report Analysis on a Social, Political and Historical Basis

One area of rhetorical analysis of business writing that seems to be neglected is the analysis of annual reports on the social, political, and historical level. An admittedly-brief four hour review of on-line technical journals and academic articles on the subject of annual report analysis failed to produce a single article directly related to this subject. The only articles that I did find dealt with the analysis of contemporary annual reports on a financial basis. However, my research did uncover an article on the teaching of the conventions of business writing, such as annual reports, and an article on reconstructing the image and narrative in distressed organizations.

Remali, Peter. Michigan Tech University (1998). Articles>Business Communication>History

Legally Speaking: Did MGM Really Win the Grokster Case?  

MGM's media blitz has given the impression that the entertainment industry won an overwhelming and broad victory against peer to peer (p2p) file sharing and file sharing technologies when the Supreme Court announced its decision in the MGM v. Grokster case on June 27, 2005. MGM can, of course, point to the 9-0 vote that vacated the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that Grokster could not be charged with contributory infringement because it qualified for a safe harbor established by the Supreme Court in 1984 in its Sony v. Universal decision (see my Legally Speaking column of June 2005). The safe harbor protects technology developers who know, or have reason to know, that their products are being widely used for infringing purposes, as long as the technologies have, or are capable of, substantial noninfringing uses (SNIUs). The Court in Grokster saw no need to revisit the Sony safe harbor. However, it directed the lower courts to consider whether Grokster actively induced users to infringe copyrights, a different legal theory.

Samuelson, Pamela. University of California Berkeley (2006). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>History

Machine Translation Today and Tomorrow  

The field of machine translation (MT) was the pioneer research area in computational linguistics during the 1950s and 1960s. When it began, the assumed goal was the automatic translation of all kinds of documents at a quality equalling that of the best human translators. It became apparent very soon that this goal was impossible in the foreseeable future.

Hutchins, W. John. Gardez Vlg (2002). Articles>Language>History>Machine Translation

March 1, 2000, through June 30, 2000  

This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from March 1, 2000, through June 30, 2000.

Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2000). Articles>History>TC

March 1, 2001, through July 15, 2001  

This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from March 1, 2001, through July 15, 2001.

Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2001). Articles>History>TC

A Methodology for Streamlining Historical Research: The Analysis of Technical and Scientific Publications      

This article provides a framework for organizing and structuring the research of historical researchers who analyze technical and scientific publications. Because historical research spans both decades and centuries, an effective research methodology is essential. The framework consists of a multifaceted 10-step method for studying the written discourse of scientific and technical communication, specifically for interpreting historical data obtained from articles published in technical and scientific journals. The method is a reliable means for making sense of the enormous body of data that awaits historical researchers in the volumes of scientific and technical discourse already published.

Battalio, John T. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2001). Articles>History

The Myth of 'Seven, Plus or Minus 2'

This article proposes that the optimal number of menu items cannot be reduced to the generalized 'Magic Seven, Plus or Minus Two' (7±2). The author proposes that instead, when planning a site information architecture, the two most important considerations are breadth versus depth and the display of information.

Kalbach, James. Dr. Dobb's (2002). Articles>Information Design>History>Cognitive Psychology

Navigating Change in Turbulent Times  

This panel presentation addresses three questions: What changes/forces are shaping technical communication? What skills will we need to meet the changes in technical communication? What strategies can we use to maintain a sense of balance as we move to meet these changes?

Cheirrett, Peg A., Debbie L. Scroggs and Mary L. Eschen. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>TC>History

October 15, 2001, through January 15, 2002  

This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from October 15, 2001, through January 15, 2002.

Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2002). Articles>History>TC

On Material Rhetorics and the Canon of Memoria: Rethinking the History (and Future) of Rhetoric  

This presentation looks to the past to explain the present lack of attention given to memory and to imagine a possible future for the canon in contemporary rhetoric with the inclusion of the study of material rhetorics, or a comprehensive inquiry of situated things produced in cultural contexts that investigates both the material dimension in rhetoric and rhetorical dimension in the material. To this end, this essay summarizes noted reasons for memoria's limited study in contemporary rhetoric; revisits classic rhetoric's memoria and mines it for features worth recuperating for contemporary study; introduces material rhetoric and its potential to recuperate memoria in light of these features; and calls for further discussion of material rhetoric, the canon of memory, and the place of both in the study of rhetoric.

Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2007). Articles>Rhetoric>History>Theory

Patterns for Success: A Lesson in Usable Design from U.S. Patent Records    

This article investigates the design history of certain published artifacts—women's household sewing patterns—as that history is recorded in U.S. Patent Records. When a patented item is a published artifact, the U.S. Patent Record may contain valuable information on the author's perception of users and analysis of solutions for usability problems. This case illustrates the evolution toward a single standard despite early proprietary design solutions.

Durack, Katherine T. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Intellectual Property>Patents>History

Peek Into the Past: 90 Years of Technical Communication    

Take a look at your bookshelf: what is the copyright date of your earliest book on technical communication? I doubt whether you will find anything much earlier than 1965. I describe and comment briefly on several well-reputed technical writing books published between 1908 and 1965. Then I lead into the changes that have been occurring in the technical writing scene, and the impact these changes have had on us as professional technical communicators.

Blicq, Ronald S. IEEE PCS (2000). Articles>TC>History

The Plain Style in the Seventeenth Century: Gender and the History of Scientific Discourse    

This article analyzes the statements on plain style made by Royal Society writers and seventeenth-century women writers. Using scholarship in feminist rhetorical theory, the article concludes that Royal Society plain stylists constructed scientific discourse as a masculine form of discourse by purging elements that were associated with femininity, such as emotional appeals. The article also discusses how women writers, particularly Margaret Cavendish, embraced a plain style more out of concern for their audience than out of a desire to eliminate undesirable feminine attributes. The implications of this historical study for understanding of current practice are noted.

Tillery, Denise. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2005). Articles>Scientific Communication>History>Minimalism

Plastic Language for Plastic Science: The Rhetoric of Comrade Lysenko    

Rhetoric of science reveals the role of rhetoric in the complex social enterprise that is standard science. Rhetoric plays a role in non-standard science too. The recent elucidation of the human genetic code calls to mind an earlier, tragic episode in the history of genetics, Lysenkoism in Stalinist Russia. It involved the repudiation of standard science in favor of an insular, intuitive, and anti-intellectual science called agrobiology which supposedly could shape agricultural productivity to political will. The tragedy is that careers were ruined and millions suffered starvation as the new science failed to bear its predicted fruit. Whether seen as a debased rhetoric of science or as a rhetoric of debased science, it assumed that language is plastic and can support a plastically reconceived science that reflected the plasticity of nature itself. This plastic rhetoric is strikingly similar to Plato s view of sophism, which of course differs considerably from contemporary views of sophism.

Dombrowski, Paul M. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>Rhetoric>History

Podcasting: The Devastating Lows, the Dizzying Highs, the Creeeeeeeamy Middles

I'm going to introduce podcasting via talking about its history, and work through what a podcast actually is. Then I'll talk about our experience podcasting WE05, both from a practical and a business point of view. The overarching theme of this presentation will be podcasting from the broadcaster's point of view. For info about podcasting from the listener's point of view, check this page here.

Sherrin, Maxine. Western Civilization (2005). (Afrikaans) Articles>Web Design>History>Podcasting

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

Post-Cognitivist HCI: Second-Wave Theories    

Historically, the dominant paradigm in HCI, when it appeared as a field in early 80s, was information processing ('cognitivist') psychology. In recent decades, as the focus of research moved beyond information processing to include how the use of technology emerges in social, cultural and organizational contexts, a variety of conceptual frameworks have been proposed as candidate theoretical foundations for 'second-wave' HCI and CSCW. The purpose of this panel is to articulate similarities and differences between some of the leading 'post-cognitivist' theoretical perspectives: language/ action, activity theory, and distributed cognition.

Kaptelinin, Victor, Bonnie A. Nardi, Susanne Bodker, John M. Carroll, Jim Hollan, Edwin Hutchins and Terry Winograd. ACM SIGCHI (2003). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>History

The Prison That Was a Highway: The National Information Infrastructure

This paper explores two metaphors accompanying the birth of the Internet as a mass communication medium: Al Gore's Information Superhighway and Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a prison ruled with convert surveillance.

Eliot, Matthew J. EServer (2001). Articles>Internet>History

Publishing — The Way We Were  

Five experienced technical communicators will look back on changes in the field of publishing, sharing knowledge of the old ways, comparing them with what’s current, and examining how we all can benefit from both the old and the new.

Cox, Alberta L., Donald W. Bush, Elizabeth Babcock, David Dobson and Lola Zook. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Publishing>History

Publishing Futures Within (or Without) the Humanities

Humanities disciplines have attributed enormous importance to scholarly publishing, but have not yet sufficiently examined the changes of circumstance which have re-formed the nature and interests of the publishing industry in recent decades.

Sauer, Geoffrey. Society for Critical Exchange (1999). Articles>Publishing>Assessment>History

Ranganathan for Information Architects

S.R. Ranganathan was the greatest librarian of the 20th Century. His ideas influenced every aspect of library science, yet, as impressive as his accomplishments were, Ranganathan didn't start out with the intention of becoming a librarian at all.

Steckel, Mike. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>History

(Re)Constructing Arguments: Classical Rhetoric and Roman Engineering Reflected in Vitruvius' De Architectura    

Augustus is often described as the emperor who transformed Rome from a city of brick to a city of marble. When he returned victorious to Rome in BCE 29, Augustus embarked on a project to rebuild Rome with the splendor its new imperial status demanded. Despite the tranquility and prosperity enjoyed by most Romans during the Early Empire, many also felt a sense of loss. Much had changed in their social order at the end of the Republic. The nobility and the lower classes began to share more interests and Roman society took on a more egalitarian and commercial nature. Under Emperor Augustus, the function of rhetoric was stripped from legislative arenas and confined mainly to legal courts and ceremonial competitions. In the spirit of renewed patriotism and pragmatism, principles of rhetoric were also applied to writing about technical subjects, such as engineering and architecture. Both Vitruvius and Cicero used his writing to persuade Roman citizens to reclaim their heritage: of building arts in Vitruvius case; of philosophy and meaningful public oratory in Cicero s case.

Longo, Bernadette. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>History>Italy

Reading Darwin, Reading Nature; or, On the Ethos of Historical Science  

Darwin must be read and reread, interpreted and reinterpreted. We find this attention to a body of work that is well over a hundred years old to be highly unusual and worth investigating.

Miller, Carolyn R. and S. Michael Halloran. North Carolina State University (1993). Articles>Scientific Communication>History>Rhetoric

Review: Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century  

Ever wonder about the relationship between academia and the corporate world? Or if you are on the corporate side (as I am), have you wondered why academia operates as it does? (And vice versa.) If so, Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century offers great insights that may help you gain an understanding of how each world operates, why they operate as they do, and how the two worlds influence and can alter the future of technical communication.

Staples, Jeff. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Reviews>TC>History