#13532
Clarity in Context: Rethinking Misunderstanding 
Technical communicators are well aware of the potential for misunderstanding in their roles as communicators within organizations and as translators of information from technical to lay people. In fact, they spend much of their working lives trying to communicate clearly and avoid misunderstanding. Lack of clarity can lead to delays in completing work, to lost business, and to customer dissatisfaction. It has been blamed for everything from the delay in starting yesterday's meeting to the Challenger space shuttle disaster. If we are to address the problem of misunderstanding and try to avoid it more often, we have to understand what misunderstanding is and why it occurs.
Schneider, Barbara. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Rhetoric
#13507
In most writing classrooms, the primary activity is not writing per se, but rather the discussion of writing. You know the drill: as teachers, we create a writing assignment, introduce it during class, ask students if they have any questions, and send them off to work on the assignment. When students return to class with a draft of the assignment, we might discuss it as a class or perhaps put the students through a peer review session. But only rarely do we ask our students to actually write during class.
Palmquist, Mike. Lore (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Rhetoric
#27733
Clear as Mud: The Plot Thickens
A lot of the time, management-speak simply seems ridiculous. But campaigners for plain English say there is a more serious side to the issue.
BBC (1998). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism
#20916
Clear Writing: Ten Principles of Clear Statement
If you want to test the clearness of your writing, you may wish to consider using a 'fog index.' Fog indexes measure the complexity of writing samples, and often provide a means of calculating the reading or educational level required to understand a particular passage. Some fog indexes are available as computer software programs, or you may do the calculations yourself.
University of Missouri (1973). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism
#21344
Coherence, Context, Relevance: Special Deliverable
There are a lot of things that make deliverables good: coherence, context and relevance hardly constitute a comprehensive list. But by focusing on techniques that achieve coherence, context and relevance, information architects can address the challenges of starting a document, focusing the document and explaining its value.
Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>Rhetoric
#25935
Communicating Clearly: It Often Pays to Repeat Information
A common observation of clients who're reading first drafts of the work they've ordered is that, 'You said that once already, so we can take this sentence out.' In fact, a certain amount of redundancy helps to get the point across.
#31805
Communication Strategies for Implementing Organizational Change 
This work advances a stronger conceptual and empirical understanding of two broad, conceptual communicative treatments for implementing change: programmatic and participatory. These theoretical approaches are elucidated respectively through established communication models, activities, and strategies advanced by previous scholarship within the communication and business disciplines. In addition, conclusions are drawn about the supposed limitations and benefits of using these change implementation approaches in applied settings. This article concludes with potential strategies for advancing for research in this arena.
Russ, Travis L. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Rhetoric
#22283
Risk issues are unarguably contentious. People evaluate risks in incompatible ways and propose conflicting proposals for mitigating or litigating risk issues. The sources of contention are multiple. Sometimes people differ because they have different information; sometimes they differ because they have incompatible interests. This paper addresses one of the more philosophical and systemic bases for differing opinions and approaches: The possibility that people have fundamentally or substantially different conceptions of risk. The philosophical basis for contention over risk is most evident in the scholarly and scientific literature. Experts who study risk or risk issues are more likely to develop well-defined, internally consistent conceptions of risk than members of the lay public. If distinct philosophical and linguistic presumptions underlie competing conceptions of risk, it should be possible to formulate the contentiousness over alternatives in terms of a principled philosophical debate, with implications for risk analysis, risk evaluation and risk communication.
Thompson, Paul B. and Wesley Dean. Franklin Pierce Law Center (1996). Articles>Risk Communication>Rhetoric
#26777
Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context
Effective web design, from the simplest brochure website to the most complex web application, needs to involve an understanding of context. While user-centered design focuses on user needs/tasks, and information architecture focuses on content, these two aspects alone offer an incomplete picture. What is missing is the context: the environment in which the website or web application is used as well as the market in which it exists.
Withrow, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Audience Analysis>Rhetoric
#23831
Since 1949, when the Conference on College Composition and Communication was founded in Chicago, the terms composition and rhetoric have been linked in a social-constructionist move that is now ubiquitous in many United Statesian English departments as well as in many free-standing composition-rhetoric programs.
Welch, Kathleen E. Enculturation (2003). Articles>Education>Writing>Rhetoric
#30413
The Doublethink and Newspeak of Orwell's 1984 have counterparts in the Doublespeak that can be identified in many contemporary public documents. As technical editors, we may be confronted with documents that use Doublespeak to misdirect or deceive the reader. What is our role in dealing with such documents?
Bowermaster, Philip. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Language>Rhetoric
#29023
Confusion in the Classroom: Does Logos Mean Logic?
The redefinition of logos as an appeal to logic is a mistaken association found all too often in the technical communication classroom. Logic inheres in all three proofs of persuasion; moreover, Aristotle used <em>logos</em> within the context of classical rhetoric to refer to the argument or speech itself. In this light, the proofs of persuasion represent the set of all logical means whereby the speaker can lead a "right-thinking" audience to infer <em>something</em>. If that <em>something</em> is an emotion, the appeal is to <em>pathos</em>; if it is about the character of the speaker, the appeal is to <em>ethos</em>; and if it is about the argument or speech itself, the appeal is to <em>logos</em>. This interpretation reinstates all three proofs of persuasion as legitimate, logical means to different proximate ends and provides a coherent definition of <em>logos</em>, consonant with Aristotle's <em>Rhetoric</em>, to the next generation of technical communicators.
Little, Joseph. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>TC>Education>Rhetoric
#19812
Content vs. Product: The Effects of Single Sourcing on the Teaching of Technical Communication
Identifies and discusses the effects of single sourcing on the writing process. Provides suggestions for incorporating the teaching of single sourcing into technical communication courses
Eble, Michelle F. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Rhetoric
#13508
Contexts and Criteria for Evaluating Student Writing 
Of all responsibilities you have as a composition instructor, evaluating student writing occupies most of your time and has furthest reaching material effects. Though you may spend lots of hours preparing for class, conferencing with your students, and actually teaching, chances are you'll spend many more grading. Though we instructors often place the highest value on the content and methods of our classrooms--be they critical pedagogy and Marxist interpretations of Clinton's impeachment trials or traditional grammar drills and a New Critical reading of Paradise Lost, the grades that we assign our students are the only concrete, as well as the most valuable, cultural capital that our teaching creates.
Hindman, Jane. Lore (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Rhetoric
#27339
Control the pace of the story by varying sentence length.
Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Grammar>Rhetoric
#13852
Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press
Drawing upon publications in the French press, this article considers three interweaving themes that characterized the construction of the Euro Disney park. It then offers an analysis of the historical context for and the implications of the park's construction, using the literature of French cultural studies and cross-cultural studies for support. It concludes with a discussion of the possible consequences to the company of Disney's negative image in the French press.
Forman, Janis. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Rhetoric>Branding
#13608
Corporatespeak: Deconstructing the New Language of Business
Business has a language all its own that changes almost daily. It is a language that is limiting, that denies possibility, and that excludes creative thinking. It is also the language with which industry players must grapple in their struggle to make money from new technology.
Leiper, Jeff. Writer's Block (2002). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric
#19450
Creating a Writer's Identity on the Boundaries of Two Communities of Practice
In this case study, we explore the way one student, who aspired to become a professional writer, learned through her writing activity in two communities: academia and public relations. We use activity theory to conceptualize the student's learning as an activity that balances between individual agency in meaning making and the social, historical and cultural forces that shape how individuals make meaning. Perceiving the two settings as communities of practice that provided opportunities for pursuing shared enterprises and engaging in collective learning, we show how the student's simultaneous participation in these contrasting communities challenged and refined her understanding of what it means to be an effective writer . We discuss how the work she engaged in on the boundaries of two writing communities enhanced her developing identity as a professional writer as she became aware of and tested the limitations of writing in these two communities. Our study shows the benefit of providing opportunities for teachers and students to explore how contrasting communities of practice define successful writing activity and how writing activity operates in the cultural and political sphere of each community.
Ketter, Jean and Judy Hunter. WAC Clearinghouse (2002). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric
#30850
Creating Appropriate Graphics for Business Situations
Charts and graphs are ubiquitous in business documents, and most students in my business communication courses are well aware that they need to be able to create many different types of data representation. Most of them have had a great deal of experience working with spreadsheet applications, and they know how to manipulate data and present it in the various forms permitted by their software.
Katz, Susan M. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Charts and Graphs
#24978
Creating the Vision: Developing Graphic Strategies
Making documentation more visual is a two phase process. First comes the brainstorming, where ideas bubble up: the weird the funny, the wonderful, the breakthrough, the lame brain — no idea discriminated against, all equally enjoying the bright, spring air of the creative process. Once You begin to brainstorm you may find putting concepts into graphics is easier than you thought. Then comes the second phase: the hard realization that even if you throw out all the crazy ideas, you still have to pick and choose. You have to develop a strategy for graphic use, one that goes beyond the basic visual unity a good graphic designer can give a document. You have to see the graphics in light of the user's need.
Malone, Jacquelyn. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Visual Rhetoric
#14031
The Creation of Metaphor: A Case for Figurative Language in Technical Writing Classes
It may perhaps seem strange to speak of metaphor in the same breath as instruction in technical writing. But based on Professor Mary Rosner's observations about changes in technical writing, as they are reflected historically in textbooks since the 1920s, and on my own perceptions of directions in technical writing today, I could justifiably assert that we have nearly come full circle.1 In the beginning was the word. When technical writing first began to be separated from other advanced writing courses, it retained many of the strategies and approaches of Advanced Exposition courses—the study of rhetoric, logical organization, conventions, formats. Early texts show this connection. Later, as technical writing teachers began to pursue their own directions in research, their teaching approaches and the textbooks they created began to reflect new discoveries and directions: psycholinguistics crept in; more materials on audience analysis began to show up in texts; management psycholoy of Abraham Maslow and others appeared; conventional report formats were reflected; readability formulas became a staple of textbooks. But for a while, rhetorical approaches still held sway. Today, of course, only a few commentators will argue for some return to the older liberal arts traditions, myself among them. But these few are a vocal lot.
Catron, Douglas M. JAC (1983). Articles>Education>Rhetoric>Tropes
#19487
If a university follows the learning paradigm, critical thinking is not offered as 'a course' or a selection of courses in the core curriculum, but is incorporated into every college course. If this paradigm were to assume dominance at universities, as I believe it should, not only would the work of university faculty be significantly different, but this shift would also affect the responsibilities of university administrators and students, as well as local community members.
Sapp, David Alan. Inventio (2002). Articles>Education>Rhetoric
#24969
A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Visual Literacy Challenges for Technical Communicators
Many emerging nations have pre-technological cultures. These nations are striving to develop a new technological literacy that is heavily dependent on visual literacy, or the ability to 'read' images. This paper discusses some challenges for technical communicators in presenting technical graphics to users who are not fully functional in learned Western conventions and skills of pictorial representation, pictorial literacy, and pictorial perception aspects such as conceptualization, perspective and depth, scale, and analysis of component details.
Ausburn, Floyd B. and Lynna J. Ausburn. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Communication>Visual Rhetoric
#20027
Crossing a Bridge of Shyness: Public Speaking for Communicators
Americans in general are more afraid of speaking in front of others than they are of snakes, heights, or death itself. That's the finding of one widely cited survey and, asked to step outside the written word, many writers, editors, and publications managers certainly would say they share that fear. Communication expert Nusa Maal Gelb says there is 'a culture of fear' surrounding public speaking. It's almost as if we believe we're supposed to be afraid. Yet it's clear that effective interpersonal communication -- and that mostly means speaking -- correlates highly with personal and professional success.
Ullius, Diane. Editorial Eye, The (2003). Articles>Rhetoric>Presentations
#14909
A Cubist Approach to Analyzing Interpretive Communities
Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive communities has been highly regarded for the past two decades. This paper deals with the idea of multiple interpretive communities as they relate to technical communicators. Technical communicators have a duty to use rhetorical devices and embedded structural cues to help readers identify the correct interpretive framework.
Connolly, Brianne. Orange Journal, The (2002). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory
