A Laboratory in Citizenship: Service Learning in the Technical Communication Classroom    

This article presents an argument for and offers illustrations of service learning in technical communication courses and curricula. Alongside traditional internships that prepare students as future employees, service learning provides students with an education in engaged citizenship. This article reviews service-learning literature, discussing specifically the advantages of projects to students, faculty, and the community. The authors also describe three projects in which instructors and students integrated service learning and technical communication in innovative ways.

Sapp, David Alan and Robbin D. Crabtree. Technical Communication Quarterly (2002). Articles>TC>Service Learning>Education

The Process and Prospects for Professionalizing Technical Communication    

Despite claims for at least the past quarter century of mature professional status for the field of technical communication, studies in the history and sociology of the professions provide criteria that suggest we are not yet truly a profession. This article reviews economic, sociopolitical, and ideological factors that characterize the modern professions and argues that the technical communication field, at best, only partially meets the criteria. The prospects for professional status of technical communication might be improved by developing a critical consciousness of the processes of professionalization and concertedly acting in ways that facilitate those processes.

Savage, Gerald J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>TC>Professionalism

Sketching a Framework for Graduate Education in Technical Communication    

Graduate education in technical communication should provide students with an expansive view of the field. Toward that end, we offer a three-dimensional framework that represents technical communication as a robust, diverse, complex whole. Although the framework aims towards coherence, it embraces contradiction. That is, the framework represents a totality but does not purport to be the only possible representation. Key to the framework is our belief that the gap between theory and practice can actually be productive. Almost all binaries encourage overly simplistic understandings. But we should not allow the goal of remediating the binary to close off the important tensions that can allow the field to advance. This very gap is actually one of the few sites in which new ideas and approaches can be forged.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan and Stuart A. Selber. Technical Communication Quarterly (2001). Articles>Education>TC

Predicting Technical Communication in Product Development Organizations    

This work explores prediction of technical communication patterns within product development organizations. Our methodology involves first predicting the patterns of communication and then measuring the actual communications to see if the anticipated linkages are realized. We applied this methodology to a commercial product development project in the electronics industry. In this case study we found that: 81% of all coordination type communication linkages were predicted in advance; occurrences of frequent communications were more accurately predicted than infrequent communications; and two-way communication exchange was most often observed, even where oneway information transfer was predicted. For the management of product development projects, these results imply that certain aspects of organizational design can be planned by anticipating the technical communication linkages required for project execution. Finally, a critical analysis of our methodology suggests improvements for future work.

Morelli, M.D., S.D. Eppinger and R.K. Gulati. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (1995). Articles>TC>Organizational Communication>Engineering

Technical Communication Degrees for the 21st Century    

The practice of technical communication, especially for professionals just entering the workplace, is rapidly changing. Companies have higher expectations for degrees in technical communication, a strong foundation in technology, and the ability to function on cross-disciplinary teams alongside technical experts in the design and development process. As the practice of technical communication shifts its focus, academics have the responsibility to be certain that technical communication degree programs have a strong component of such topics as engineering design, programming, human factors, usability, instructional design, and project management, in addition to traditional communication skills. Academic programs have lagged behind practice, largely due to the location of degree programs, departmental reward systems, faculty deficiencies in technology, little depth in fields beyond rhetoric, and lack of exposure to best industry practices. This paper addresses these issues and makes some practical recommendations for catching academe up to practice.

David, Marjorie T. ACM SIGDOC (2000). Articles>Education>TC

Feminist Theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication    

To study the possible impact of feminist theory on technical communication, this article discusses six common characteristics of feminist theory: (a) celebration of difference, (b) impact on social change, (c) acknowledgment of scholars' backgrounds and values, (d) inclusion of women's experience, (e) study of gaps and silences in traditional scholarship, and (f) new female sources of knowledge. Three debates within feminist theory spring out of these common characteristics: whether to stress similarity or difference between the sexes, whether differences come from biological or social forces, and whether feminist scholars can avoid reinforcing binary opposition. The article then traces the impact of these characteristics of feminist theory and debates within feminist theory on the redefinition of technical communication in terms of the myth of scientific objectivity, the new interest in ethnographic studies of workplace communication, and the recent focus on collaborative writing.

Lay, Mary M. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1991). Articles>TC>Cultural Theory>Gender

Convergence Technical Communication: Strategies for Incorporating Web 2.0

"Convergence Technical Communication" (CTC) is technical communication that provides information in several forms, including Web 2.0 delivery mechanisms, to improve the user experience. Most of the content is generated by technical communicators; a portion by users. Web 2.0 makes it possible to create additional deliverables that enhance the user experience several different ways. First, it engages the different learning styles of our audience. Second, it improves user satisfaction with your product by creating communities of practice that allow users to participate in the conversation. Finally, any feedback and suggestions obtained can be used to improve the core deliverable set.

Bleiel, Nicky. Content Wrangler, The (2009). Articles>TC>Content Management>Social Networking

Embracing the Un: When the Community Runs the Event    

With the explosion of Web 2.0 come two new kinds of community events: BarCamps and BookSprints. Gentle and Swisher share their experiences with these unconferences.

Gentle, Anne and Janet Swisher. Intercom (2009). Articles>TC>Community Building>Social Networking

Jazzing It Up in the Emerald City    

According to STC member and jazz musician Matso Limtiaco, there are many similarities between technical communication and musical composition.

Ebrahimi, Tara. Intercom (2009). Articles>TC

Subjectivism vs. Empiricism―How Does the Conflict Play Out in Technical Communication?

A large number of scholars in technical communication advocate stances that rely more on qualitative methods often associated with more subjectivist research paradigms that seem to acknowledge Foucault’s notion of the episteme with its inherent social and power relations as determining factors in epistemology. Fewer scholars, mostly in textbooks, embrace the scientific method or a variation thereof. However, several scholars attempt to alert us to the benefits of a more varied approach that takes advantage of methods within empiricism to give our field credence and add validity to our research. In summary, I found a continuum of approaches. This continuum, however, is not evenly populated; it appears slanted towards more subjectivist theory and methodology and much more sparsely populated in the realm of empiricist theory.

Brown, Konstanze Alex. Konjektures (2009). Articles>TC>Theory

Fundamentals of Business Process Documentation

It is important to identify, understand, and evaluate key business processes to determine how effective they are in accomplishing the business goals of an organization. As a result, end-to-end business process documentation is increasingly becoming a significant initiative for many organizations. Essentially, process documentation should communicate the guidelines to support specific processes, and can be used by a wide range of business units, partners, process leaders, and anyone who is involved in these processes. Interviewing people who follow a business process is an effective method toward understanding how the business process is executed. While interviewing the right people to understand how they execute processes, it is essential that the writers look beyond just recording what they are told about the process. Handling situations like these also provide opportunities for the writers to evolve to business domain analysts or subject matter experts

Biswas, Debarshi Gupta. Indus (2008). Articles>TC

A Student's Interview on the Field of Technical Communication

It is not often I’m contacted by a student to respond to an informational interview, so it was a pleasure when I was contacted early last week by a student in Eugene, Oregon USA to see if I would respond to his by email, and some great questions he had too. With the student’s permission, I’m posting the interview here in the event his questions reflect those of other students, whether in France or anywhere else.

Wion, Destry. STC France (2009). Articles>Interviews>TC

Talking Tech with Newbies and Older Generations

Tech newbies, and often these are people from an older generation than us techies, are easily overwhelmed by technology. Why do we expect them to get it? It's not their business to get it, it's our business to get it and then translate it to them. Do we think we are impressing them with all our knowledge? Chances are we are intimidating them. We need to stop, slow down and listen, ask questions, understand where they are coming from and then meet them where they are at. It isn't condescending or patronizing to slow things down and start with the basics.

Banner, Jeb. SmallBox (2009). Articles>TC>Collaboration>Technology

Thriving on Ignorance

A short blog post that discusses why users are more interested in learning how to, and not what is.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>TC>Documentation>Help

Putting the Wrecking Ball to the User Interface (UI)

Does a truly intuitive user interface exist? The author of this blog post doesn't think so. To create one, designers and developers really need to put the wrecking ball to the UI as it is now.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>User Interface>TC>User Centered Design

Mapping the Research Questions in Technical Communication    

Agreement about research questions can strengthen disciplinary identity and give direction to a field that is still maturing. The central research question this article poses foregrounds texts, broadly defined as verbal, visual, and multimedia, and the power of texts to mediate knowledge, values, and action in a variety of contexts. Related questions concern disciplinarity, pedagogy, practice, and social change. These questions overlap and inform each other. Any single study does not necessarily fall exclusively into one area. A mapping of a field’s research questions is a political act, emphasizing some questions and marginalizing or excluding others. The emphases may change over time. This mapping illustrates reasons for the tensions between the academic and practitioner areas of the field. It also points out their shared research interests and opportunities for future research.

Rude, Carolyn D. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>TC>Research

Practitioner Research Instruction: A Neglected Curricular Area in Technical Communication Undergraduate Programs    

Most technical communication practitioners conduct research throughout their careers. Yet, a survey of the Web sites of 114 undergraduate technical communication programs between September 2006 and April 2007 revealed that 65% (about two thirds) of these programs are providing minimal or no exposure to research instruction and therefore are not sufficiently preparing students to handle the types of research they will encounter in their upcoming careers. Given the disconnect between the centrality of research in the work that technical communicators do and the low presence of research instruction at the undergraduate level, academics need to look for ways to overcome institutional and other constraints in order to give research training greater priority in their undergraduate programs.

Spilka, Rachel. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>TC>Education>Research

The Technical Communication Research Landscape    

This article reports data from questionnaires assessing the day-to-day experiences that members of the technical communication field have in carrying out their research. The data revealed that most members experience at least some frustration and numerous constraints that prevent them from doing the kinds and amounts of research that they want to do and that may affect the quality of their research. In short, technical communication scholars face an array of challenges. This article presents examples of these challenges and ideas that respondents had both for lessening the challenges scholars face and for better preparing graduate students. It suggests several practical initiatives for addressing these challenges along with realistic strategies for implementing those initiatives.

Blakeslee, Ann M. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>TC>Research

Professionalizing Plain Language: A Postcard on Current Developments    

With the passing of the Brayley Bill in Congress, the significance of plain language has become even more apparent to technical communicators. The author lays out a step-by-step plan to maintain the relevance of plain language as an important and necessary profession.

James, Neil. Intercom (2009). Articles>TC>Writing>Minimalism

South Korea Beckons: Global Awareness and Cultural Sensitivity Strategies for Western Technical Communicators    

As an Indian living in South Korea for the past few years, Rahul Prabhakar has had the opportunity to gain a unique perspective of global awareness and cultural sensitivity. In his article, he details the positive and negative aspects of living and working amidst a different culture.

Prabhakar, Rahul. Intercom (2009). Articles>TC>International>East Asia

Defining a Body of Knowledge

STC has meant a lot to my professional growth over the past 20+ years as a teacher and practitioner of technical communication, and I want to help STC expand its educational mission for all technical communicators. It is time our profession had a defined body of knowledge. Why?

Hart, Hillary. STC WDC Blog (2009). Articles>Certification>TC>Body of Knowledge