#20927
In defining a field, each person seems to look at the world and place themselves in the center of the circle, giving their specialty top billing as the summation of all the others. What exactly is gained by this political one-upmanship? In the face of this inflation, I find myself pulling back to the simplest craft title I can find. Or avoiding titles altogether.
Quesenbery, Whitney. WQusability (2001). Articles>Information Design>Professionalism>Usability
#21306
What's in a Name? Or, What Exactly Do We Call Ourselves?
Defining the audience for Boxes and Arrows sparked the same heated discussion as the community-at-large about what exactly do we call ourselves?
Greenfield, Adam and George Olsen. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>Professionalism
#21423
Why We Get No Respect, and What We Can Do About It
It's time interface designers, or whatever we're calling ourselves, get some respect. After 25 years of whining about it, I've finally realized we have only ourselves to blame. Take control. If you look at nothing else of mine this year, please read this, act on it, and pass it on.
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2003). Articles>User Interface>Professionalism
#21512
Winning the Trust of the Researchers We Work With 
Technical communicators serve as bridges between researchers and a variety of audiences that include other researchers, the news media, and the public. The latter group includes potential funders, such as agency administrators and legislators, as well as scientists/engineers in other fields. Most professional discussions seem to center on how well we meet the needs of our various publics, but this discussion will look into the steps that we need to take to meet the needs of the researchers we work with and to win and maintain their trust. This discussion should emphasize the different “cultures” that are sometimes in conflict: for example, the standards and aims of the scientific and journalistic professions are quite different and sometimes contradictory.
Armbruster, David L., Judith Gunn Bronson, E. Charles Crume, Jr., Nancy E. Davis and Margaret Boone Nester. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>TC>Professionalism
#26404
The World is Ready for Usability. Is Usability Ready for the World?
User-centered design is being systematically integrated into the Web, application and product development process. It's the tipping point usability specialists have been waiting for. But are we ready? Does the field have the tools, and resources -- or for that matter the people -- to keep up with the need?
Straub, Kathleen. Usability Interface (2005). Articles>Usability>Professionalism
#29923
The movement toward a global standard definition for our profession will be a long process, but it is already underway. STC is playing an important role in ensuring that the process benefits its members and contributes to the competitiveness of the firms that employ them.
Burton, Susan. Intercom (2007). Articles>TC>Professionalism>International
#28907
Web design is still a young discipline, and it's generally poorly understood. As the web becomes mainstream, an increasing number of people and organizations want websites--and so more people are involved in commissioning, managing, and designing them. It's not surprising that many of these people aren't familiar with how web design works. Clients, managers, and colleagues often assume that web design is a subset of some other discipline, like advertising, graphic design, or software engineering. This creates a tendency to write it off as a low-value, straightforward process that can be streamlined and automated, like a production line. The result is unhelpful pressure on you, the web designer. You're asked to design faster, using a smaller budget, and without access to key stakeholders--which can make it difficult to maintain your professionalism, leaving everyone unhappy with the final design. The logical conclusion of this perpetual streamlining would be to stop using your judgment altogether, as if you were a piece of off-the-shelf software: a robot.
Kahn, Jonathan. List Apart, A (2007). Careers>Web Design>Professionalism
#32127
Members often ask what advantages they receive for their membership dollars. The answer is so obvious we sometimes fail to see it. With apologies to the kind souls at MasterCard, a few thoughts on the value of your STC membership.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. STC Phoenix (2006). Articles>TC>Professionalism>STC
#32159
So, Why Should You Be a Member of STC, Anyway? 
As a former Board member, I was often buttonholed by members to discuss what the Board was doing and our plans for STC's future. One of the most common topics of discussion was, "What am I getting for my membership and why should I renew?" Why should you renew? Beats the heck outta me. But I can tell you why I renew, year after year after year.
Hedtke, John. Tieline (2008). Articles>TC>Professionalism>STC
#32288
Could You Mind Your Language? An Investigation of Communicators' Ability to Inhibit Linguistic Bias 
Three experiments that examine communicators' ability to inhibit linguistic bias are reported. Research has shown that communicators use more abstract language (e.g., "Jamie is affectionate" vs. "Jamie kisses Rose") to describe more expected behavior. Recent research has shown that this bias may be overwhelmed by goals to put a "spin" on actions or to manipulate audiences' impressions of actors. Similarly, the present experiments show that people who wish to communicate without bias may often be able to do so. Inhibition occurred when participants selected descriptions from a list of alternatives and when they freely described both expected and unexpected behaviors. However, inhibition failed when participants were asked to freely describe either expected or unexpected behaviors alone.
Douglas, Karen M., Robbie M. Sutton and Katie Wilkin. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (2008). Articles>Language>Professionalism>Rhetoric
#32354
Today, our collective will to pay attention seems fairly weak. We require advice books to teach us how to avoid distraction. In the not-too-distant future we may even employ new devices to help us overcome the unintended attention deficits created by today’s gadgets.
Rosen, Christine. New Atlantis, The (2008). Articles>Project Management>Professionalism
#32509
Lame Excuses for Not Being a Web Professional
Excuses that may be valid in some circumstances are too often used to cover up somebody’s lack of knowledge about modern Web design or development.
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Professionalism
#32685
Certification: The Long and Winding Road
Clearly, our path to certification has been neither fast nor steady. We've spent decades starting from first principles, and trying to construct the argument that we want to be certified. We put effort into trying to decide how to administer certification exams, which was never a good make-vs-buy decision. Our attempts to define a body of knowledge splintered into groups that were unique to certain industries, media, or tools, such as medical writers, Web designers, and FrameMaker experts. Certification was--and still is--an emotionally charged issue; people have felt their livelihoods were threatened.
Jong, Steven F., Nad Rosenberg and Daniel Wise. STC Proceedings (2008). Articles>Certification>Professionalism>Body of Knowledge
#32687
Why Certification by the STC Won’t Work
The virtues of certification cannot be ignored, but they are outweighed by the drawbacks: There’s no evidence that employers will value certification; it can be highly subjective; and it requires ongoing renewal, even for experienced practitioners, to avoid diluting its value. The more important task must be to demonstrate our value to employers. Only once they understand our value will certification provide a means to assure employers that they can expect to receive that value.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2008). Articles>Certification>TC>Professionalism
#32688
Certification - Why We Need to Begin
I believe certification of technical communicators is unavoidable, given the current status of related professions and our technological environment. Either the STC develops a certification program, or someone else will do it.
Rosenberg, Nad. Intercom (2008). Articles>Certification>TC>Professionalism
#33248
Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
Commitment to ethical professional conduct is expected of every member (voting members, associate members, and student members) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This Code, consisting of 24 imperatives formulated as statements of personal responsibility, identifies the elements of such a commitment. It contains many, but not all, issues professionals are likely to face.
ACM (1992). Articles>Computing>Professionalism>Ethics
#33249
UPA Code of Professional Conduct
The Code of Professional Conduct of the Usability Professionals' Association expresses the profession's recognition of its responsibilities to the public, clients, employers, and colleagues. The Code guides members in the performance of their professional responsibilities and express the basic tenets of ethical and professional conduct.
Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Usability>Professionalism>Ethics
#33557
COMMUNEcating in the Spaces In-Between
This essay describes the authors' efforts to engage disciplinary calls for greater diversity through the construction of an international online community and conference, COMMUNEcation. They describe the commitments and goals of the community and conference, the construction of the COMMUNEcating space, and their encounters with disciplinary, geographically, and linguistically diverse scholars in their mutual exploration of global and organizing practices in their local contexts. The conference contributions and conversations prompted the authors to ask three salient questions around scholarly understandings of the Other and Othering practices of organizing and communicating across the globe—Where is the Other? Who is the Other? and What is the Other? The second half of the essay discusses these questions in detail and concludes with the authors' reflections on creating "spaces inbetween" through technology and an introduction to the multiauthored collaborative essay and conference product from the Scholars of the COMMUNEcation Network that follows.
Nelson-Marsh, Natalie, Kirsten J. Broadfoot and Debashish Munshi. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Professionalism
#33564
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
#33579
Categorizing Professional Discourse: Engineering, Administrative, and Technical/Professional Writing
Rhetorical categories can and should be developed by scholars of professional writing to identify how values held within professions constrain the ways discourse is interpreted in organizational settings. Empirical research (conducted by the author and others), discourse theory, and pedagogical practice in professional writing strongly suggest that at least three categories of professional writing exist: engineering, administrative, and technical/professional writing. The author demonstrates this claim and distinguishes the characteristics of these three categories. Engineering writing is shown to respond to professional values of scientific objectivity and professional judgment as well as to corporate interests. Administrative writing reflects the locus of decision-making authority and promotes institutional identity. Technical/professional writing aims to accommodate audience needs through complying with professional readability standards. Future research should focus on defining the characteristics of these varieties more precisely. Articulated definitions of these three varieties of professional writing can help scholars and practitioners better understand how discourse is framed and interpreted in organizational settings.
Couture, Barbara. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1992). Articles>TC>Taxonomy>Professionalism
#33726
Getting Tech Writers Involved in FLOSS
I commented that many tech writers aren't interested in doing more tech writing in their spare time, but might be interested if doing so can help them professionally. In particular, folks coming into the field, either out of school or as career changers, need writing samples for their portfolio to show to prospective employers.
Swisher, Janet. Techie Tech Writer Blog, A (2009). Articles>Documentation>Professionalism>Open Source
#33946
Creative professionals who can see all angles of a project are the ones who ultimately succeed in the industry. They win awards, get promoted, and make money, but most importantly they develop a reputation for caring about detail, for putting a personal and deliberate effort into making sure all of the tiny things are in place to make the final product perfect.
Potts, Kevin. List Apart, A (2009). Design>Web Design>Professionalism
#34341
Does Your Network Work for You?
Here are some suggestions to make better use of LinkedIn so that your professional network works for you.
Roux, Tom. Business Insider, The (2009). Careers>Collaboration>Professionalism>Social Networking
#34345
Bloom Wherever You’re Planted: A Different View on Fostering Career Longevity
Potsus provides twelve tips on how to maintain your mental, spiritual, professional, and physical health in order to ensure you grow and flourish in your career, instead of wither away.
Potsus, Whitney Beth. Intercom (2009). Careers>TC>Professionalism
#34624
When it comes to truth, my approach is to be candid and honest in formats that live on the web, which I can update on the fly. But when I’m printing hundreds of copies of a guide, which I know will be pinned up on walls, filed in desk drawers, and laminated for long-term reference, I often lie and don’t mention the bugs, hoping that developers will soon fix them and convert my fiction into truth.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Documentation>Professionalism>Ethics
