Establishing a Presence on the World Wide Web: A Rhetorical Approach    

This article presents a framework--grounded in the classic rhetorical concept of ethos--for thinking about how technical communicators might examine the unique characteristics of the World Wide Web and the audiences it serves. The usefulness and increasing popularity of the Web is based on how well individuals and organizations use the technology as a means of establishing an online ethos. Technical communicators are already familiar with the obvious goal of establishing a professional ethos, but they might also consider some techniques for establishing sites having a more diverse and communal ethos. This ethos is expressed in 'special interest' Web sites constructed by individuals, and several commercially-oriented organizations have also successfully incorporated this ethos into their sites.

Hunt, Kevin. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Rhetoric>Online

Estratégia Para a Elaboração de Uma Tese

Resume-se, em duas páginas, uma estratégia para a elaboração de uma tese de mestrado ou de doutoramento. Partindo de um modelo de acção em duas fases, cada uma das quais decomponível em três sub-fases, esclarece-se o percurso mais desejável para obter resultados de forma eficaz e eficiente. Apesar da simplicidade deste roteiro conciso, que contrasta com a complexidade efectiva da elaboração de uma tese, os cuidados apresentados são quase sempre suficentes para superar as principais situações de impasse.

Dias de Figueiredo, Antonio. Universidade de Coimbra (1998). (Portuguese) Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Ethical Implications of Intercultural Audiences

Argues that it is crucial that technical writing courses raise the awareness of the implications of intercultural communication, and specifically, how to include the translator as the target audience.

Heitzman, Lisa. Orange Journal, The (2005). Articles>Language>Ethics>Rhetoric

Evaluation of Chat Reference Service Quality

This article reports on a pilot study. The pilot will inform the methods for a larger, evaluative study of the quality of chat reference service. The evaluative study will use obtrusive observation techniques to look at several aspects of chat-based reference service from the information seeker's perspective including: the overall session, the chat or negotiation process, and the provision of answers, including the sources used. The evaluative study will specifically address the quality of output by assessing the accuracy and completeness of answers provided to chat reference service clients.

White, Marilyn Domas, Eileen G. Abels and Neal Kaske. D-Lib Magazine (2003). Articles>Rhetoric>Online

Expertise and Agency: Transformations of Ethos in Human-Computer Interaction  

The cases of expert systems and intelligent agents illuminate two dimensions of the dwelling-place we have built for ourselves with our technologies.

Miller, Carolyn R. and S. Michael Halloran. North Carolina State University (2004). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Rhetoric

Exploring the Blind Spot: Audience, Purpose, and Context in "Product, Process, and Profit"

Technical communicators have longed turned to audience, purpose, and context as they analyze situations. But Mirel's article demonstrates that audience-purpose-context is too weak a framework to handle the job of detailed sociopolitical analysis: not only is it inadequate for analyzing the needs of end users, it is also inadequate for analyzing situations within the writer's organization. In this response, this paper explores the weakness of audience-purpose-context and points to alternative sociopolitical frameworks.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>TC

'Faces of the Fallen' and the Dematerialization of US War Memorials    

The advent of internet technology has enabled the process of memorialization of those killed in US military conflicts to keep pace with the casualties themselves and, as such, has marked a shift in both the ideology of the war memorial as symbol and the ideology-driven media use of those symbols. This article argues that a process of increasing humanization and specificity enabled by the information architecture of the internet has led to a form of `war memorial', exemplified by www.facesofthefallen.org, that emphasizes decontexualized human loss at the expense of a coherent representation of a military nature for the loss itself.

Grider, Nicholas. Visual Communication (2007). Articles>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric>History

Fear Not the Long Sentence

Everyone fears the long sentence. Editors fear it. Readers fear it. Most of all, writers fear it. Even I fear it. But...

Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Grammar>Rhetoric

Finding Funding: Writing Winning Proposals for Research Funds    

Identifies funding sources and describes the proposal review process. Provides example criteria and identifies ways to write proposals to meet the needs of its audience of reviewers.

Grove, Laurel K. Technical Communication Online (2004). Articles>Grants>Proposals>Rhetoric

Finding Your Focus: The Writing Process  

This presentation acquaints your students with the steps that constitute the writing process, including strategies for brainstorming, drafting, revising, and proofreading. This presentation would work well for the beginning of a composition course or the assignment of a writing project in any class.

Liethen, Jennifer Kunka. Purdue University (1998). Presentations>Slideshows>Rhetoric

Five Fail-Safe Tips When You Forget or Get Flustered During a Presentation

If you haven’t yet experienced your point of embarrassment or memory lapse, you will. When it happens, consider these fail-safe ways to regain your memory and retain your poise.

Booher, Dianna. Presenters University (2003). Articles>Presentations>Methods>Rhetoric

Fluency, Fluidity, and Word Processing  

Despite the above maxim, numerous studies have been conducted over the past five years to determine whether student compositions improve significantly with the use of a computer. As Gail Hawisher (summarizing Seymour Papert) suggests, our field is so new that we seem lobe in a technoúcentric phase comparable to the egocentric phase through which Piaget’s children must pass on the way to maturity. We are searching for “THE effect” of the computer on the product (the text) rather than “the effects” of the computer both on the writer and on the context in which the product is produced. We have already passed judgment on what the computer should do (improve the product) rather than investigate what it does do. Thus, the results of the studies conducted to date appear contradictory.

Boiarsky, Carolyn. JAC (1991). Articles>Rhetoric>Computers and Writing

Font Types: Affecting Meaning

In the first lesson on font type I highlighted how they can be used to make information easier to understand, and how the look of the font accomplishes that. Here I'd like to discuss how fonts can actually affect the meaning of that information.

Lanier, Clinton. sense and usability (2007). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric

For A More Powerful Performance, Say It Short And Well

Centuries ago great orators often spoke for several hours at a time. But today, when sound bites on television news are the status quo and complex sociological problems are solved in an hour on a television drama, audiences are most interested in speakers who get their points across in a short period of time. Today, great speakers are noted for their brevity.

Boyd, Stephen D. Presentations (2003). Articles>Presentations>Rhetoric

Formation of Norms in a Blog Community

Blogs are often situated within a blog community of similar interests. These communities can be a useful way for readers to access a specific slice of information.

Wei, Carolyn. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Rhetoric>Online>Blogging

From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing      

In an attempt to bring composition studies into a more thoroughgoing discussion of the place of visual literacy in the writing classroom, I argue that throughout the history of writing instruction in this country the terms of debate typical in discussions of visual literacy and the teaching of writing have limited the kinds of assignments we might imagine for composition.

George, Diana. CCC (2002). Articles>Education>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric

From Logocentrism to Ethocentrism: Historicizing Critiques of Writing Research      

Since the 1960s, attitudes toward empirical research on writing, including research on technical/professional writing, have shifted from encouragement to resistance. This essay traces these shifts in light of changes in writing research, psychology, and the rhetoric of science. In composition studies, an initial mild uneasiness about 'scientism' intensified with the rise of process models, suggesting a Romanticist defense of the mystique of creativity. More recent post-modernist denunciations of scientific methods as immoral have other Romanticist overtones. In technical communication, a long-standing interest in workplace writing practices allowed a smoother integration of empirical analysis with descriptive studies of writing contexts. However, as in composition, recent critiques in technical communication suggest that empirical methods should not be employed. These critiques too tightly circumscribe the values that may be considered humanist and cut off important avenues of inquiry and critique that historically have advanced both the sciences and humanities.

Charney, Davida. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Rhetoric>Writing

From Pen to Print: The New Visual Landscape of Professional Communication     

Visual design has played an important role in the historical development of professional communication. The technology of laser printing has reestablished the importance of visual language in functional communication, transforming contemporary document design and redefining its relation to the traditions of handwritten, typewritten, and printed text. During this period of transition, three factors will shape the new visual language: (a) the development of a visual rhetoric that represents design as an integral part of the message rather than merely as external "dress," (b) the rediscovery of aesthetics as a legitimate factor in text design, and (c) the use of empirical research--particularly context-specific research--to guide the document design process.

Kostelnick, Charles. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1994). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Printing

From the Steam Engine to DNA: Revolutions    

This chapter from the most recent book by STC's 1998 Honorary Fellow demonstrates that a great dynamic web of change links us to one another and to all the events of the past and the future. James Watt’s improvements to the steam engine are linked to the invention of the copier, carbon paper, and the safety match, as well as the discovery of DNA.

Burke, James. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Rhetoric

From Uncredible to Incredible: Tips for Speakers  

Suggests ways that speakers can increase their credibility with their audience.

Fritze, Shelley and Maureen V. McIntyre. Intercom (2004). Articles>Presentations>Rhetoric

Frozen Memories: Unthawing Scott of the Antarctic in Cultural Memory    

This article explores the staging of memory and death and the connotative differences within still photographs and film. It examines the tenses that can be inferred in reading photographs and film through examples drawn from representations of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13 and Captain Scott's journey to the South Pole taken by Herbert Ponting, and in the 1948 film _Scott of the Antarctic_.

Barwell, Claire. Visual Communication (2007). Articles>Multimedia>Visual Rhetoric

Functional Redundancy and Ellipsis as Strategies in Reading and Writing  

Redundancy is widely seen as a kind of linguistic cholesterol, clogging the arteries of our prose and impeding the efficient circulation of knowledge. However, I will argue that, just as a more thorough understanding of cholesterol reveals the existence of good cholesterol (HDL) as well as bad (LDL), so a broader view on the principle of redundancy reveals its effectiveness in certain situations, particularly beyond the sentence level. In this article I aim to revive the beneficial or functional sense of redundancy and show that functional redundancy in writing need not be a contradiction in terms. I believe a discussion of redundancy should include its opposite, ellipsis, so I will define both terms, emphasizing the beneficial sense of each, and then show how they appear in both reading and writing. In the latter part of the article, to illustrate the pervasiveness of redundancy and ellipsis, I will discuss examples of each in document design and in figures of speech. My attention will mainly be on technical writing, but the principles I will discuss may apply to other genres, too.

Grant-Davie, Keith. JAC (1995). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

The Fundamentals of Persuasive Writing

What are the characteristics that make copy effective? Why does one ad make a lasting impression and sell merchandise, while another falls flat and doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay its own cost? Virtually all persuasive copy contains the eight elements described in this article.

Bly, Robert W. Bly.com. Articles>Rhetoric>Writing>Rhetoric

Genre and Identity: Citizenship in the Age of the Internet and the Age of Global Capitalism  

One of the more popular academic slogans of this half century is Wittgenstein's characterization of language-in-use as a form of life. Genre theory takes this slogan seriously. In perceiving an utterance as being of a certain kind or genre, we become caught up in a form of life, joining speakers and hearers, writers and readers, in particular relations of a familiar and intelligible sort. As participants orient towards this communicative social space they take on the mood, attitude, and actional possibilities of that placeóthey go that place to do the kinds of things you do there, think the kinds of thoughts you think there, feel the kind of way you feel there, satisfy what you can satisfy there, be the kind of person you can become there (Bazerman 1997, 1998). It is like going to a dining room, or a dance hall, or a seminar, or church. You know what you are getting yourself into and what range of relations and objects will likely be realized there. You adopt a frame of mind, set your hopes, plan accordingly, and begin acting with that orientation.

Bazerman, Charles. UCSB (1999). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory