Genre as Social Action    

Although rhetorical criticism has recently provided a profusion of claims that certain discourses constitute a distinctive class, or genre, rhetorical theory has not provided firm guidance on what constitutes a genre.

Miller, Carolyn R. North Carolina State University (1984). Articles>Rhetoric>Genre>Theory

Genre Ecologies: An Open-System Approach to Understanding and Constructing Documentation    

Arguing that current approaches to understanding and constructing computer documentation are based on the flawed assumption that documentation works as a closed system, the authors present an alternative way of thinking about the texts that make computer technologies usable for people. Using two historical case studies, the authors describe how a genre ecologies framework provides new insights into the complex ways that people use texts to make sense of computer technologies. The framework is designed to help researchers and documentors account for contingency, decentralization, and stability in the multiple texts the people use while working with computers. The authors conclude by proposing three heuristic tools to support the work of technical communicators engaged in developing documentation today: exploratory questions, genre ecology diagrams, and organic engineering.

Spinuzzi, Clay and Mark Zachry. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Documentation>Rhetoric

Gentle Reader, Stay Awhile; I Will Be Faithful

Every opening paragraph is the beginning of a delicate and transient relationship between reader and writer. This relationship begins quietly, usually without much fanfare--and if it's properly initiated, the reader doesn't even know it's happening. Yet the success of this relationship is an important factor in creating an enjoyable, engaging experience for the reader. This is especially true on the web where author credibility can be difficult to establish, and where, increasingly, readers have so many choices that separating the chaff from the wheat can be a daunting process.

Simmons, Amber. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Writing>Rhetoric

Get a Clue: Understanding the Who in Audience Analysis  

This paper describes an interactive game that technical communicators in a department or project group can play to share each other's experience and discuss how to expand audience analysis with effective user data.

Clark, Robin. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Rhetoric>Audience Analysis

Getting Off the Starting Block: Practical Tips to Starting a White Paper

Why are white papers so hard to write? Simply put, they require effort. Effort makes us sweat. Just the thought of working hard causes some people's blood to percolate.

Stelzner, Michael A. WhitePaperSource (2006). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>White Papers

Girl Talk Tales, Causal Models, and the Dissertation: Exploring the Topical Contours of Context in Sociology Talk and Text    

Since the early 1980s, composition studies has arrived at a broad consensus that it is important to understand how social contexts relate to the cognitive processes and individual behaviors involved in writing and reading texts, although within this broad consensus are various notions of context and of how contexts relate to processes and texts. Drawing on both structuralist and everyday accounts of discourse and society, composition theory and research have generally conceptualized the contexts of writing in terms of abstract, unified constructs. Whether defined globally (culture, language, history, discourse community, genre, ideological state apparatus) or locally (institutional setting, communicative situation, task demand), context has typically been construed as a static, unified given, something that both frames and governs literate activity.

Prior, Paul. LLAD (1994). Articles>Rhetoric>History

Give Participants Something to Flip Over

Let me start off by saying that I do NOT like toys or other distractions in training. I’m NOT one to provide little widgets to keep participants’ hands occupied or provide cutesy pens or such trinkets. I’ve always viewed them as distractions that shouldn’t be necessary if your training is engaging and relevant.

Traut, Terence R. Presenters University. Articles>Presentations>Rhetoric>Microsoft PowerPoint

A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples

A comprehensive glossary of figures of speech.

Harris, Robert. University of Kentucky (1998). Books>Rhetoric

Grant Writing Tips

This page includes a list of grant planning questions and a list of basic proposal elements that I use when I offer grant-writing workshops.

Seanet. Articles>Grants>Proposals>Rhetoric

Graphic Design

Graphic design is everywhere, in every product, package, poster, and product of the modern world. Although the graphic design discipline was created less than a century ago, the world has since come to rely upon it. The world simply cannot function without graphic design and graphic designers. Yet graphic design is broader than any other creative profession. It is the third largest profession in the United States, far ahead of more commonly understood and respected vocations such as attorney, accountant, and educator. Graphic designers, who run the gamut from after-hours moonlighter through freelancer, solo- and team-creative, to agency and corporate designers, work in every city, town, and village in the world. Graphic design impacts everything and everyone.

Burke, Pariah S. Designorati (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

The Great Myth That Plain Language Is Not Precise  

Occasionally, when you try to convert from legalese to plain language, someone will come forward and assert that you made a mistake. You missed something in the translation. You inadvertently changed the substance.

Kimble, Joseph. Plain Language Network (2000). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism

Green Giving: Engagement, Values, Activism, and Community Life  

Philanthropic campaigns typically offer value identification and identity rewards for gift giving. These rewards may be increased by engaging the gift-givers within the work and activity of the charitable organization; moreover, fund-raising may reach beyond the limited budget people typically allocate to psychic goods if charitable gifts are perceived as part of the costs of one's way of life and as part of the meanings, activities, and communities within which one lived one's life. In support of these claims, I examine environmental fund-raising in Santa Barbara through interviews with fund-raisers involved with the Community Environmental Council and the campaign to purchase a major coastal property for a preserve. The fundraising for CEC indicates ways in which people's identities and commitments may be drawn on and reinforced and how people's interests in sustaining a way of life can become the basis of funding campaigns; CEC fundraising suggests that activism does not necessarily translate into giving, depending on the nature of the active engagement. The case of the preservation of the Wilcox property suggests how commitment to a community way of life can mobilize extraordinary giving when the community as a whole starts to perceive itself engaged in common endeavor and commitment. The success of the campaign itself then becomes a sign of community strength and community values.

Bazerman, Charles. UCSB. Articles>Rhetoric>Community Building

Guidelines for Designing and Evaluating the Display of Information on the Web    

These guidelines are intended to assist Web designers, authors, and editors in their efforts to create Web pages that effectively reveal—rather than obscure or confuse—the information they are trying to present. These guidelines are also intended to be used to assist in the evaluation of existing Web sites. Of course, the design of a Web site can, to some degree, be modified by the user or by the characteristics of the browser or monitor enlisted to display it. The guidelines, consequently, acknowledge that in a very real sense, users may also assume the role of designer. The guidelines, therefore, are also intended to help users make informed decisions about how to make a display easier to use.

Williams, Thomas R. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Visual Rhetoric

Hearing Type

Understanding the dynamic qualities of typography through analogies with sound and music.

Armstrong, Frank. AIGA (2005). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric>Audio

The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology: A Methodological Investigation

To try and explain everything means to explain nothing.

Vygotsky, Lev. Marxists.org (1927). Books>Rhetoric>Theory

Home Page Goals

The home page is your first impression. And like the old saying goes, you only get one chance. So home pages themselves have a unique set of design goals.

Powazek, Derek. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Rhetoric

Hot Cogntion: Emotions and Writing Behavior  

Although contemporary psychologists generally acknowledge the significance of affect in human experience, few attempts have been made to understand its role in cognitive processes. Important books on cognition barely mention the subject of emotion, feeling, or sentiment. Unlike the strictly cognitive and physiological psycholoúgists, social psychologists are deeply concerned with affect. These psychologists contend that to consider people dispassionate, information processing systems is a poor if not badly inaccurate model of the human being. A positivistic psychology has been too “cold' to carry the entire motivational burden. What is needed is some way to heat up cognition—a theory that unites the cognitively blind but arousing system of affect with the subtle cognitive apparatus. In an otherwise cold-blooded tradition of cognitive science and flow chart intelligence, the idea of hot cognition became a major humanizing counterstatement during the mid 1960s and early 1970s.

Brand, Alice G. JAC (1985). Articles>Rhetoric>Emotions>Cognitive Psychology

How to Be Persuasive in Writing  

The persuasive theories of Stephen Toulmin and Carl Rogers can be effective in applications to writing on the job. Toulmin’s strategies lead writers to specify the exact claim they are making, to give evidence to support the claim, and to refute the arguments likely to be made against the claim. Roger’s strategies can be used to identify the viewpoint of the audience, grant the points in the audience’s position which the writer agrees with, and then attempt to show how the audience’s position will actually be improved if the writer’s claim or proposal is accepted.

Connors, Patricia E. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Rhetoric>Writing

How to Find the Perfect Color  

Getting that just-right color is part art, part science. We'll show you.

Before and After. Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Color

How to Play to Your Audience

Is your website easy for Maude to use? Or, for that matter, Tiffany or Raul? Here's how to sync up your website with your audience.

Levinson, Meredith. CIO Magazine (2003). Design>Web Design>Redesign>Rhetoric

How to Use Images to Convey Themes  

Advances in technology have democratized the process of illustrating documents such as brochures, reports, and websites. With digital cameras, scanners, and a wide variety of stock illustrations available, technical communicators need not rely on graphic designers to choose images for their documents. However, conveying a theme or concept through a series of images can be a difficult task, and literature says little about choosing images to convey a theme. This paper synthesizes results of available literature and looks to theories of visual rhetoric to fill in the gaps regarding images and themes. Results of a survey show that readers of more easily identify themes when connections between words and images are clear

Willerton, Russell. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

How To Use the Six Laws of Persuasion during a Negotiation  

In order to be successful, you must master the persuasion process, which will enable you to deliberately create the attitude change and subsequent actions necessary for persuading others to your way of thinking. In other words, you have to be able to 'sell' your ideas in order to make changes in your favor and, in a win-win situation, provide the other side with a fair deal.

Greer, Edrie. TechRepublic (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric

How to Write Effective Text

It doesn't matter how dazzling your Web site looks if you don't have good, clear copy that appeals to your readers' basic desires--and is easy to read.

Will-Harris, Daniel. EFuse (2004). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric