Activity theory is a psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in the Soviet psychologist Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology. It seeks to understand human activities as complex, socially-situated phenomena and go beyond paradigms of psychoanalysis and behaviorism.
#30732
On Material Rhetorics and the Canon of Memoria: Rethinking the History (and Future) of Rhetoric 
This presentation looks to the past to explain the present lack of attention given to memory and to imagine a possible future for the canon in contemporary rhetoric with the inclusion of the study of material rhetorics, or a comprehensive inquiry of situated things produced in cultural contexts that investigates both the material dimension in rhetoric and rhetorical dimension in the material. To this end, this essay summarizes noted reasons for memoria's limited study in contemporary rhetoric; revisits classic rhetoric's memoria and mines it for features worth recuperating for contemporary study; introduces material rhetoric and its potential to recuperate memoria in light of these features; and calls for further discussion of material rhetoric, the canon of memory, and the place of both in the study of rhetoric.
Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2007). Articles>Rhetoric>History>Theory
#14508
Persuasion In Technical Communication: Applying Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism provides technical communicators with a persuasive tool that facilitates effective communication. By treating meaning as a socially negotiated and negotiable product rather than apart of language, technical communicators can more easily persuade readers to follow instructions, to grant proposals, or to accept reports. By taking the sources of meaning away from objects and away from symbols per se, symbolic interaction empowers the technical communicator with the means to effectively communicate and persuade.
Ray, Eric J. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Rhetoric>Theory
#26232
Places to Intervene in a System
The late systems thinking expert Donella Meadows explores 'intervention points' within complex systems where we can seek leverage to affect change within those systems. The essay originally appeared in Whole Earth magazine in 1997 and has been recontextualized in this software development publication.
Meadows, Donella H. with Don Gray. developer.star (2005). Articles>Software>Theory
#13712
The Politics of Usability: The Importance of Users in Product Design
Usability is political. The travel agent battling with an online booking system. The pensioner struggling to use an ATM. The telephone caller lost in the voice-prompt-maze of a computerised answering system. These people exemplify an underclass of end-users forced to interact with technology during their working and private lives.
McCoy, Thomas. Usability Interface (2002). Articles>Usability>Theory
#26143
What is this thing called web content? I fear most people still believe that it's something as trivial as a whitebait in a bucket. Fresh whitebait is transparent. If you don't look hard, you can only see the container, and not the thing contained.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Writing>Theory
#31648
As global online access grows, Web site designers find themselves creating materials for an increasingly international audience. Cultural groups, however, can have different expectations of what constitutes acceptable Web site design. This article examines how prototype theory can serve as a methodology for analyzing Web sites designed for users from different cultures. Such analyses, in turn, can help individuals create more effective online materials for international audiences.
St. Amant, Kirk R. IEEE PCS (2005). Articles>Web Design>Localization>Cultural Theory
#26042
Re-Negotiating with Technology: Training Towards More Sustainable Technical Communication 
Technical communicators have often defined their relationship with technology using a metaphor of 'technology as tool,' an outlook that reinforces perceptions of practitioners as 'tool jockeys,' threatens the sustainability of the field, and isolates academics and practitioners alike from design and business decision-making and from better intellectual connections with other fields. We suggest that one potential solution is a new approach to training; if technical communicators can conduct technology training in ways that shift this metaphorical focus, they can not only better connect academics with practitioners but also create new connections with other fields, outlooks, and theories, becoming the sort of profession that survives global economic shifts and succeeds in both academic departments and industry.
Clark, Dave and Rebekka Andersen. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Technology>Theory>Tropes
#29237
Rearticulating Civic Engagement Through Cultural Studies and Service-Learning
Although service-learning has the potential to infuse technical communication pedagogy with civic goals, it can easily be co-opted by a hyperpragmatism that limits ethical critique and civic engagement. Service-learning's component of reflection, in particular, can become an uncritical, narrow invention or project management tool. Integrating cultural studies and service-learning can help position students as critical citizens who produce effective and ethical discourse and who create more inclusive forms of power. Rather than being tacked on, cultural studies approaches should be incorporated into core service-learning assignments.
Scott, J. Blake. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>TC>Cultural Theory
#19086
Resistance to Theory in Advanced Technical Communication Classes for Majors 
My focus will be on Resistance to theory as expressed by advanced tech writing students. My experience has been that the majority of these students do not enjoy reading nor discussing an assigned theoretical article, such as Carolyn Miller’s 'What’s Practical about Technical Writing?'
Jobst, Jack W. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>TC>Theory
#30760
Resistance, Gender, and Bourdieu's Notion of Field
Recent conceptualizations of resistance have tended to privilege intentional and conscious acts of resistance and forms of resistance manifested within relations of power that researchers typically define as asymmetrical, such as the labor-management relation. The author argues that these tendencies lead us to overlook forms of resistance manifest in other relations of power that exist in organizations, as well as set ourselves up as arbitrators of what is to be considered 'effective' resistance. Using Bourdieu's concepts of capital and field, the author examines how we can read resistance both to the idea of sex discrimination and to patriarchal power relations from the accounts of female career police officers and offers a more perspectival, relativistic account of resistance.
Penny, Dick. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Theory
#31687
Resistance: Would Struggle by Any Other Name Be as Sweet?
Management in professionalized workplaces is often characterized as Mtrying to herd cats. Having grown up on a dairy farm, the characterization never made much sense to me. Cows and sheep earn our disparaging remarks because they are easy to push around. Their occasional resistance seems counter to their character. But cats are also easy to herd; just have milk. Cats may walk by themselves, but they quickly all choose to walk in the same direction following the pail. Cats may quickly resist getting pushed in common directions, but they are easily pulled there. Got milk, got cats. Are cats more autonomous than the herds? Has resisting cats led us to overlook how easy they are to herd? Resistance comes to us as a term growing out of workplaces that tried to push and direct. Resistance was at least a pushing back; sometimes it was an organized pushing for another direction.
Deetz, Stanley. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Workplace>Cultural Theory
#29137
In my 1992 College English article 'The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust' [1], I looked at the implications of a Nazi memo whose sole purpose was to improve the efficiency of the gassing vans, in order to begin to try to understand and discuss the negative uses and ethical abuses to which technical communication, and deliberative rhetoric generally, could be taken by the powerful and unscrupulous. In 'Questioning the Motives of Technical Communication and Rhetoric: Steven Katz's 'Ethic of Expediency'' [2], Patrick Moore accuses me of ignoring alternate translations, citing out of context, and focusing on the negative meaning of words to make my case. The point at issue in these charges, I believe, is whether (and to what degree) Aristotle meant to base deliberative discourse on 'expediency.' I will take each of these charges up one at a time to explore them more thoroughly, discuss their interrelations, and then conclude with a few observations of my own.
Katz, Steven B. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Ethics>Theory
#15055
Rethinking Genre in School and Society: An Activity Theory Analysis
This article attempts to expand and elaborate theories of social 'context' and formal schooling, to understand the stakes involved in writing. It first sketches ways Russian activity theory in the tradition of A. N. Leont'ev may expand Bakhtinian dialogism, then elaborates the theory in terms of North American genre research, with examples drawn from research on writing in the disciplines in higher education. By tracing the relations of disciplinary genre systems to educational genre systems, through the boundary of the classroom genre system, the analyst/reformer can construct a model of the interactions of classroom practices with wider social practices. Activity theory analysis of genre systems may offer a theoretical bridge between the sociology of education and Vygotskian social psychology of classroom interaction, and contribute toward resolving the knotty problem of the relation of macro- and microstructure in literacy research based on various social theories of 'context.'
Russell, David R. Written Communication (1997). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory>Rhetoric
#31377
Rethinking Genre in School and Society: An Activity Theory Analysis
This article attempts to expand and elaborate theories of social "context" and formal schooling, to understand the stakes involved in writing. It first sketches ways Russian activity theory in the tradition of A. N. Leont'ev may expand Bakhtinian dialogism, then elaborates the theory in terms of North American genre research, with examples drawn from research on writing in the disciplines in higher education. By tracing the relations of disciplinary genre systems to educational genre systems, through the boundary of the classroom genre system, the analyst/reformer can construct a model of the interactions of classroom practices with wider social practices. Activity theory analysis of genre systems may offer a theoretical bridge between the sociology of education and Vygotskian social psychology of classroom interaction, and contribute toward resolving the knotty problem of the relation of macro- and microstructure in literacy research based on various social theories of "context."
Russell, David R. Written Communication (1997). Articles>Education>Genre>Activity Theory
#21974
The Rhetoric of Decision Science, or Herbert A. Simon Says
The tools of decision science are widely used and accepted in industrial and governmental decision making. But...
Miller, Carolyn R. North Carolina State University (1991). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory
#13385
Rhetorical Shifts in Author/Audience Roles on the World-Wide Web
Audience analysis figures prominently into Technical Communication curricula because the focus of technical communication is to take complex technical information and create materials that can help readers use, learn, repair, or build equipment or systems (Alred et al. 2). In order to help readers perform these specialized tasks, we must be intimately familiar with their real and anticipated needs, expectations, and limitations. Many different models of the author/audience relationship have been proposed to aid in this analysis. These models have worked well (depending on what school of thought one subscribed to) when the main delivery system consisted of print media.
Bartell, Sandy. Orange Journal, The (2001). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory
#18960
Rhetorical Theory Discussion Group
Open to teachers, students, practitioners, or the idly curious. Discussion of both pure theory and practical applications of theory are welcome. Topics include (but are not limited to): Technical communication, The Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle , Cicero, Quintilian, Augustine, Boethius, Christine de Pisan, Laura Cereta, Desiderius Erasmus, Peter Ramus, Francis Bacon, John Locke, George Campbell, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mikhail Bakhtin, I. A. Richards, Ernst Cassirer, Kenneth Burke, Richard Weaver, Chaim Perelman, Stephen Toulmin, Michel Foucalt, Jacques Derrida, Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Kenneth A. Bruffee, Rachel Spilka, Thomas Kuhn, Carolyn Miller, Jakob Nielsen, Edward R. Tufte, Langdon Winner.
#20071
Richard Saul Wurman: Helping Us Understand Information
Technical communicators should familiarize themselves with the work of some of the popular theoreticians of the information age. Richard Saul Wurman is one of them. With a background as an architect, graphic designer, and cartographer, and experience in designing user guides for tourists and redesigning the Yellow Pages, Wurman offers many theories and insights that are applicable to our profession. This paper summarizes some of his ideas and suggests ways in which they apply to our work.
Casey, Charlotte and Lois Lindahl. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Cyberculture>Theory
#13383
The Role of Social Construction in Technical Communication
Technical communicators perform an important role in society, relaying complex messages in a clear and concise manner to people who would otherwise have to spend an inordinate amount of time tracking down this information for themselves. Among other things, technical communicators are responsible for writing software manuals and computer help systems, instruction manuals for everything from appliances to airplanes, and health-related pamphlets and warnings. If this information is misunderstood – either through the shortcomings of the writer or reader – the consequences can be devastating.
Robinson, Alyssa. Orange Journal, The (2001). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory
#31356
Schemas in Intercultural Communication
Raju demonstrates the importance of understanding cultural schemas—models providing patterns for understanding ideas or objects in a cultural context—when dealing with international technical communication.
Raju, Rita. Intercom (2008). Articles>TC>International>Cultural Theory
#24098
Seeing and Using Theories for Design
In recent years, the subject of research has attracted much attention within the field of design. In this discussion, suggestion has been made about the importance of descriptive/explanatory theory for the practice of design. Given that design is prescriptive by nature, between description and prescription, there is a gap. The gap suggests that the function and value of theory in design practice and thus its evaluation require further examination, clarification and demonstration. The practical value of theory in scientific inquiry is unquestionable. Theory is often referred as the foundation of sciences. Since the immediate goal of scientific practice is different from that of design practice, can the same be said about theory for design? Taking a perspective of a designer, my starting point is that theory, like any information, needs to be brought to life by our way of seeing and using it. Through reflecting on how I have evaluated and used developmental theories for a conceptual design of HIV prevention communication. I will bring up the issue of user in theory evaluation, attempt to demonstrate theory is (made) useful (by)/to designing and put into perspective the value of descriptive/explanatory theory to designing.
Chow, Rosan. University of Alberta (2003). Design>Document Design>Theory>Visual Rhetoric
#25322
Selves, Subjects, and Agents: (Re)Positioning Agency with Self-Identity and Subjectivity
Through tracing some major historical influences and current theoretical perspectives of the human person, this article works toward providing both a foundation and rationale for a critical exploration of theories of agency, self-identity, and subjectivity. The first section traces the path of the Cartesian influence on current Western perceptions of the individual person, then reviews literature relevant to theories of self-identity, subjectivity, and agency within social construction, structuration theory, systems theory, and areas of cultural studies. Based upon these views of the human person, the second section examines agency as an under-theorized concept that requires further consideration (with self-identity and subjectivity) as a salient element of the person and theories of human identity in future research.
Marafiote, Tracy. Rocky Mountain Communication Review (2004). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory>Cultural Theory
#21399
Semiotics: A Primer for Designers
Semiotics teaches us as designers that our work has no meaning outside the complex set of factors that define it. The deeper our understanding and awareness of these factors, the better our control over the success of the work products we create
Hodge, Challis. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Information Design>Cultural Theory
#20245
Separation Anxiety: The Myth of the Separation of Style from Content
The separation of style from content has long been the web’s holy grail. But is it a myth? Stein claims that when design communicates, style and content are inextricably wed.
Stein, Bob. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Web Design>Theory
#22928
Separation: The Web Designer's Dilemma
With all the discussion about separating presentation from content (and structure), it's easy to lose track of the goal. So let's step back, define our terms, and take a look at why it matters.
Cohen, Michael. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS>Theory
