Research problem: Examines how Korean entrepreneurs in an entrepreneurship program revised their English-language slide decks for their competitive presentations (“pitches”) by reusing content from professional communication genres, including their own documents and feedback from potential stakeholders in their target markets. Research question: As entrepreneurs learn to pitch ideas to unfamiliar markets, how do they revise their slide decks by reusing content from other professional communication genres? Specifically, what strategies do they follow when reusing content? Literature review: The professional communication literature demonstrates that reuse tends to take place in documentation cycles where documents are set in interaction with each other and that reuse itself involves rhetorical choices. Yet such reuse strategies have not been examined in existing studies of entrepreneurial pitches in marketing and technology commercialization. Methodology: In an exploratory qualitative study, researchers textually analyzed 14 sets of five related document genres in the archives of an entrepreneurship program. These genres represented a full cycle of activity: application to the program, initial pitches, initial feedback from program personnel, detailed feedback from representative stakeholders in the target market, and revised pitches. Interviews and surveys of program personnel further contextualize the data. Results and conclusions: Entrepreneurs reused content from professional communication genres, including those that they had generated as well as those generated by market stakeholders. However, reuse went simply beyond accepting and copying feedback; as they learned to make their pitch arguments, these entrepreneurs had to weigh this feedback and engage with it critically. This reuse can be characterized as Accepting (repeating verbatim or in close paraphrase); Continuing (extending lines of argument); and Resisting (rebutting lines of argument). These findings suggest that entrepreneurs need all three strategies as they refine their pitches for their target markets.

Research problem: No study has observed the argumentative choices and appeals used by professional designers to support their claims as they engage in decision-making sessions. In particular, we do not know how user-derived data are applied by professional designers in their decision-making arguments. Research questions: (1) What kinds of evidence and appeals do advocates of user-centered design use when supporting claims within design decision-making sessions? (2) How do evidence and appeals used by professional designers compare to evidence and appeals used by previously studied novice designers? Literature review: Previous research of user-centered design that also incorporates data-driven personas has concluded that while some observed groups dedicated to user-centered design see personas as a way to further improve upon user-centered design methods, personas rarely become an integrated part of the design process and are often not incorporated in recommended ways. Prior research of decision-making within the design process has concluded that decision-making is a highly variable, but often deeply collaborative activity that can be assessed through a variety of argumentative lenses, including the Toulmin model of argument. Methodology: In this case study, a one-week, onsite exploratory observation was conducted in the workplace of professional designers. All meetings were recorded and subsequently transcribed. Postobservation interviews were also conducted with the participants. A discourse-based analysis was conducted on the transcriptions to identify the various types of rhetorical appeals and evidence used by the designers during their decision-making meetings. Results and conclusions: This onsite observation found that this particular group of designers supported about 50% of their claims with evidence, with 5.1% of the evidence in support of a claim referencing user data, and 33.4% of evidence in support of a claim referencing the designer's own opinion. These results suggest, among other things, that personas (the key user-centered design tool used by the observed group) are perhaps not necessarily a helpful rhetorical tool for persuasion in decision-making meetings, that designers who conduct user research are more likely to reference user data in support of claims, that these designers might have a broad notion of what constitutes user data, and that prior experience can serve as a powerful persuasive force. In addition, appeals to user data were the least common type of appeal employed by the novice and professional designers. However, this exploratory study is limited by the condensed observation time and its single group of designers. Future studies may use the methodology established here to explore the uses of evidence of additional groups.

The author of this book provides a successful rhetorical analysis of Lysenkoist discourse by examining two speeches given by T.D. Lysenko in 1936 and 1948. Stanchevici (who is from Moldova, which was once a part of the Soviet Union) uses his background and education in professional writing and rhetoric to add unique insights to this analysis. The book begins with an introduction to Lysenkoist science, categorizing its rhetoric as political propaganda that sustained itself by its opposition to Mendelian genetics. The author provides a thorough background on Lysenkoist themes. These themes include: the orrespondence of Lysenkoism and classical genetics to Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism, the fitting of Lysenkoism and genetics into the dominant ideology of Stalinist Russia. The author achieves his overall purpose in showing how Lysenko's manipulative rhetoric was able to prevail over Mendelian genetics for a time. Stalinist Genetics provides readers with a thorough analysis and background in order to understand the controversy surrounding Lysenkoism. In a time where politics are intertwined with many aspects of our lives, this book reminds scientists and rhetoricians of the danger of manipulative rhetoric and the negative influences that can result when combining politics and science. REFERENCES [1] Z. Medvedev, The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1969, Trans. by I.M. Werner

This study aims to provide scholars with insight into the task of writing research articles. Research questions: (1) What are the generic structures of research article introductions in three engineering subdisciplines? and (2) What are variations that distinguish the introductions of one subdiscipline from the others? Literature review: Swales's genre analysis method has proved to be an effective textual analysis to identify the structural organization of each section of research articles. Even though there seems to be a pattern in each section, previous genre-based studies also demonstrate that disciplinary variation is discernible. It thus remains to be determined whether research articles of different subdisciplines within a single discipline share the same organizational structure. Methodology: Based on journal impact factors, three datasets of English research article introductions representing three subdisciplines of engineering (civil, software, and biomedical) were compiled, consisting of 180 introductions with 60 from each subdiscipline. Then, the three datasets were analyzed using Swales's genre analysis technique to identify the structural patterns prevalent in the introductions of each subdiscipline. Units of textual analysis called moves and steps were quantified to capture variations among the introductions. Results and discussion: Analysis shows that these introductions generally adhere to a common rhetorical organization across subdisciplines. However, disciplinary variations are also captured, highlighting the unique characteristics and perspectives of each subdiscipline. The findings bear pedagogical implications, allowing English for Specific Purposes practitioners to prepare novice scholars to be able to publish successfully in their fields.

This study examines the nature, manifestations and causes of communication problems in international outsourcing engagements. Specifically, it explores a case of business process outsourcing (BPO), which is the transfer of a number of business processes, such as payroll, supply chain management, and customer relations to an external supplier. In this case, a company based in the US outsourced its business processes to a company in India. (1) If widespread proficiency in English is the reason for India's predominant position in outsourcing, then why do we hear about communication problems? (2) What are the causes of such problems? (3) In what forms and situations do they manifest? (4) How could technical communication offer solutions to ameliorate or minimize some of these communication problems? Similar cases studied include previous studies of call centers in the Philippines and outsourcing relationships in software companies have identified challenges in those relationships to problems of intercultural communications, such as language use and differences in culture. Three areas of inquiry informed this study. Intercultural communication theories provide frameworks and touch points for assessing the role of culture in communication. Previous studies of outsourcing and offshoring provided definitions of the broad range of arrangements that comprise outsourcing. Although these studies all concluded that communication is a crucial factor in the success of outsourced projects, they offered few details of communication problems, their causes, manifestations, and possible solutions. Accounts of India represent India as a rapidly-growing, dynamic economy with certain typical communication problems. The study was designed as a mixed-methods, single-case study with a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data were gathered through surveys that helped develop a picture of patterns in areas such as communication problems, preferred methods of communication, and patterns of escalation while qualitative data from 45 personal interviews and one group interview provided insights into the nature and resolution of communication dissonances. The case studied ABC Corporation, a captive Indian company that performed BPO for a major American corporation. Communication problems that arise in the outsourcing relationship include differences in corporate culture and differences in linguistic and rhetorical choices. Issues causing these problems include differences in education and training. Ongoing training in cross-cultural communication is needed at all stages of the outsourcing cycle, with an emphasis on communication skills in the early stages of the process, especially the hiring stage. Technical communication can offer solutions to these problems because our field can help structure suitable training applying theories such as Cross' Theory of centripetal and centrifugal forces, which provide frameworks for assessing and addressing communication problems.

Problem: Perhaps it is presumptuous of technical communicators to assume that, because some of their skills that might be employed in developing and delivering training materials, that those skills alone are qualifications to work in training, much less the source by which the processes of Training might be examined. Using data from one survey and one interview-based study of the work of Technical communication and Training groups, as well as participation on committees responsible for certification examinations for technical communicators and trainers, this tutorial analyzes differences in the occupational cultures of the two fields. Key concepts: The work differs: technical communicators produce content that explains how to perform tasks; trainers produce programs that develop skills that a third party can verify. To do so, technical communicators follow a process that emphasizes writing and production; trainers follow a process that emphasizes the analysis of intended goals and evaluation of whether those goals have been achieved. The guiding philosophy of Technical communication is usability; the guiding philosophy of Training is performance. Although both disciplines are rooted in cognitive psychology, the primary intellectual roots of Technical communication are in rhetoric and composition, while the primary intellectual roots are in education. The preferred research methods of Technical communication are critical; the preferred research methods of trainers are empirical qualitative and quantitative methods. Key lessons: As a result, Technical communication professionals and researchers who want to work in training should approach the field in a culturally appropriate way by (1) recognizing distinctions between a communication product and a training program, (2) recognizing distinctions in work processes, (3) recognizing distinctions in language, (4) recognizing differences in values, and (5) acknowledging that an academic discipline of training exists.

Little research has been done to explore the status of business genres in China. The present study explores the evolution of genre of resume writing in China using a grounded theory approach. This study examines the rhetorical patterns and persuasive strategies employed in resume writing in different periods in China and reveals how these changes are related to historical, social, and economic contexts in China, especially from 1979 to 2010, as well as impacts of global contexts on Chinese resume writing. This study characterizes resume writing in China and relates these features to cultural motives and cultural contexts. It concludes that current resume writing practice in China shows a glocal trend.

In this text, the author investigates the creative processes between authors and authors. The author states that he is interested in verbal-visual collaboration because the increased visual nature of communication necessitates the collaboration between those specializing in visual communication and those specializing in verbal communication. This work will be of particular interest to theorists as well as instructors in graphic design, professional communication, as well as rhetoric and composition and those studying ethnographic methodologies.

This book brings together 10 original essays that aim to "engender meaningful conversations about technology and clarify the stakes of technological projects not only for rhetorical studies but also for society at large."

In 1848, <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">{\font \frog = psabkml \hbox {\frog Scientific American}</tex></formula> , a popular science and technology journal, published a series criticizing Morse v. O'Reilly's (1848) confirmation of Samuel Morse's broad telegraph patent and patenting scientific principles. It attacked the decision using copia and classification, rhetoric echoed by the Supreme Court and others in reversing the 1848 decision. The journal was particularly concerned with the case's implications for Morse's patent battles with Royal House and Alexander Bain. The articles offer an opportunity to examine the rhetoric of patent debates and differences in the rhetoric of professional and scientific journals without the emotional attachments of examining contemporary issues.

Quantitative content analysis can enrich research in technical communication by identifying the frequency of thematic or rhetorical patterns and then exploring their relationship through inferential statistics. Over the last decade, the field has published few content analyses, and several of these applications have been qualitative, diluting the method's inherent rigor. This paper describes the versatility of quantitative content analysis and offers a broader application for its use in the field. This discussion frames two original case studies that illustrate the design variability that content analysis offers researchers.

This tutorial presents a workshop aimed at developing persuasive writing skills among lay practitioners with limited literacy who are required to write reports for professionals in a social-service delivery context. Drawing on Ong's distinction between the communication patterns of oral and literate culture, the workshop was designed to utilize participants' existing oral communication patterns as the underpinning for developing rhetorical strategies appropriate for their professional audience. The workshop consisted of a four-phase process of iterative questioning: identifying audience, defining project goals, formulating feasible outcomes, and assembling relevant evidence and support.

How might the rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos play a mediational, intervening role in the successful administration of online surveys? What are the general costs and benefits of conducting survey research? Based on the activity of administering an online survey ( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> = 334) testing knowledge and understanding of US copyright law among digital writers (both students and teachers) in US technical and professional writing (TPW) programs, I blend Rhetorical Theory with Activity Theory by conducting a rhetorical analysis within an Activity Theory paradigm. I posit that a rhetorically informed heuristic mediates between the researcher and potential participants when the researcher attempts to recruit individuals to respond to an online survey.

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> Standard in many professional communications classrooms is the teaching of the general business letter and sometimes, more specifically, the complaint letter. This tutorial draws upon the scholarly research from professional communication, education, and business to address the methods of how to teach a response-to-complaint letter. I recommend a theory-based tutorial for the undergraduate professional communication classroom. This tutorial complements existing teachings on standard form-letter writing and could serve as a supplemental component to a marketing or management course. </para>

When the primary aim of global, professional communication expands to include rapport building in addition to information sharing, basic parts of the communication process must be reevaluated. Such an assessment was conducted through a case study of a team that adapted a US training seminar for a Japanese audience. The team's strong emphasis on the communicative aim of relationship building illustrated how traditional conceptions of rhetorical invention, packaging, delivery, and feedback collection might be revised. For practitioners and educators, the findings of this case study prompt a reevaluation of the rhetorical abilities that are required in global professional communication contexts.

Communication researchers have helped frame understandings about disciplinary and professional writing. But often they are outsiders looking in. To complement that research, this study focuses on insider perspectives of engineers in academic and industrial contexts at diverse career stages. Qualitative data are analyzed using phenomenological research methods. Findings indicate that participant perspectives fall along a rhetorical awareness continuum at points spanning from denial and acknowledgment to an accentuation of rhetoric as critical to individual and organizational success. Participant perspectives along the continuum also vary in terms of writer and reader roles, writer identity, career stage/organizational role, and objectivity. Implications for practitioners are discussed.

Based on a case study of a global training team, this article focuses on an important ability for professional communicators: collaborating with translators. The study confirms the value of approaching translation as a collaborative recreation rather than mere information transfer and suggests the need to integrate translation with localization and to develop team rapport. Relevant abilities include understanding cultural and professional context, using bicultural vision, and building team relationships. Pursuit of these abilities should draw from translation studies and intercultural communication literature and be informed by diverse rhetorical traditions. Global educational and research partnerships are an ideal way to pursue these goals. Such collaboration can improve research methodology and challenge culturally based assumptions about translation-related communication roles and competencies.

Alan G. Gross, who wrote the classic 1990 work, Rhetoric of Science, returns almost two decades later with this text, in which he maintains and improves the coherence and thoughtfulness of his rhetorical approach to science. No longer a prophet, Gross returns as a seriously considered critic of scientific practice from the rhetorical perspective. His move from the revolutionary periphery of scientific study toward the its center begins as he backs away from the more radical statements of his earlier text. His choice of case studies also dampen the revolutionary tone, with the focus on historical examples. Additionally, the chapters have an impressive coverage. Gross deftly synthesizes so many of the different federalized domains of knowledge into single coherent arguments. The book is useful in two respects. First, it possesses tremendous historical significance, having set a tone that helped to legitimize the rhetorical study of science. Second, the book is useful for its insights into how literal and visual technologies of representation help to invent, legitimate, promote, and popularize scientific work.

The visual rhetoric of data displays (e.g., charts, graphs, maps) has changed profoundly over the past 50 years as a result of research in display techniques, the application of traditional and emerging rhetorical approaches, and the democratizing effects of data design technology. Perhaps in no other visual realm than data design is the notion of clarity more critical or more contested. Indeed the ascendancy of rhetorical approaches was initiated by the perceptual/cognitive science of data design, which in seeking to identify optimal display techniques, fostered a concern for ethics and evoked the universality and minimalism of modernist aesthetics. The rhetoric of adaptation, which emphasizes the variability of audiences, purposes, and situational contexts, rendered clarity contingent and mutable-a moving target that requires constant attention. Social rhetoric considered data design as a collective construct, tethering clarity to visual discourse communities, convention-building, cultural values, and power. The concept of clarity has been further reoriented by the rhetoric of participation, which is fostered by interactive digital design that enables users to adapt displays according to their needs and interests.

After the controversial police shooting of a developmentally-disabled African-American teenager in July 2003, the new mayor of Denver, CO, appointed a politically diverse task force to revise the police department's use-of-force policy and propose a new model for police oversight. This teaching case is based on the task force's deliberations and collaborative efforts to build policy consensus in a sometimes rancorous, high-stakes environment. In it, I reconstruct the story of the shooting that gave rise to the task force, trace the arc of the task force's 104-day existence, and analyze the letter and final report submitted by the task force's co-chairs to (1) demonstrate the highly-pressurized nature of policy language invention and the crucial impact of word choice in such policy, and (2) illustrate the difficulty the task force encountered in attempting to secure consensus and the manner in which the final work product acknowledges, rather than obscures, this struggle. Finally, the case includes recommended readings and a guide for individual and group activities for implementation in either an undergraduate- or graduate-level technical communication course.

Twenty years after the publication of Patricia Sullivan's ldquoBeyond a narrow conception of usability testingrdquo in the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, three scholars - all Sullivan's students - reflect on the history and development of usability testing and research. Following Sullivan, this article argues that usability bridges the divide between science and rhetoric and asserts that usability is most effective when it respects the knowledge-making practices of a variety of disciplines. By interrogating trends in usability method, the authors argue for a definition of usability that relies on multiple epistemologies to triangulate knowledge-making. The article opens with a brief history of the development of usability methods and argues that usability requires a balance between empirical observation and rhetoric. Usability interprets human action and is enriched by articulating context and accepting contingency. Usability relies on effective collaboration and cooperation among stakeholders in the design of technology. Ultimately, professional and technical communication scholars are best prepared to coin new knowledge with a long and wide view of usability.

The visual rhetoric of data displays (e.g., charts, graphs, maps) has changed profoundly over the past 50 years as a result of research in display techniques, the application of traditional and emerging rhetorical approaches, and the democratizing effects of data design technology. Perhaps in no other visual realm than data design is the notion of clarity more critical or more contested. Indeed the ascendancy of rhetorical approaches was initiated by the perceptual/cognitive science of data design, which in seeking to identify optimal display techniques, fostered a concern for ethics and evoked the universality and minimalism of modernist aesthetics. The rhetoric of adaptation, which emphasizes the variability of audiences, purposes, and situational contexts, rendered clarity contingent and mutable-a moving target that requires constant attention. Social rhetoric considered data design as a collective construct, tethering clarity to visual discourse communities, convention-building, cultural values, and power. The concept of clarity has been further reoriented by the rhetoric of participation, which is fostered by interactive digital design that enables users to adapt displays according to their needs and interests.

This tutorial on how to teach report writing is based on the premise that decision-making is a complex process that derives from both rational and quasi-rational ways of knowing the world. The author defines quasi-rational to include consideration of hunches, intuition, and tacit knowledge often embodied in stories that have meaning to the decision-maker. Thus, report writing can be approached as a systematic evaluation of options available given goals and constraints, but also as an uncovering of the narratives that decision-makers see surrounding their own lives. The tutorial explains a course curriculum structured in three sections with the following goals and strategies: (1) helping students face personal or family decisions through a traditional decision-matrix process that also incorporates elements of rhetorical stasis theory, (2) using big case studies to reveal the interplay between rational and quasi-rational thought in decision-making, and (3) finding case studies in the students' local geographic regions in order to further explore this interplay. The paper concludes with a brief assessment of how the author's students responded to such a course

This book addresses a wide spectrum of issues in technical communication, ranging from specific visual elements to the entire research process, from brief memos to formal proposals. Part I, "Communication in the Workplace," starts with how to prepare an effective technical document and deliver the essential information. In Part II, "The Research Process," the author outlines both the procedural and the inquiry stages of the research. Part III, "Structural and Style Elements," focuses on strategies for organizing and conveying messages that users can follow and understand: partitioning and classifying, outlining, storyboarding, paragraphing, sequencing, chunking, and creating an overview. Part IV, "Visual, Design, and Usability Elements," further enhances the discussion in Part II about technical documents. The author talks about the rhetorical implications of graphics and page design so that readers can learn to enhance a document's access, appeal, and visual impact for audiences. Part V, "Specific Documents and Applications," is a rich "think tank" of applications in technical communications. The author offers instructions on almost all the writing styles you can think of - from memos, instant messages, and webpages, to resumes, letters, and proposals. The last part, "A Brief Handbook with Addition Sample Documents," has three appendices that once again address the writing process, editing, and research findings documentation. Readers can also find a wealth of resources on the book's companion website: www.alongman.com/lannonweb. This book presents a panorama of technical communication, providing readers with a look at every aspect of this profession. It is not only a comprehensive textbook for classroom teaching, but also a valuable reference book for instructors and working professionals.

Based on feedback from graduate students, from science and engineering faculty who teach graduate students, and from surveys about the skills graduate students need, the authors have designed and taught a graduate-level course in academic publishing. This article describes the need for the course and the theory behind its design, outlines the course content, and presents assessment data from the first three course iterations. The findings indicate that this course has increased students' awareness of the role of rhetorical and discourse knowledge as well as their level of confidence in their ability to write and publish professional work. Further, findings from interviews with faculty advisors yield insight into the benefits of the course for students, advisors, disciplinary programs, and cross-curricular initiatives

Technical communication textbooks tend to address visual rhetoric as two separate units, usually a chapter on document design and then a chapter on graphics. We advocate teaching a unified system of visual rhetoric that encompasses both text and graphics within a common visual-language system. Using C. S. Peirce's three-part theory of rhetoric and his ten categories of sign, we offer an integrated semiotic system, interpreting in one model the effectiveness of graphics, document design, and formatting, all considered as subtypes in this proposed visual rhetoric, organized around three primary communication goals: to decorate, to indicate, and to inform. Thus, any evaluation of visuals, either textual or graphic, must be made with reference to rhetorical contexts in which audience needs and graphic/textual media choices should align with authorial goals

While a significant amount of attention and interest has been directed to investigate the communicative functions of organizational websites, little research has been done to examine how internal organizational communication shapes organizational website design. This study employs the theory of rhetorical situation to examine the impact of internal organizational communication on website design. Specifically, it has examined a few organizational website design case studies from the perspective of rhetorical situation and has analyzed a case about website design by a Chinese student organization on a US college campus. Both the examination and analysis show that organizations and designers must communicate effectively in the process of identifying and thereafter transforming organizational objectives into effective website features. Both theoretical and practical implications for organizational website design are addressed in the paper

Economics discourse is now seen as characterized by intersubjectivity and interactivity, since economists take a stance by using lexico-grammatical elements and rhetorical features to build a convincing argument from a personal perspective, to attain solidarity with readers, and to claim social participation in the economics community. Evaluation and particularly evaluative adjectives are thus a crucial feature of economics discourse. Taking a qualitative and quantitative approach, this study explores, in a small specialized corpus, the functions of evaluative adjectives, their variation across genres and registers, and whether they are constrained by the specific domain of economics. Findings show that evaluative adjectives can adopt more than one function simultaneously, they vary across genres and registers, and that they are strongly constrained by domain. Moreover, given the need to use specialized language internationally, this study wants to build, especially in NNS economists, an awareness of the features which typify economics discourse and a better understanding of the crucial role evaluative adjectives hold when economists have to communicate critical perspectives while building their professional persona.

Corpus studies are revolutionizing the study of language practice, including professional communication, by substituting actual examples of practice for prescriptive intuition. Corpora are often put together by researchers who exert much care in what goes into a corpus. Yet professional communicators also experience corpora as commodities in the marketplace, bundles of "writing models" for sale that cross genres of professional and personal communication. When writers purchase these bundles, what are the latent rhetorical strategies they are purchasing? A corpus study of 728 canned letters across 15 genres taken from a best-selling trade book was undertaken. The texts were tagged for rhetorical features and factor analyzed for latent rhetorical dimensions of proficiency. The study concludes that the latent rhetorical proficiencies brought into evidence are heavily weighted on skills of collecting or raising money. While this study requires replication over a wider sample, it illustrates how corpus approaches can help us rigorously retrieve latent rhetorical skills across a collection of rhetorically diverse texts. It further helps us see how corpus studies allow one to maintain close ties between the avowed standards of communication practice and the close description of the practices themselves

This case study focuses on the role of language in managing organizational change. We examined the campaign and rhetorical strategies used by a major US airline to persuade customer service employees not to vote for Teamsters Union representation. The company's anti-union campaign documents included internal memos, letters, and emails. If included in a professional or technical communication course, these documents provide a powerful case for students to explore the role of written communication within a changing organization. We situate the case in the context of relevant literature and provide background information. We also include learning outcomes, methods, and implications.

An increasing body of research relies on genre to analyze academic and professional communication and to describe how members of a community use language. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of genre-based research in technical communication and to describe the different approaches to genre and to genre teaching. While some research focuses on the textual analysis of genres, other studies focus on the analysis of the social context and the ideology and structure of the discourse community that owns the genre, and on the role of genres as social rhetorical actions of the community. These two perspectives are also reflected in the teaching of genre in technical communication.

What constitutes a cause is a particularly important question for those who teach or study technical writing. This article describes a case that helps students look beyond the technical "causes" of a commuter airplane crash in order to address the complex web of policies, practices, actions and events that contributed to the crash. Using an approach grounded in stakeholder theory and ethical theory, students use real documents ranging from news accounts to FAA policies to NTSB hearing exhibits to identify systemic problems that contributed to the disaster. Working from particular stakeholder perspectives, they work collaboratively to develop and argue for policy changes that will prevent future tragedies. The abundance of real documents that drive this case make it an especially useful tool for engaging students in difficult-to-teach subject matter including the role of writing in the failure of technical systems, deliberative and judicial rhetoric, stakeholder theory, visual rhetoric, and ethics.

Sherron Watkins has been labeled a corporate whistleblower based on the letter she sent in August 2001 to Kenneth Lay, Chairman of the Board of the Enron Corporation. In her letter she identified Enron's unethical and illegal financial management practices, but her letter was never made public until the company's stock was all but worthless. This case is based on the Watkins letter, as well as other articles published in the New York Times and Time magazine. First, we identify the context of the Enron scandal, reviewing the accounting practices that Watkins revealed in her letter. Second, we analyze the Watkins letter, focusing on the rhetorical moves that Watkins makes in the letter and discussing how these moves constitute a persona for Watkins as author. Finally, we present a developed case for use in the classroom; the case continues the analysis of Watkins' persona as it evolves through articles in other publications. We argue that the persona Watkins creates for herself in her letter undergoes a transformation so that by the time she appears as Time magazine's Person of the Year 2002, she is corporate whistleblower. The case includes a two-day course plan with specified student learning outcomes, teaching resources, a group activity, and a selection of student responses to the case.

This article presents findings from an empirical study investigating the transfer of rhetorical knowledge, defined as audience awareness, sense of purpose, organization, use of visuals, professional appearance, and style, between the technical communication and the engineering disciplines. Various data collection methods were used to examine the skills and rhetorical knowledge students learned in a technical communication course and determine whether or not students relied on that knowledge as they completed writing assignments in an engineering course. Also examined was the effect of workplace experiences on shaping students' rhetorical knowledge. This study indicated that students did appear to transfer rhetorical strategies between different contexts, and those strategies were learned in the workplace as well as the classroom.

Background. As they guide people in performing a task, procedures are the heart of most manuals. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising that the theoretical and empirical knowledge of their nature has remained somewhat elusive. This paper describes a theoretical framework for procedures, summarized as the four components model, which is grounded in systems theory and rhetoric. Aim. The study addresses two research questions: (1) What are procedures made of? and (2) Which design guidelines for procedures can be abstracted from theory and research? Results. The model distinguishes between: goals, prerequisite states, unwanted states (warnings and problem-solving information), and actions and reactions. For each component pertinent research findings are summarized and lead to the formulation of design guidelines. Occasionally these guidelines are compared with existing procedures from a sample of 104 manuals to see how well theory and practice agree. Conclusion. The model offers a manageable and expandable framework for creating user support that is based on scientific research. It can be used for a systematic analysis of procedures and for their (re)design.

This paper describes a five-year research project aimed at developing a corpus-based language support tool able to respond to the English writing needs of Japanese software engineers who do not speak English natively. Our research was based on recent developments in corpus and text linguistics. Since foreign readers often complain that English text produced by Japanese authors is difficult to understand because it is poorly organized and incoherent, we focused on the possibility of designing a writing tool that would provide discourse-level as well as sentence-level assistance. We collected a total of 539 sample English abstracts from four well-known technical journals and tagged them with linguistic and rhetorical information. Using this tagged corpus, an initial prototype was developed on a Unix-based workstation and a second one on the Web. The Web-based prototype was then evaluated in terms of its usability by engineers in Ricoh's Software Research and Development Group. They evaluated the final product positively. However, they expressed uncertainty about its ability to address their weaknesses in using transition words effectively as cohesive devices. In spite of unexpected difficulties, product improvement continues.

Professionals involved in the creation of text-based communication face a number of challenges. These include overburdened and often uninterested users juxtaposed with the writer's desire to communicate relevant topical information. Uninvolved users are likely to ignore the message. This may be exacerbated by increases in text length designed to increase the amount and/or detail of information to be communicated. An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of rhetorical figures in text headings as to how users read and process the text (hereafter readership, as used in marketing). To the extent that higher levels of text readership increase user knowledge and skills, enhance topic-related attitudes, and facilitate beneficial topic-related behaviors, higher readership should yield desirable communication outcomes. Headings with rhetorical figures were hypothesized to enhance readership, particularly under conditions generally associated with relatively low readership, namely, lower perceived information relevance and longer text. Results generally support rhetorical figures' abilities to enhance readership, especially with longer texts.

Professionals involved in the creation of text-based communication face a number of challenges. These include overburdened and often uninterested users juxtaposed with the writer's desire to communicate relevant topical information. Uninvolved users are likely to ignore the message. This may be exacerbated by increases in text length designed to increase the amount and/or detail of information to be communicated. An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of rhetorical figures in text headings as to how users read and process the text (hereafter readership, as used in marketing). To the extent that higher levels of text readership increase user knowledge and skills, enhance topic-related attitudes, and facilitate beneficial topic-related behaviors, higher readership should yield desirable communication outcomes. Headings with rhetorical figures were hypothesized to enhance readership, particularly under conditions generally associated with relatively low readership, namely, lower perceived information relevance and longer text. Results generally support rhetorical figures' abilities to enhance readership, especially with longer texts.

Patrick Dean graduated from the University of Waterloo (in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) with an honors B.A. in Rhetoric and Professional Writing and has spent the past four and a half years working in the software industry as a technical writer. He is currently a Senior Technical Writer for the Bulldog Group, Inc., in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. During our interview, Patrick had a few words to say about his recent moonlighting: “A year ago my wife and I bought a 100-year-old house in Toronto, and since then I’ve spent precisely every free second either working on the house, or reading about how to work on the house.”

Recent years have seen increased attention to the examination of the genres that people use in professional communication. C. Berkenkotter and T.N. Huckin's book "Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication" (1995) is an important contribution to this discussion. Their view of genre has important implications for the teaching of professional writing. Their view gives us an insight into the ways in which people both acquire and use genre knowledge as they participate in the knowledge-producing activities of their field or profession. It shows us how important the process of genre acquisition is in the learning of disciplinary genre knowledge. Linguistic knowledge is necessary for effective communication, but it is not sufficient for writers to achieve their goals. Just as important, writers need to understand the underlying views, assumptions and aims of a field. They need control of the rhetoric through which they are expressed. They also need to understand the history, knowledge and expectations of their particular area, and to locate their writing clearly within the context of this work. The notion of genre can provide students with the tools for both recognizing and adapting to the changing genre landscapes that their professional lives will travel across. While we cannot hope to predict all of our students' possible future genre needs, we can help them ask questions of texts, of contexts, and of themselves, so they can produce and understand the kinds of texts which they need to control in their professional lives.

In a series of books published between 1964 and 1987 (C. Alexander, 1964; 1987; C. Alexander et al., 1975; 1977), Christopher Alexander, an urban planner and architect, has inspired object oriented programmers with his idea of a pattern language, which originally catalogued solutions to common problems faced by any community or individual creating livable structures such as a town or a house. His approach might also help technical communicators polish and perfect our own standard rhetorical structures (such as the procedure, user guide, or reference), viewed as common ways of answering frequent, if virtual questions from our users. Alexander's way of describing age-old patterns such as neighbourhoods, streets, paths, and homes may give us a model for creating our own set of patterns in technical communication, whether or not we adopt some of the eager elaborations offered by folks in the object oriented design world.

Beginning Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) students often have difficulty learning the genre of lab report writing. This difficulty can be alleviated through genre theory strategies and research, which writing center consultants, for example, can use to focus on the specific form and content of engineering writing, which then can be taught to students in a writing center environment. Genre theory provides a means (1) for humanities writing center consultants to learn specific characteristics about engineering writing, (2) for interdisciplinary collaboration between writing professionals and engineers to take place, and (3) for students to have increased opportunities to learn the discourse of their field. All of these benefits are enhanced by discipline-specific writing programs that support and facilitate them. In addition, the collaboration provides a stimulating, fluid, creative environment in which to discuss engineering writing, an environment which reflects the changing needs of engineering education as a result of technological advancements. As technology continues to influence engineering education, prompting evolutions in both technical and communication skills and knowledge, genre theory and interdisciplinary collaboration will continue to gain importance as strategies for initiating students into the communication demands of their field. The discussion focuses on the integration of genre theory with writing instruction in the ECE Department at the University of South Carolina. This integration stimulated interaction among ECE faculty, composition and rhetoric faculty and students, and ECE students.