Government leaders have called for messaging and prevention programs that target cannabis, which, in recent years, has been viewed more favorably in the public eye. In these efforts, technical communication scholars can make meaningful contributions, and as a start, this article presents a scoping review of three key areas in cannabis risk communication: physician/patient interactions, social media, and cannabis-related businesses.

Component content management (CCM) enables organizations to create, manage, and deliver content as small components rather than entire documents. As CCM methodologies, processes, and technologies are increasingly adopted, CCM is reshaping technical communication (TC), the roles of technical communicators, and the skills they need for career success. This article reviews scholarly and trade publications that describe changes in roles and needed skills in CCM environments and identifies implications of these changes for TC education.

The purpose of this study is to construct and validate a scale of electronic health (e-health) communication competence. Based on a comprehensive review of e-health literature, this scale was constructed using two studies to gather data and validate the scale; four dimensions emerged in the final measurement: e-health self-efficacy, knowledge, usage, and motivation. Results suggest the e-health competence scale is useful for researchers to develop online health interventions and other domains of computer-mediated communication.

Reviewed by Michael MadsonMedical University of South CarolinaSince the 1990s, technical writing has oriented itself in various ways toward globalization studies and transcultural rhetorics. A grow...

The authors performed an interdisciplinary literature review of research on communication and climate change. The authors reviewed STEM, social science, and risk analysis journals to synthesize recent publications on climate change communication which could support research in technical communication. Several applications are proposed for technical communication research, including using this review to contextualize local qualitative work, to spur interdisciplinary projects and address gaps in multidisciplinary literature, and reconsider a role for advocacy in technical communication.

The field of technical communication has made notable progress in researching and teaching intercultural issues. Not enough discussion, however, is available on assessing students’ intercultural competence. This article attempts to start this discussion and invite further research. It suggests a working definition to conceptualize intercultural competence and draws upon diverse disciplines to review different assessment methods, including their strengths, drawbacks, and potential applications in technical communication classes.

Complex Worlds: Digital Culture, Rhetoric and Professional Communication is a collection of 11 essays (in four parts) that explores the complexity of digital technology in educational, industrial, ...

Reviews of products on Web sites like Epinions.com make explicit the ways in which credible identities are co-constructed. Product reviews reveal not only how reviewers construct credibility for themselves but also how readers of reviews, through their comments about reviews, ratify and contribute to reviewer credibility. I present a framework and analyze examples of reviews of digital cameras to examine how reviewers of a technical product convey credibility and how review readers coconstruct reviewers' credibility. The framework and analysis can help identify those reviewers who are likely to influence review Web site users.

As distributed work begins to shift the nature of practice for technical communication professionals in the workplace, faculty need new frameworks to help prepare students for roles that involve negotiating, supporting, and facilitating virtual global collaboration. This paper identifies key areas of metaknowledge appropriate to these new frameworks by synthesizing a review of current scholarship on such collaborations and a case study of students participating in a cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural team project.

This study traces the reception of rhetoric of science work in book reviews by science studies scholars, focusing particularly on critiques of the author's own book by historians of science, to ground recommendations for improving our status in the interdisciplinary conversation. In describing the work of other science studies scholars, rhetoricians of science should acknowledge the rhetorical contributions of nonrhetoricians and negotiate a shared space rather than attempt to fill perceived lacunae in the literature.

(2003). Review of Technical Communication, Deliberative Rhetoric, and Environmental Discourse: Connections and Directions. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 234-236.

(2003). Review of The New Careers: lndiwidual Action and Economic Change. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 230-234.

(2002). Review of Writing Centers and Writing Across the Curriculum Programs: Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 476-478.

Abstract Computer classrooms (CCs) have been an important part of writing instruction since the mid 1980s, yet little scholarship concerns the roles that directors of computer classrooms play in maintaining these facilities. Based on a review of scholarship of CC administration and an informal survey of CC administrators, this article argues that CC directors walk a tightrope between the role of teacher and manager and that we need to focus on building partnerships to maintain our facilities, because we simply cannot do by ourselves everything that this complex role requires of us.

(2002). Review of Rhetoric, the Polis, and the Global Village: Selected Papers from the 1998 Thirtieth Anniversary Rhetoric Society of America Conference. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 99-101.

(2002). Review of Literacy Theory in the Age of the Internet. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 88-89.

(2002). Review of Twentieth-Century Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources; and Living Rhetoric and Composition: Stories of the Discipline. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 102-104.

(2002). Review of Untying the Tongue: Gender, Power, and the Word. Technical Communication Quarterly: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 96-98.

Reader feedback is generally considered to be valuable input for writers who want to optimize their documents, but a reader-focused evaluation is often time-consuming. For this reason, we have developed Focus, a software tool for collecting reader comments more efficiently. The design and rationale of the software are described in this article. In a small-scale evaluation study, the results we obtained using Focus were compared to the reader feedback collected under the plus-minus method. It appeared that the number of problems detected per participant did not differ, but there were differences in the types of problems found. Focus participants appeared to comment more from a reviewer's and less from a user's perspective. Although the two methods are not interchangeable, Focus can be said to be a promising evaluation tool, deserving further research.

Academic disciplines certify knowledge through publication in scholarly journals; therefore, peer review of journal articles is one method of authorizing someone's speech. It is possible, however, to see peer review and other strategies as methods by which elites silence or de‐authorize voices that pose a threat to their status. This article discusses four methods of forum control— peer review, denial of forum, public correction, and published ridicule. Examples are drawn from cases in science.

The Presentation of Technical Information. 3rd ed. Reginald Kapp. Letchworth, Hertfordshire, UK: The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, 1998. 136 pages. User‐Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts. Robert R. Johnson. Albany: SUNY P, 1998. 195 pages. Ethics in Technical Communication: Shades of Gray. Lori Allen and Dan Voss. New York: Wiley, 1997. 410 pages. The Dynamics of Writing Review: Opportunities for Growth and Change in the Workplace. Susan M. Katz. Vol. 5 in the ATTW Contemporary Studies in Technical Communication. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1998. 134 pages. Essays in the Study of Scientific Discourse: Methods, Practice, and Pedagogy. Ed. John T. Battalio. Vol. 6 in the ATTW Contemporary Studies in Technical Communication. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. 264 pages. Outlining Goes Electronic. Jonathan Price. Vol. 9 in the ATTW Contemporary Studies in Technical Communication. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1999. 177 pages (including bibliography and indexes). Wiring the Writing Center. Ed. Eric H. Hobson. Logan, Utah: Utah State UP, 1998. 254 pages. Inventing the Internet. Janet Abbate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. 264 pages.

For small and mid‐sized universities, the 200‐level technical writing service course often represents the primary writing experience for students after their freshman year. Our “service” should help students develop the tools for analyzing language and understanding writing in complex ways. Assignment sequences should engage students in active research to develop four primary literacies: rhetorical, visual, information, and computer. This article focuses on disciplinarity and underlying pedagogical goals in technical writing classrooms by describing a search engine assignment sequence which promotes literate practices in three short reports: 1) A preview/instructions report, 2) An analysis/ evaluation report, and 3) A narrative review of a research activity. This article concludes with implications for these types of classroom practices.

Although assessment has been the focus of many recent discussions about our technical communication programs, little work has been done to outline the kinds of issues we should address in a valid assessment. In this essay, the author notes the kinds of assumptions and ensuing questions that will surround a thorough assessment of our programs, classes, teachers, and students.

Technical communication curricula vary because faculty use a variety of approaches to develop them. This essay suggests guidelines for curriculum and program development in technical communication based on a review of the relevant survey literature on the professional roles played by technical communicators, a review of academic literature on technical communication programs, and a review of the relevant demographic data on technical communicators. It then discusses the implications of the above for designing technical communication curricula and programs.