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October 2014

  1. Origin Stories and Dreams of Collaboration: Rethinking Histories of the Communication Course and the Relationships Between English and Speech
    Abstract

    Scholars exploring the history of collaboration between English and Speech have studied the “communication courses” that emerged in the twentieth century and combined instruction in speaking and writing. The history of the Verbal Expression course at the University of Illinois challenges our dominant narratives about the origins of these courses. For example, while most scholars pinpoint their origins to World War Two, our study of the Illinois course shows that it emerged as a result of the Great Depression and the general education movement. We offer a corrective to previous histories by showing how local, institutional structures and pressures often have as much influence on pedagogy and collaboration as do external disciplinary structures. We argue that such correctives are especially valuable at a moment when rhetoricians in English and Speech are becoming more invested in combing the past for ideas about how best to collaborate in the present.

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2014.957412
  2. Circulating Communities: The Tactics and Strategies of Community Publishing
    Abstract

    Chapter 1: Making Writing Accessible to All: The Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers and The FED, by Nick Pollard and Pat Smart Chapter 2: The Challenges of Circulation: International Networking of Homeless Publications, by Paula Mathieu Chapter 3: Respect, Writing, Community: Write Around Portland, by Sara Guest with Hanna Neuschwander and Robyn Steely Chapter 4: Listen to My Story: The Transformative Possibilities of Storytelling in Immigrant Communities, by Mark Lyons Chapter 5: Oral Histories as Community Outreach: Toward a Deeper Understanding of a Rural Public Sphere, by Laurie Cella Chapter 6: Unfinished: Story of sine cera, a Community Publication in Process, by Rachel Meads Chapter 7: Here in this Place: Write On! of Durham, North Carolina, by Kimberly Abels, Kristal Moore Clemons, Julie Wilson, Autumn Winters and Mahogany Woods Chapter 8: Sharing Space: Collaborative Programming Within and Between Communities, by Mairead Case, Annie Knepler, and Rupal Soni Chapter 9: Katrina in Their Own Words: Collecting, Creating, and Publishing Writing on the Storm, by Richard Louth Chapter 10: Writers Speaking Out: The Challenges of Community Publishing from Spaces of Confinement, by Tobi Jacobi and Elliot Johnston, with the SpeakOut! Writing Workshop Facilitators and Writers Chapter 11: A Bunch of Us Beg to Differ!: Queer Community Literacy and Rhetorics of Civic Pride, by A.V. Luce

    doi:10.25148/clj.9.1.009303
  3. “Moves” Toward Rhetorical Civility
    Abstract

    I theorize four civility moves—opening up, searching for sameness, examining differences, and listening deeply. Although I ultimately offer these as rhetorical strategies to be taught and practiced explicitly, I use them here as a framework for interpreting student writing that emerged from an assignment to produce a collaborative anthology of arguments.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-2715778
  4. Unwriting Food Labels
    Abstract

    This article examines the challenges resulting from the regulation of written discourse on food packages. It uses as a case study Hong Kong’s strict new food-labeling law that requires distributers and retailers to remove certain nutritional claims from packages of imported food before they sell them. This practice of redacting unlawful text on packages requires that distributers and retailers engage in complex processes of discursive reasoning, and it sometimes results in packages that are difficult for customers to interpret. The case study highlights important issues in the regulation of commercial texts concerning collaboration, intertextuality, and the conflicts that can arise when the principals, authors, and animators of such texts have different agendas.

    doi:10.1177/1050651914536186

September 2014

  1. Functional and Nonfunctional Quality in Cloud-Based Collaborative Writing: An Empirical Investigation
    Abstract

    Research problem: Collaborative writing has dramatically changed with the use of cloud-based tools, such as Google Docs. System quality-both functional (i.e., what services the system provides) and nonfunctional quality (i.e., how well the system provides the services)-influences user satisfaction with these tools. Research question: Do functional and nonfunctional quality influence user satisfaction in cloud-based systems that support collaborative writing? Literature review: The intersection of literature from collaborative writing and system quality presents the theoretical foundation for this study. The literature on collaborative writing suggests that technology facilitates and constrains collaborative writing, while the literature on cloud computing highlights the challenges in ensuring various aspects of quality. Furthermore, literature on system quality emphasizes the importance of the different facets of quality (i.e., functional and nonfunctional) and their impacts on user satisfaction. Methodology: We conducted a survey of 150 undergraduate students enrolled in an information systems course at a large urban university. Results: The results show that functional and nonfunctional quality play a critical role in shaping user satisfaction with cloud computing and that nonfunctional quality has a stronger impact than functional quality. Implications: To ensure satisfaction with cloud computing, organizations need to provide adequate development and maintenance resources to ensure both types of quality, and they need to recognize that nonfunctional quality plays a key role in shaping user satisfaction with cloud computing.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2014.2344331
  2. Selections From the ABC 2013 Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana
    Abstract

    This article, the second in a two-part series, catalogs teaching innovations presented at the 2013 Association for Business Communication Annual Convention, New Orleans. They were presented during the My Favorite Assignment session. The 11 Favorite Assignments featured here offer the reader a variety of learning experiences, including collaborative teamwork, debate, budgets, cross-cultural communication, report writing, persuasion, not-for-profit organization, client communication, and writing funding proposals. Additional teaching materials—including instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are posted on the Association for Business Communication web page http://businesscommunication.org/assignments .

    doi:10.1177/2329490614530554
  3. Termination Documentation
    Abstract

    In this study, we examined 11 workplaces to determine how they handle termination documentation, an empirically unexplored area in technical communication and rhetoric. We found that the use of termination documentation is context dependent while following a basic pattern of infraction, investigation, intervention, and termination. Furthermore, the primary audience of the documentation is typically legal and regulatory bodies, not the employee. We also make observations about genre, collaboration, and authorship in these documents.

    doi:10.1177/2329490614538806
  4. Instructional Note: Using Google Drive to Prepare Students for Workplace Writing and to Encourage Student Responsibility, Collaboration, and Revision
    Abstract

    In this article, I explain how integrating Google Drive into your classroom can help prepare students to participate effectively in workplace writing practices and can promote student responsibility, collaboration, and effective revisions.

    doi:10.58680/tetyc201426090
  5. Feature: Responding with the Golden Rule: A Cross-Institutional Peer Review Experiment
    Abstract

    Instructors recount the challenges and successes that accompanied a collaborative peer review project between first-year college students at two institutions.

    doi:10.58680/tetyc201426089
  6. Reviews
    Abstract

    Reviewed are: Collaborative Learning and Writing: Essays on Using Small Groups in Teaching English and Composition, edited by Kathleen M. Hunzer, Reviewed by Signee Lynch Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy, by Jason Palmeri, Reviewed by Stephanie Vie Communal Modernisms: Teaching Twentieth-Century Literature in the Twenty-First Century Classroom, edited by Emily M. Hinnov, Laurel Harris, and Lauren M. Rosenblum, Reviewed by Mike Piero Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing, by Elizabeth Losh, Jonathan Alexander, Kevin Cannon, and Zander Cannon, Reviewed by Kristen Welch

    doi:10.58680/tetyc201426095

August 2014

  1. Snapshots of Identification: Kenneth Burke’s Engagements with T.S. Eliot
    Abstract

    AbstractWhat emerged out of Kenneth Burke’s engagements with T. S. Eliot—particularly his engagements with Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral? An examination of Burke’s comments on Eliot in Permanence and Change, Attitudes Toward History, A Grammar of Motives, and A Rhetoric of Motives, as well as in his unpublished correspondence reveals examples of the emerging and developing concepts surrounding Burkean identification. Taken in the context of Burke’s own conflicting commitments to aestheticist and social perspectives on art, such a portrait supports the thesis that identification is not a one-time state to be achieved, but instead is an ongoing rhetorical–dialectical process that must be constantly maintained through negotiation. Ultimately, for Burke, Eliot and Murder reflected the rhetorical concerns he dedicated his career to exploring: How do our perspectives limit us, how do they divide us, and how do we transcend those divisions? Notes1 Collected in the Kenneth Burke Papers housed in the Special Collections Library at Pennsylvania State University. Quotations from the Kenneth Burke Papers are reproduced with permission from the Kenneth Burke Literary Trust. The Malcolm Cowley quotation on page nine (which does not appear in Jay) is also taken from a letter in the Kenneth Burke Papers and reproduced with permission of Robert Cowley.2 Dana Anderson defines identification as “the process of perceiving the self in relation to the various social scenes it occupies” (26) while Gregory Clark likewise discusses identification (and more largely, rhetoric) as a process of interaction between self (individual) and collective identity (3).3 For example, Clark discusses “identifications” that occur in “moments of identification” (3), suggesting an underlying focus on identification as discrete, countable—a moment(or moments) at the end of a process. Anderson notes the process of identification as it relates to the construction and (strategic) deployment of identity, though this analysis of identification necessarily focuses on moments of fluctuating stability where identities are perceived in relation to social scenes (26).4 For more on the expansion of the modernist canon, see Douglas Mao and Rebecca Walkowitz.5 I should note here that I have found no evidence that Burke and Eliot ever actually spoke or corresponded. In an April 27, 1947 letter to James Sibley Watson, Burke mentions his plans to attend one of Eliot’s lectures on Milton the following Saturday; however, I have found no further mention of the lecture in Burke’s correspondence. Burke nevertheless analyzes Eliot’s literary and critical publications throughout his career, although I have no evidence that Eliot ever took note of Burke.6 For a detailed argument on Permanence and Change as a cultural history, see chapter 3 of George and Selzer.7 This passage, along with several others, was subsequently deleted in the 1954 revised edition of P&C. Here I have provided the 1935 edition page numbers for the excised content; however, other references to P&C in this manuscript, unless otherwise noted, refer to the reprinted 1984 University of California Press edition. For more on the printing history and “Lost Passages” of P&C, see Edward Schiappa and Mary Keehner.8 In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke accounts for heterogeneity in consubstantiality by explaining that a “thing’s identity would … be its uniqueness as an entity in itself and by itself, a demarcated unit having its own particular structure. However, ‘substance’ is an abstruse philosophic term, beset by a long history of quandaries and puzzlements … an acting-together; and in the acting-together, men have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, attitudes that make them consubstantial” (21). In other words, consubstantiality does not preclude heterogeneity because it is an act, not a state of being, and people can share in an act.9 I use transcendence here and throughout this essay in the Burkean sense—that is, the expansion of a particular perspective to encompass opposing perspectives.10 Murder in the Cathedral is Eliot’s retelling of the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered by knights of King Henry II in Canterbury Cathedral. Burke’s focus is primarily on the actual death scene in the play, where Becket is killed and the four murderers turn and address the audience in prose to justify their act.11 Burke provides a succinct summary of this reading in a letter to Malcolm Cowley: “Issue: the approach to God through elegance. How you leave the old locale behind, because it isn’t elegant enough. How you build up elegance by antithesis. And then search for its reality-here-and-now abroad. But eventually discover that only God is elegant enough” (Burke to Cowley, April 13, 1936).12 It is worth noting that Burke eventually says the character of Saint Thomas “specifically use[s] the dramatist grammar” by meditating on human motives “in terms of ‘action’ and ‘passion’” (GM 263). This is, however, not a novel reading of the play—many critics have also noted the action-passion motif in Murder. In the book T. S. Eliot’s Dramatic Theory and Practice, Carol H. Smith points out that a large part of the action-suffering motif “rests in the realization that to ‘act’ in the illusion of freedom from God’s laws is the strongest kind of bondage to the world of the senses, while to exercise the freedom of the will by ‘suffering’ God’s will is to be freed from the torture-wheel of life” (80–81).Burke further considers freedom and action-passion duality in the ending dialogue of The Rhetoric of Religion. Here, Satan explains that because acts are by definition free, human beings must also be free, since they are capable of action (281). The Lord goes on to point out that “action (along with its grammatical partner passion)” are the basis of drama, which is particularly important because “of the large part that the arts of comedy and tragedy will play in [humans’] outlook, extending even to their ideas of ultimate salvation” (281).13 Randy Malamud likewise describes this scene as a “shocking contrast to the play’s passionate crescendo” where the murderers “step forward and address the audience in prose rhetoric evocative of a sloppy after-dinner speech” (69).14 Burke will later point out in A Grammar of Motives that “Eliot specifically considers the action-motion relation” here (263).15 Of course, Burke makes a similar argument in his now oft-commented on address to the First American Writer’s Congress, titled “Revolutinoary Symbolism in America,” where he claims “The complete propagandist, it seems to me, would take an interest in as many imaginative, aesthetic, and speculative as he can handle—and into this breadth of his concerns weave a general attitude of sympathy for the oppressed and antipathy towards our oppressive institutions” (Simmons and Melia 268).16 I infer this from the various ways Burke discusses Eliot in other sources. In the Rhetoric, Burke contrasts Eliot’s subdued, “smart” lamentations with the “full-throated outpourings of Biblical lamentations” (318). In the following letter, Mr. A is likewise unable to “make his bellyache full-throated,” so he couches it with cleverness and romantic irony.17 Eliot’s obvious discontent with modern life has become an interpretive staple for reading his work. See Carol Smith vii; Mary Karr ix–xxvii; Burton Raffel 8–10; and Peter Ackroyd.18 Tate’s article, to which Burke refers, is “A Poetry of Ideas,” published in the June 1926 issue of the New Republic. In the particular scene Tate examines, the speaker of the poem takes a critical (or Burke says, superior) tone toward a house agent’s clerk who is seducing a young woman.19 In between these October 4 and October 8 letters from Tate to Burke is Burke’s missing response in which he critiques Tate’s stance on Eliot. Although I searched, I could not find the text of Burke’s missing letter (written sometime between Oct 4 and 8, 1941), which I infer elucidates his misgivings toward Tate’s improvised psychology for Eliot. Neither the Kenneth Burke Papers at Pennsylvania State University nor the Allen Tate Papers at Princeton University had a copy, and as a result, I can only assemble Burke’s criticisms in light of Tate’s responses, which, while helpful in piecing together the quarrel, nonetheless leave some of the details of Burke’s thought to be discovered.20 For more sites of inquiry into Burke’s evolving notion of identification, under various guises, see “Boring from Within” (1931), “Auscultation, Creation, Revision” (1932), and “Twelve Propositions” (1938).21 For a brief overview of scholarship on Burke’s guilt-purification-redemption cycle, particularly as it focuses on victimage/mortification, see David Bobbit (9–10) and William Rueckert.22 See, for example, Jeanne Fisher’s Burkean analysis of murder/suicide as a symbolic act or Brian Ott and Eric Aoki’s analysis of Matthew Sheppard’s murder and the subsequent public/media response. For Fischer, mass murderer Joseph White’s act of killing, stood in for, or symbolized the internal attitude that festered inside him toward his victims (188). Furthermore, Ott and Aoki complicate this process by adding a social dimension to Fischer’s arguments. If, as Fischer might argue, the killing of Matthew Sheppard symbolized the attitude of homophobia present in larger American society, then Ott and Aoki argue that the media coverage of the Matthew Sheppard case emphasized Burke’s scapegoat process, functioning rhetorically “to alleviate the public’s guilt concerning anti-gay hate crimes and to excuse the public of any social culpability” (1). However, despite being intimately thematically connected to Burke’s ideas of slaying and symbolism—and despite being thorough, complex, and ground-breaking articles—neither Fisher nor Ott and Aoki engages explicitly with the slaying discussion from those first few pages of A Rhetoric of Motives.23 I need to explain the difference between my senses of “transformation” and “transcendence.” Transformation in the generic sense is any type of change (terminological, perspectival, etc.), while transcendence, as it has been used so far in the more specific Burkean sense, involves achieving a stance which encompasses opposing terms or perspectives. Therefore, for my purposes here, the transcendence Burke speaks of is a type of more generic transformation, although the terms are not interchangeable.24 This is in line with Ross Wolin’s claim that “Collaboration is the key to style as the engine of identification” (189).25 This is not a new claim, but an old claim with new dimensions. Timothy Crusius likewise argues that “When language is used to overcome … differences, to foster cooperation and establish community, we are in the realm of rhetoric” (24). However, the implication one can draw from Eliot’s wheel is that establishing community is not a one-time act—it requires constant negotiation and readjustment to preserve the consubstantiality achieved.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJohn BelkJohn Belk is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Pennsylvania State University, 134 Burrowes Building, University Park, PA 16803, USA. jmb851@psu.edu

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2014.938863
  2. William James and the Art of Popular Statement
    Abstract

    A number of recent essays and books have asked how pragmatism, since its inception, informs questions that are central to the theory and practice of rhetoric and communication. Paul Stob's book makes a significant contribution to that conversation, not least through a demonstration of the depth of William James's work as a public lecturer and the ways in which James's conception of public lecturing shaped his larger intellectual perspectives and commitments. John Dewey often gets most of the attention of rhetorical scholars, largely because of several cryptic passages that Dewey penned on the importance of communication. Stob's work offers an important corrective to those that overemphasize Dewey's role in founding pragmatism and its relevance to rhetorical studies. His book also offers perhaps the most thorough and detailed articulation of how rhetorical considerations were constitutive features in the development of pragmatism.Stob begins the book by citing a letter that James wrote to F. C. S. Schiller in 1903. In that letter, James states that he believes “popular statement to be the highest form of art” (xi). William James and the Art of Popular Statement is devoted to demonstrating the importance of this claim (and how it has often been overlooked in scholarship on James) and explicating how James developed his art of popular statement. The former argument is probably of most interest to philosophers and historians of pragmatism, while the latter argument ought to be of interest to rhetorical scholars. This book is a fully articulated argument for why and how popular public lecturing made James a unique and important philosopher. Put more broadly, this is an argument that rhetorical practice was a constitutive feature of William James's intellectual contributions to philosophy and a range of other subjects. As such, Stob shows how rhetorical practices, and not abstract philosophical principles, oriented all of James's intellectual endeavors, and that James's work on the public lecture circuit is not distinguishable from his roles as philosopher and scientist. This is not an argument traditionally found in scholarship on William James, and, therefore, Stob makes an original and important contribution to our understanding of James.To advance this claim, Stob positions James at the intersection of two historical trends. On the one hand, James was “reared in the culture of eloquence.” On the other, he was “trained in a culture of professionalism.” The culture of eloquence taught James about the importance of the “cultivation of the moral character of oneself and one's community” (36). At the same time, the culture of professionalism drove the development of his work in psychology and recommended attention to specific puzzles and problems only comprehensible to a trained expert. The tension between these two traditions provided the rhetorical resources for James to invent novel ways of relating to audiences and a novel philosophy that “centered on the experiences, perceptions, and predicaments of the man and woman ‘of the street’” (37). James constantly pushed back against the expectations of the culture of professionalism, even though he gained fame as a certified professional expert, through the intellectual commitments of the culture of eloquence. Furthermore, the culture of eloquence provided James with the intellectual support necessary for orienting his more expert insights into philosophy and psychology. Throughout the book, Stob argues that James purposefully engaged popular audiences and critiqued experts with the intention of empowering those audiences and bringing people into a participatory intellectual community.James's massively popular lecture series, “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals,” is an excellent illustration of how James worked within these two traditions. A critical investigation of these lectures makes up the third chapter of Stob's book, and his insights here offer a serious contribution to one of the most often overlooked works of James's career. James delivered these lectures hundreds of times to audiences all over the United States. “Talks to Teachers” dealt with the themes and ideas of James's Principles of Psychology, but not in a way that simply tried to translate those ideas into simpler terms: “James tried to empower his teacher audiences, giving them a stake in the modern intellectual culture and helping them see their value in democratic society” (108). As such, Stob shows that these lectures enacted James's deep investment in “creating a new kind of intellectual community” (109). That intellectual community did not champion scientific knowledge at the expense of other forms of knowledge. Instead, James claimed that expert psychological knowledge was not more important than the artistry of the classroom teacher.This is where Stob is at his best—using the resources of intellectual history combined with rhetorical criticism of James's performance to advance a sophisticated argument about both the meaning of James's work and its larger significance for our understanding of the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric. To develop this further, Stob points to James's “oral style” as productive of “moments of interaction.” For James, “concepts were important, of course, but his prose aimed above all at fostering relationships in the unfolding of ideas” (97). “Talks to Teachers” highlights the ways in which style is constitutive of meaning and how James's style produced “participatory discourses” (97). Such an understanding of style clearly resonates with the philosophy of pragmatism, and part of the argument here is that James would not have gotten to his version of pragmatism without working through this particular style and without attempting to master the art of public statement.In chapters on psychical research and religious experience, Stob further elaborates these arguments about popular statement. He shows convincingly that all of James's intellectual contributions are shot through with a kind of oral style derived from his conception of public lecturing and his desire to create intellectual communities. In his work on psychical research, James deployed his own standing as a scientific expert while at the same time critiquing scientific research for being “impersonal, monolithic, confining, illiberal” and for advancing an epistemology that James thought inadequate (148). What is essential here is that James's epistemology, which would become a central feature of pragmatism, was born in and through popular statements about psychical research, theology, and psychology. The Varieties of Religious Experience was delivered as a set of Gifford lectures in Edinburgh (a prestigious lecture series associated with the universities in Scotland). Part of James's project was to address the prescribed topic of natural theology, which many at the time considered essential for true knowledge. Not surprisingly, James rejected the kind of theology oriented toward such true knowledge and instead focused the lectures on the religious experiences of individual, common people. To do this, James critiqued “the deficiencies of religious inquiry according to the standards of academic professionalism” (165). This allowed him to connect with the popular audience at the lectures. Also, by making “experience” the beginning and ending point of his inquiry, James argued that “everyone could contribute to the general storehouse of religious knowledge” (165). James's lectures were quite well received and he proved himself capable of connecting to a popular audience and contributing to the development of a populist intellectual culture.The final chapter of Stob's book deals with pragmatism more squarely. Focused on James's lecture “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,” Stob is concerned with unpacking the oratorical beginnings of pragmatism. Just like the earlier lectures, this lecture was “at bottom a collaborative text because it made James's immediate audience leaders in the world of thought” by the ways in which James rejected professional philosophy and advanced a populist epistemology instead (202). Essentially, the lectures on pragmatism demonstrated the larger claim that “the character of the audience was a determining factor in the character of the discourse” (228). I can't imagine an insight more consonant with the rhetorical tradition. Rhetorical considerations, for James, came before the articulation of philosophical principles. James's rhetorical considerations included a deep attention to the kinds of experiences that his audience of non-experts had. In addition, James's lectures were oriented toward intellectual participation on the part of non-experts and personal empowerment. James wanted to “flatten hierarchies and break chains of authority” and to show that “the best kind of knowledge emerged from a pluralistic, accessible, egalitarian intellectual culture” (237). The result of this outlook was a “new level of engagement based upon horizontal vision,” and this level of engagement was also a product of James's consistent argument that individuals (despite the testimony of some experts) “were, in fact, responsible for determining the character of their world” (238). What James's pragmatism made clear was that personal empowerment entailed opposition to the stifling aspects of academic professionalism.Given the breadth of historical detail and the depth of both contextual and textual readings of a significant range of James's work, Stob's book should prove to be a major and enduring argument about the relationship between rhetoric and American pragmatism. At times, theoretical insight into rhetoric's role in constituting philosophical or epistemological claims is sacrificed in favor of historical and contextual detail. In other words, Stob does not make a full-blown argument about the function and necessity of rhetoric for pragmatism or for American democracy. And he does not advance any sophisticated argument about what a pragmatist rhetoric might look like. But this might be asking too much from a book that offers such a solid and well-reasoned argument about one particular figure in the history of pragmatism. For a vision of how best to defend and advance a pluralist, pragmatist epistemology, one should simply read Stob's interpretation of William James. There, in full detail, one finds a commitment to rhetorical practice as a thorough underpinning for a massive intellectual project that still stands as one of America's great contributions to the history of ideas.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.47.3.0341

July 2014

  1. <i>The Book of Margery Kempe</i> and the Rhetorical Chorus: An Alternative Method for Recovering Women ’s Contributions to the History of Rhetoric
    Abstract

    ABSTRACT This article defends the “rhetorical chorus” as a useful method for recovering women’s voices in the history of rhetoric. As distinct from the more amorphous term “collaboration,” which designates any act of cooperation in the production of rhetorical texts, the “chorus” offers a more nuanced way to identify and map the recording, preservation, appropriation, and alteration of works originally dictated by women rhetors. Using The Book of Margery Kempe as an example, the study traces both homophonic and polyphonic relationships between the lead voice of Margery and the voices of her scribes and annotators.

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2014.933720

June 2014

  1. Extreme Puppet Theater as a Tool for Writing Pedagogy at K-University Levels
    Abstract

    The pedagogical technique of “extreme puppet theater” is posited as a collaborative and novel learning tool for motivating students to study texts by creating new ones. Examples are provided of how this approach has worked in university courses in literature, composition, and creative writing. By extension, extreme puppet theater can be applied to other subjects, at all levels of academia, in order to offer an effective and engaging alternative to traditional teaching conventions.

    doi:10.1558/wap.v6i1.121
  2. The Role of Communication Complexity in Adaptive Contextualization
    Abstract

    Research problem: Adding contextual information to a core message has been shown to be critical in improving communication quality, especially in computer mediated communication. This paper models how people contextualize messages in the face of changing communication complexity. Research question: Can changes in communication complexity that occur during the communication process explain and predict contextualization? Literature review: Theories of human communication and studies of computer supported collaboration suggest that communication complexity reflects potentially problematic conditions resulting from 1) the difference in perspective and context held by the collaborators; 2) the incompatibility between the message representation and the way it is interpreted and used by the receiver; and 3) the intensity of information exchanged between communicators. We use this definition as a basis of for developing a measure of cognitive communication complexity. The literature further suggests that higher communication complexity induces higher contextualization. Methodology: First, we conducted a pilot study to develop and validate measures of communication complexity. Second, we conducted a laboratory experiment, in which 258 participants working in pairs collaborated on a sixteen-step assembly task. They used a tailored system that structured each message as core (the essence of the message) and context (additional information that explains the core and the sender's perspective). We used unbalanced panel data analysis to examine the repeated measures of contextualization and communication complexity associated with each step of the task. Results and discussion: We found that collaborators respond to changes in communication complexity at the expense of higher collaborative effort. We offer a cost-benefit framework in which, at the step level, people contextualize to reduce the communication complexity, and at the task level, they additionally consider the impact of contextualization on task performance. The main limitation of this study was the need to structure the communication between collaborators, to control and measure contextualization. Future research can adapt and extend our measure of communication complexity to less structured communication.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2014.2312454
  3. Negotiating Diversity
    Abstract

    The intercultural divides in values, perceptions, and interpretations of concepts have been studied extensively by international business and intercultural communication scholars. Consequentially, much effort in university classrooms is spent on focusing on the differences between groups and on finding ways to “manage” cultural diversity. What is often missed is the common ground among cultural groups and the differences within what are presumed to be homogenous groups of students. To negotiate this complexity of diversity, we describe an initiative to foster collaborative student-led analyses of a case study to open up meaningful discussions around diversity.

    doi:10.1177/2329490614530464
  4. Selections From the ABC 2013 Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana
    Abstract

    This article, the first of a two-part series, catalogs teaching innovations presented at the 2013 Association for Business Communication (ABC) Annual Convention, New Orleans. They were presented during the My Favorite Assignment session. The 11 Favorite Assignments featured here offer the reader a variety of learning experiences including collaborative team work, debate, budgets, cross-cultural communication, report writing, persuasion, nonprofit organizations, client communication, and writing funding proposals. Additional teaching materials—including instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are posted on the Association for Business Communication webpage http://businesscommunication.org/assignments .

    doi:10.1177/2329490614530466
  5. Task Design and Interaction in Collaborative Writing
    Abstract

    This article investigates student behaviour on collaborative assignments, looking at the relationship between task type and interaction, and considers the implications for task design. Students reported on interactions in a year-long workplace-focussed group communication project, comparing these with interactions on other academy-based group assignments. Differences were seen in the amount of brainstorming, the criteria for dividing up work, the intensity of editing, and how conflict was managed. Contributing factors to these differences included the presence or absence of a creative element, the instrumental nature of the task, and the need for a collective approach inherent in the task design.

    doi:10.1177/2329490613514598
  6. From the Editor: A Field with a View
    Abstract

    Dear Colleagues and Friends~~This month's issue includes various genres- articles, symposium contributions, review essay, exchange, and poster page-that tap both time and space. In these collective texts, we have historical perspectives helping us understand our own past and allowing us to update our present; linkages to other fields of endeavor so as to enhance our own; connections across spaces to other sites of writing around the world; and closer looks at our own sites-hence the title of this introduction. As represented here, our field includes a capacious view, and as we expand sites of inquiry and activity, we have a more robust and complex view. In this introduction, then, I'll summarize each of these contributions before taking up two other tasks: (1) outlining the treat in store for us, in the combined September and December special issue of College Composition and Communication, we will learn from colleagues about various and diverse Locations of Writing; and (2) sharing with readers our new policy on rememberingIn our first article, Expanding the Aims of Public Rhetoric and Writing Peda- gogy, Writing Letters to Editors, Brian Gogan takes up how the conventional assignment of the letter to the editor can be located in what he calls an ap- proach to public rhetoric and writing pedagogy that is conducted according to the tripartite aims of publicity, authenticity, and efficacy. Drawing on his work with students, Gogan expands on these single-concept aims to situate them in relationships: publicity-as-condition and publicity-as-action, authenticity- as-location and authenticity-as-legitimation, and efficacy-as-persuasion and efficacy-as-participation. Gogan also argues that we should separate and emphasize the participation the letter-to-the-editor genre entails from the persuasion that may be its aspiration: when the efficacy of the letter-to-the- editor assignment is expanded so that it is understood in terms of participation that may lead to persuasion, public rhetoric and writing pedagogy embraces the fullness of the ecological model [of writing] by seeing the wide range of effects-persuasive or not-there within.Continuing recent work recovering our collective writing pasts, our next article details the experiences of several 19th century women, some of them from the U.S., making their educational way at Cambridge University. In 'A Revelation and a Delight': Nineteenth-Century Cambridge Women, Academic Collaboration, and the Cultural Work of Extracurricular Writing, L. Jill Lam- berton focuses on the writing these women engaged in, especially outside the classroom, in order both to succeed in the classroom and to affect wider spheres of influence. Defining this writing as a form of collaborative peer activity foster- ing agency, Lamberton identifies three benefits accruing to her 19th century subjects: (1) use of extracurricular writing that augmented and enriched cur- ricular learning; (2) use of writing to develop social networks and circulation; and (3) use of such writing to shift public opinion, looking outside the college or university for broader audiences to voice support and agitate for change.Mya Poe, Norbert Elliot, John Aloysius Cogan Jr., and Tito G. Nurudeen Jr. return us to the present as they consider how our writing programs can be enhanced: by adapting a legal heuristic used to determine what in the law is called impact. In The Legal and the Local: Using Disparate Impact Analysis to Understand the Consequences of Writing Assessment, these col- leagues first distinguish between inequities produced by intent from those produced unintentionally-the latter called disparate impact-before outlin- ing a three-part question-driven process that can identify such instances and work toward ways of changing them:Step 1: Do the assessment policies or practices result in adverse impact on students of a particular race as compared with students of other races? …

    doi:10.58680/ccc201425445
  7. “A Revelation and a Delight”: Nineteenth-Century Cambridge Women, Academic Collaboration, and the Cultural Work of Extracurricular Writing
    Abstract

    This article surveys the extracurricular writing of the first women to attend Girton and Newnham Colleges at Cambridge University. It argues that such student writing did more than promote intellectual formation or rehearse new knowledge; indeed, it changed institutional culture and the social horizons for middle-class women’s lives.

    doi:10.58680/ccc201425447

May 2014

  1. Communicating complexity in transdisciplinary science teams for policy
    Abstract

    This paper presents an application of stasis theory for the purpose of consulting with interdisciplinary teams of scientists working in the early stages of composing a science policy advisory document. By showing that stasis theory can be used as an organizing conceptual tool, we demonstrate how cooperative and organized question-asking practices calm complex interdisciplinary scientific disputations in order to propel productive science policy work. We believe that the conceptual structure of stasis theory motivates scientists to shift their viewpoints from solitary expert specialists toward that of allied policy guides for their advisory document's reader. We further argue that, through the use of stasis theory, technical writers can aid interdisciplinary scientists in policy writing processes, thus fostering transdisciplinary collaboration.

    doi:10.1145/2644448.2644453
  2. Readers Write: Bridging the Divide: Dual Enrollment Five Years Later
    Abstract

    The author claims that dual enrollment programs are here to stay and that collaboration and shared equity will allow these programs to continue to improve.

    doi:10.58680/tetyc201425121
  3. Collaboration (in) Theory: Reworking the Social Turn’s Conversational Imperative
    Abstract

    This article examines the limitations of social constructionist theory that conflates collaboration with “conversation,” an idea that not only informs how many writing scholars understand the concept of collaboration itself, but one that also allows writing theorists to argue that all writing is inherently collaborative. After briefly tracing the history of this social turn collaboration theory, the article offers an object-oriented definition of collaboration to initiate a rhetorical framework for understanding what collaborators actually do with their discourse, especially when they compose texts. Following a discussion of Donald Davidson’s concept of triangulation and its relevance for understanding the discursive work of collaboration, the article concludes with a consideration of how this revised approach to collaborative composition reflects the goals of postprocess theory, including the habits of mind discussed in the Framework for Success in Post-Secondary Writing.

    doi:10.58680/ce201424743

April 2014

  1. Keyword Essay: "Community Management"
    Abstract

    Community literacy often engages with literacy practices-written, oral, visual, technological, social, and so forth-that occur and are scaffolded outside of traditional educational institutions. The writing done in community literacy projects, according to Peck, Flower, and Higgins, works to promote action and reflection while enabling people to work collaboratively and productively. In recognition of the multiple forms of literate practices and the types of community support that are needed and developed, a number of universities in the US have created community literacy programs. Carnegie Mellon University's Community Literacy Center, a notable example of this type of program, organizes the purposes and structural collaboration thusly: "At the Community Literacy Center (CLC) urban teens and adults, with the support of their Carnegie Mellon student mentors, use writing and public dialogue to take action and to address the dreams and problems of our urban neighborhoods. CLC writers produce powerful texts-petitions, plans, proposals, and newsletters" ("Hands On"). The benefit to both university students and community members is a collaborative workgroup dedicated to place-specific social action. Non-profit organizations have also formed, providing literacy support to particular communities, from Community Literacy Centers, Inc, which teaches adults to read, to Chicago's Open Books, which runs a volunteer bookstore and provides reading and writing programs.

    doi:10.25148/clj.8.2.009314
  2. Reimagining the Literature Survey Through Team Teaching
    Abstract

    This coauthored article argues that a team-taught format can make the literature survey more engaging and meaningful for students while also addressing some of the course’s traditional challenges. The article fills a gap in team-teaching scholarship, which emphasizes interdisciplinary and/or loosely collaborative arrangements over intensely collaborative models like the one the authors propose.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-2400485
  3. Rhetorical Work in the Age of Content Management
    Abstract

    Drawing on a survey of the content management (CM) discourse, the author highlights CM trends and articulates best practices in content strategy that CM thought leaders are helping organizations adopt. These trends and practices are changing the nature and location of rhetorical work in organizations that produce intelligent content. In these contexts, rhetorical work is located primarily in the complex activity of building content strategy frameworks that govern text-making activities. The author highlights the need for a praxis-based collaborative model for technical communication education and research, and she offers some preliminary considerations for ways that the field might move in this direction.

    doi:10.1177/1050651913513904
  4. How Nonemployer Firms Stage-Manage Ad Hoc Collaboration: An Activity Theory Analysis
    Abstract

    Nonemployer firms—firms with no employees—present themselves as larger, more stable firms to take on clients’ projects. They then achieve these projects by recruiting subcontractors, guiding subcontractors’ interactions with clients, and coordinating subcontractors to protect their team performance for the client. Using fourth-generation activity theory, I examine how these firms stage-manage their ad hoc collaborations. I conclude by describing the implications for further developing fourth-generation activity theory to study such instances of knowledge work.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2013.797334

March 2014

  1. Seeking an Effective Program to Improve Communication Skills of Non-English-Speaking Graduate Engineering Students: The Case of a Korean Engineering School
    Abstract

    Research problem: Many Asian universities have begun reforms to enhance educational competitiveness in our globalizing economy. This study aims to ascertain the status of English communication education and English-medium instruction at a Korean engineering school and to offer workable suggestions for English communication training for Korean graduate engineering students. Research questions: Should English communication education be offered at the graduate level in Korean engineering schools? How could English communication education be improved for Korean graduate engineering students? Literature review: Studies of English communication education for graduate engineering students indicate that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students have English needs to publish internationally and English needs for English-medium instruction classes and for after graduation. Furthermore, individual assistance and e-learning programs might strengthen English communication education and academic writing for EFL graduate engineering students. Methodology: An evaluation study was conducted at an institution that has been leading the wave of English as the language of instruction. We collected data from documents as well as through surveys of faculty and students in graduate engineering programs. Results and discussion: The study was conducted at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The results showed that students' English fluency is critical for the success of using English as a medium of instruction. To facilitate this fluency, universities need to establish an English communication center that provides a comprehensive, systematic approach to English language training. Faculty also need the services of such centers. It is also advised that a thesis writing course be customized according to students' actual writing and communication abilities and enhanced with collaboration between engineering faculty and English education faculty.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.2014.2310784
  2. Early Modern Women’s Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty by Patricia Pender
    Abstract

    204 RHETORICA on the value for the human sciences of "contested concepts" and the endless debate which must go on around them. This collection provides models of different ways of studying the fas­ cinating parallelism between medicine and rhetoric. It shows how rhetorical knowledge can enhance our understanding of early modern medical and health-related works and it offers engaging readings of some very interesting little-known texts. Peter Mack Warburg Institute, London Patricia Pender, Early Modern Women's Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty (Early Modern Literature in History, eds. Cedric C. Brown and Andrew Hadfield), New York: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2012. 218 pp., ISBN: 978-0-230-36224-6 In Early Modern Women's Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty, Patricia Pender argues that the modesty topos frequent in early modern English women's works should not be read literally, but as "the very mark of liter­ ariness" and "early modern women's subtle and strategic self-fashioning" (3). In the introduction, Pender surveys earlier feminist criticism on modesty topoi that used this material to explain women's lower rate of publication, and argues that these critics have read the passages too literally, and, as a consequence, that we continue "to underrate [early modern women's] con­ siderable rhetorical ability and agency" (6). Pender's study reviews the use of modesty topoi in prefaces and writings by English authors Anne Askew, Katherine Parr, Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, and Anne Bradstreet, and also examines what Pender sees as a general tendency "to read women's modesty tropes autobiographically" (7). Chapter 1 surveys advice for the deployment of modesty topoi in classi­ cal and Renaissance rhetorics: Cicero, Quintilian, Ad Herennium, Castiglione, George Puttenham, Abraham Fraunce, and John Hoskins. Especially helpful is the summary (pp. 22-24) of the flexible and varied forms of this rhetorical strategy: disavowal of authorship, remorse, belittling the achievement, lack of time for writing, writing only at the behest of another, role of compiler not author, apology citing utility of the subject, and, in general, writers' discounting of their abilities. Pender links the use of the modesty topos to early modern understanding of figures as "dissimulation" (borrowing from Puttenham) and early modern anxiety about "women's innate duplicity" (34). Pender, whose background is English literature not history of rhetoric, convincingly argues that for women, as well as for men, avowing modesty is often not an apology, but rather a display of rhetorical proficiency. In Chapter 2 Pender quite brilliantly uses John Bale's editing of Anne Askew s Examinations as an example of the emphasis on "collaborative co- Reviews 205 authorship (al) in the early modern history of the book. However, in­ stead of seeing Bale as supporting Askew's purpose, Pender searches for those places where Askew's words "exceed the frame that Bale provides for them, finding that Askew offers a "profoundly confident and combative self-representation under the guise of weak and humble woman" (49). This conclusion is not news in Askew criticism, although reading Askew through the rhetoric of modesty is innovative and helpful. It is disappointing that Pender did not follow through, though, on her initial observation. For ex­ ample, she argues that Bale misunderstands Askew's rhetoric of modesty (complimenting judges, humble submission, quoting authority) to circum­ vent her accusers (60-61), that Bale himself is misled by Askew's modesty into reading her as a weak woman made strong by God's grace (59-60): "[wjhan she semed most feble, than was she most stronge. And gladly she rejoiced in that weaknesse, that Christ's power myght strongelye dwell in her" (61). Here is a missed opportunity to argue, instead, for collaborative coathorship, to see that Bale does understand Askew, recognizing her wily use of Paul's celebration of the weak and foolish made strong and wise by Christ (1 Corinthians 1:27—a celebration that Erasmus had famously deployed in The Praise of Folly). In Chapter 3, Pender suggests that focusing on modesty rhetoric in Katherine Parr's Prayers or Medytacions refines "our understanding of her development of a degendered, generically-human speaking subject" (72). But, suggests Pender, although Parr does not apologize for her sex, substi­ tuting the...

    doi:10.1353/rht.2014.0015
  3. Supporting Lecturers in the Disciplines in the Affective Academic Writing Process
    Abstract

    This article reports on a case study evaluating lecturers' experiences of their own affective writing process using a reflective critical incident analysis. While the cognitive-affective focus of academic writing has been explored previously from a collaborative perspective (Benton et al. 1984), this current study takes the individual writer as the unit of analysis. There are several reasons why lecturers need to write. Foremost among these should be that when they write, they are providing a positive model for students, and are helping to demystify the act of writing. Scholarly writing can be a struggle, and by doing so ourselves, we learn empathy for our students. In reality, many lecturers are facing the need for increasing their publications output. In terms of writing for publication, Murray (2013) has advised that busy academics must develop productive writing processes, and this may mean changing writing behaviours.Affective conditions such as sense of class community, self-efficacy and writing apprehension are known factors affecting writing behaviour and performance. A blended accredited professional development module entitled ‘Writing and Disseminating Research’ is discussed as a way to afford lecturers opportunities to develop writing skills that may also promote positive affective conditions. Data suggests that the pedagogic intervention resulted in greater confidence in terms of participants’ critical writing skills and provided a suitable environment for affective conditions to flourish. Four themes emerged from the analysis of the critical incidents on writing apprehension: self efficacy, the role of external sources on affective writing, peer feedback and class community. Future research would explore the sustainability of the process extending into the lecturers' own practice with their students.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v4i1.103
  4. Supporting the Neophyte Writer: The Importance of Scaffolding the Process
    Abstract

    Writing for publication can be a demanding and stressful experience, yet producing research outputs is a core part of academic life. This article aims to explore how 'neophyte' or novice academic writers can be supported in producing scholarly papers. It analyses a variety of causes for the difficulties faced by new writers, with a focus on the types of motivation that can be harnessed to improve success. The article acknowledges that promoting intrinsic motivation can enhance the writing experience, and investigates how this can be achieved using the familiar tool, Microsoft PowerPoint as a scaffold to develop an article. Although many academics exploit PowerPoint to teach, few of us turn this tool into a writing aid that can help to keep the writing process on track by providing a concise outline of the developing argument in an academic paper. The article concentrates on collaborative writing for publication, which is helpful for neophyte writers and busy academics because the burden of production can be shared. Possible reasons for high attrition rates in publication writing are considered, including a lack of schema development, cognitive overload, and reduced motivation to write. The article demonstrates how PowerPoint can be employed as a catalyst to initiate research writing and foster productivity.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v4i1.84

February 2014

  1. A Tale of Two Writing Centers in Namibia: Lessons for Us All
    Abstract

    The pivotal role of writing centers in improving the quality of academic writing has been well documented by research. Although writing centers are commonplace in many countries, it appears that none existed prior to 2008 between South Africa and the Sahara. This article reports on the writer's assignment to start one in Namibia. The expectations of the challenges in this task, centering on training staff and tutors and acquiring resources, did not resemble the realities experienced, involving infrastructure, matrix management, hierarchy, and bureaucracy. Various paradigms for deconstructing these experiences, such as post-colonialism, culture clash, and ‘contact zone’ theory, all only partially explain the challenges encountered. These experiences in Namibia provide a case study of the politics of collaboration involved in implementing a writing center, and a microcosm of the challenges one might face anywhere. This account is thus 'glocal'; that is, locally derived but with global applications. Eleven specific guidelines can assist anyone contemplating a similar administrative assignment.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v4i1.92
  2. Teaching the New Paradigm
    Abstract

    This article is addressed to those interested in integrating social media, as a collaborative component, into Business and Technical Writing courses. Educators find themselves under the false impression that digital natives’ familiarity with these tools will result in their embracing them as part and parcel of coursework. The reality is that today’s students need help in moving beyond the familiar applications of these virtual spaces in their personal lives and toward their uses as dynamic components of the educational experience. Relearning Facebook to do more than “friending” people, “liking” activities, and announcing one’s status involves an emphasis on the professional role of this developing medium of communication. These professional applications, therefore, must be fully integrated into the academic experience. Most Business and Technical Writing courses at Rutgers University culminate with each student submitting a research proposal, developed throughout the course of a 15-week semester. The justification for the plan of action in each proposal is based upon scholarly research. In our Collaborative Writing Practices course, the students develop their proposals in teams and are instructed to use various social networking platforms to communicate with each other, as well as with their instructor, as a supplement to the face-to-face classroom environment. In addition, each researched plan is required to advance a solution that utilizes social media. Our “triangulated” approach to instruction immerses students into social networking and helps them understand that, to be successful, collaborative writing must occur on a variety of levels. We also integrate social media into several of our online classes, where it is used to replace key elements of face-to-face courses, such as formal presentations. We have found that implementing a social media project instead of the traditional PowerPoint presentation encourages a greater level of interaction and participation among students.

    doi:10.1558/wap.v5i2.357

January 2014

  1. Building the Case for an “Architectonic” Function of Rhetoric in Health Services Research
    Abstract

    In 2003,<strong> </strong>National Institutes of Health director Elias A. Zerhouni called for the development of innovative research methods that more effectively connect medical research findings to clinical care. His call and the transformative institutional and funding changes it has wrought have opened up an exciting opportunity for rhetorical scholars to join the interdisciplinary project of improving medical research and delivery. Responding to this opportunity, this paper articulates one vision for the rhetorician turned <em>health services researcher</em>. This vision is rooted in Richard McKeon’s insight that in addition to the analysis of discourse and the promotion of good communication practices, the art of rhetoric may also play a role in <em>arranging</em> human knowledge to catalyze the transformation of larger social, political, and scientific enterprises. His work suggests that this “architectonic” function of rhetoric is suited to the highly complex and technological modes of knowledge creation now prevalent in medicine and other artistic and scientific domains. Following his lead, this paper builds the case for an “architectonic” view of the role of rhetoric in interdisciplinary collaboration that is responsive to the “rhetorical situation” emerging from the problems and possibilities of 21<sup>st</sup> century healthcare.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1180
  2. With Whom Do We Speak? Building Transdisciplinary Collaborations in Rhetoric of Science
    Abstract

    There is a necessary and growing preoccupation in rhetoric of science with the real-world consequences of our work and with the mediating role rhetoric should play at the nexus of science-publics-policy. Emerging from these discussions are calls by Gross, Ceccarelli, and Herndl for thoughtful and practical action. This paper builds from this preoccupation with thoughtful praxis, highlighting three funded collaborations that offer a vision for engaged, mutually beneficial, consequential collaborations in rhetoric of science. Taken together, these collaborations constitute an argument for Herndl’s “applied rhetoric of science.” They move beyond transactional models of collaboration and posit a transdisciplinary vision for rhetoric of science as an integral part of the practice of science itself.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1175
  3. Where’s the Rhetoric? Broader Impacts in Collaborative Research
    Abstract

    Rhetoricians involved in funded collaborative research with scientists have discussed some of their own rhetorical choices in conveying to their research partners the unique and valuable contributions made by rhetorical inquiry. But different definitions of what expertise is offered by someone trained in rhetoric as a field of study shape their conclusions, as does the fact that most are in the early stages of this collaborative work. They have provided an energetic start to what promises to be a spirited, valuable, and lengthy conversation about how rhetoricians of science might think about the broader impacts of their research.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1182
  4. Better Than Business-as-Usual: Improving Scientific Practices During Discourse and Writing by Playing a Collaborative Mystery Game
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.04
  5. Peer Assessment of Writing and Critical Thinking in STEM: Insights into Student and Faculty Perceptions and Practices
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.08
  6. Enculturation in STEM
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines. I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices. For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction. And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether. Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon. In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: “How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?” Historically, we haven’t done this well. As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.01
  7. Techniques for Capturing Critical Thinking in the Creation and Composition of Advanced Mathematical Knowledge
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.02
  8. A Model for Facilitating Peer Review in the STEM Disciplines: A Case Study of Peer Review Workshops Supporting Student Writing in Introductory Biology Courses
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.06
  9. Using Metaphors to Investigate Pre-service Primary Teachers' Attitudes Towards Mathematics
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.03
  10. Exploring Alternatives in the Teaching of Lab Report Writing: Deepening Student Learning Through a Portfolio Approach
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.07
  11. A Transatlantic Conversation About Critical Thinking and Writing in STEM
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.12
  12. Thinking Critically in Undergraduate Biology: Flipping the Classroom and Problem-Based Learning
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.09
  13. A Natural History of Human Thinking by Michael Tomasello [Review]
    Abstract

    Over the last seven years, I have spent time across three continents talking to scientists and mathematicians about their beliefs and attitudes and experiences related to writing in their respective disciplines.I have been impressed by the passion and insight with which most have talked about writing and its relationship to critical thinking, and I have often been surprised by how they engage in these practices.For example, rather than working from an a priori hypothesis, many researchers in the STEM disciplines compose backwards, from the results to the introduction.And when reading, many seem to move from the middle of a paper outwards, beginning with the results and method, using an extremely critical eye, and then perhaps scanning out to the introduction and the discussion, or dispensing with these sections altogether.Over and over again, I heard this same story from different scientists, as if it were a secret each alone had stumbled upon.In addition, collaboration, conversation and peer review are very much part of the language of composition that takes place in the sciences (co-authorship, the hierarchies of disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams, the drafting process and the use of technology), but we who work in WID (writing in the disciplines) and WAC (writing across the curriculum) programs are constantly challenged: "How do we teach process in ways that are disciplinarily appropriate?"Historically, we haven't done this well.As Burton and Morgan observed on the training of mathematicians as writers,

    doi:10.37514/dbh-j.2014.2.1.11
  14. Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Fostering Professional Communication Skills in a Graduate Accounting Certificate Program
    doi:10.37514/atd-j.2014.11.1.01
  15. Wicked Problems in Technical Communication
    Abstract

    This article develops a framework for rhetorical inquiry that builds on the concept of wicked problems as conceptualized through social policy and design studies research. Responding to technical communication scholarship that calls for increased engagement with public issues and controversies, the author specifically discusses a writing course that used the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a basis for teaching problem-based rhetorical invention, document production, interdisciplinary collaboration, and professional development. The framework described in this article ultimately offers a heuristic for students to research and write about ill-defined problems that must be addressed in time but that demand sustained engagement over time—activities that begin in the classroom but ideally continue to develop throughout their personal and professional lives.

    doi:10.2190/tw.44.1.c
  16. Technical Communication Unbound: Knowledge Work, Social Media, and Emergent Communicative Practices
    Abstract

    Abstract This article explores the boundaries of technical communication as knowledge work in the emerging era of social media. Analyzing the results of an annual survey offered each year from 2008 until 2011, the study reports on how knowledge workers use publicly available online services to support their work. The study proposes a distinction between sites and services when studying social media in knowledge work and concludes with an exploration of implications for technical communication pedagogy. Keywords: genreknowledge workonline servicessocial media Notes Note. Data from Divine, Ferro, and Zachry (Citation2011). Note. Empty cells represent questions not asked in the indicated year. Note. Bold values represent the highest percentage of participants reporting a single site in a given year. Note. Bold represents sites that were reported by 15% or more of all participants in 2011. Note. Data from Ferro and Zachry (p. 949). Additional informationNotes on contributorsToni Ferro Toni Ferro is a PhD candidate in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She received her MS in human-centered design engineering at the University of Washington and her BS in general engineering at the University of Redlands. Mark Zachry Mark Zachry is a professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. His research areas include the communicative practices of organizations and the design of systems to support collaboration.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2014.850843

2014

  1. From Obscurity to Valuable Contributor: A Case for Critical Service-Learning
    Abstract

    This essay argues the benefits of a critical service-learning project in which English Language Learners and developmental writing students documented the stories of Holocaust survivors for a campus-based resource center at a two-year college. The authors demonstrate the importance of designing service-learning projects that promote reciprocity and sustained collaboration among participants and stress the need to structure such projects to meet the needs of community college students.