All Journals
3936 articlesNovember 2019
-
Abstract
Celeste Michelle Condit's Angry Public Rhetorics: Global Relations and Emotion in the Wake of 9/11 is a complex and challenging contribution to the understudied area of public emotion that charts the course for an arduous but rewarding journey toward a greater synthesis between the study of human biological and material existence and the study of our symbolic world. Condit maintains that “shared public anger co-orients peoples and tends to direct their actions and resources along particular paths … shaped by numerous forces—including cultural traditions, ideologies, histories, and sedimented patterns of resource distributions—they are also substantively shaped by the distinctive set of characteristics that are constitutive of ‘being angry together’ as a pervasive social phenomenon” and that the “sharing of that anger” is a communicative process requiring that one “attend closely to the dynamics of the public discourses that constitute and circulate such shared emotion” (1–2). Condit develops a “script” for public anger: “(1) they (an absolutely antagonistic agent, identified as a long-standing enemy), (2) acted to cause serious harm (serious in terms of the normative claim being made), (3) to us (the model protagonist), (4) in violation of crucial social norms (or morals), (5) so we must attack!” (5–6). Her analysis of the discourses of bin Laden, Bush, and Sontag reveals that “the most resonant versions of this script … promote essentialism, binarism, rote thinking, excessive optimism, stereotyping, and attack orientations” (6).While it is often the case that one of the important tests of rhetorical theory is its ability to elucidate texts, what is perhaps most compelling about Condit's book is not its critical engagement with the texts, but rather its ambitious epistemological framework. Indeed what makes the book compelling (and occasionally results in somewhat infelicitous moments) is its unabashed ambition to adopt an epistemological framework that incorporates dispositions and findings from all three of the major research methodologies—natural science, social science, and humanities.Such a pan-methodological approach is necessary insofar as Condit's goal is not modest, as it is to “build a theory of emotion that integrates symbolic and physiological elements on firm academic ground” (150), requiring “reworking the onto-epistemological foundations from which most … operate” (15). Along these lines Condit relies upon an “onto-epistemological stance” (developed with Bruce Railback) termed “‘transilience’ (rather than E. O. Wilson's ‘consilience’) for recognizing the leaps that both signify gaps and simultaneously connect the movement across those gaps, among physical, biological, and symbolic modes of being” (17). Transilience takes seriously the biological and symbolic dimensions of human experience and hence requires that scholars show a willingness to move across the gaps separating academic disciplines and research methodologies.Condit's understanding of the “symbolic” elements is informed by her humanistic training in rhetorical studies, while her attempt to grasp “physiological” elements is informed by her more recent explorations and work in the natural sciences. Insofar as “biological beings seem to have a tendency to develop communication capacities” (26), she aims at a theory of emotions that is materially grounded in both biology and symbol systems. This biosymbolic approach aims to reconcile biological sciences and the humanities, but Condit is also interested in what has always been a central concern of social scientists in communication: the empirical effects of communicative messages: “The ultimate goal is to understand how the biological and the symbolic can produce a kind of human affect-range called public emotion that is susceptible to theoretically guided empirical observation and influence, albeit under different parameters of investigation than the model developed by classical physics” (20). Alongside the book's transilient fusion of humanistic and natural science into a biosymbolic perspective, it also employs social scientific methodologies in the form of frequent reviews of empirical research in order to assess the effects of the angry rhetorics of Bush, bin Laden, and Sontag. In the end her “view of humans as biosymbolic beings … has been undergirded by describing a transilient onto-epistemology that posits what we call the physical, the biological, and the symbolic as different but linked modes of being that result from the relatively distinctive forms in which matter has come to be arranged” (41).While Condit is centrally concerned with “public anger,” that is, how emotion circulates among collectivities in communities, the foundation of her approach is the millennia of philosophical reflections regarding the character of emotions as experienced by individuals: “Stretching back to Aristotle, many theorists have identified four components of emotion … (1) appraisal cues, (2) neurophysiology (sometimes divided into neural versus other physiological elements such as hormones or muscular activations to make a total of five), (3) subjective experience, and (4) action tendencies. Appraisal cues and action tendencies are most readily identifiable in collective emotion, and they should form the central pillars of analyses of the pathos of public rhetorics, but the other two components are involved … as well” (49). Beginning from this well-established philosophical typology, Condit overlays a wide range of insights drawn from the biological study of emotions, enabling resolution of many of the tensions between biological and neurological approaches to emotions that see them as universal species traits, and cultural and symbolic approaches that view emotions as emerging from particular cultural milieus.But since “collective emotion is not simply the aggregation of the emotion of individuals” (70), putting the “public” in public anger requires that the author explore territory that is much less well studied and understood. Public anger is complex, and “occurs when many people share the multidimensional complex featuring the action tendencies of cognitive narrowing, optimistic bias, an antagonistic approach, and four appraisals: (1) negative events have occurred that (2) result from the blameworthy actions of others, and (3) one has a reasonably high likelihood of controlling the others behavior, and (4) a relatively high certainty about events and their causes” (72). Public anger involves not only collective perceptions and understandings, but collective action. Based on the study of the angry rhetorics of Bush, bin Laden, and Sontag, Condit concludes that “to be angry together is to be predisposed to collective activity, specifically to attack, which may include intense, even violent, action. Circulation of these three sets of angry rhetorics activated their publics toward attack, but not in precisely the same ways” (216). While this particular set of cases seems to line up with “most humanistic engagements of social emotions” that “have described them as undesirable” (224), Condit also observes that public anger can have positive functions: “Studies by historians have pointed to a similar or overlapping range of functions for anger in larger human collectivities … the historians' accounts noted the way in which scripts for anger have served to regulate the contributions and accumulations of members of leadership hierarchies, both charging them to risk life and resources to protect their peoples and lands from other nobles and also limiting their own depredations upon their people” (73).The author is focused on biology and neurology, but communication and rhetoric remain at the center of shared public emotions: “With regard to specific elements of this method of analysis of public emotion, the focal evidence is the specific symbols circulated (in this case, almost exclusively words, though pictures, vocal sounds, and other nonverbal elements could be included)” (94). Indeed, it is through symbol systems that emotions are shared and made public: “It is empirically the case that symbol systems provide the imaginative and cooperative resources to create novel kinds of objects and life patterns, even as those objects and life patterns become instantiated in individual bodies by both the experience of those life patterns and by the symbols that are physiologically and fantastically part and parcel of those experiences” (32). Accordingly, the channels of discourse function as a sort of circulatory system within which public emotions move: “Public discourse that circulates emotion in order to co-orient individuals toward collective action tends to remake those individuals as members of that collectivity in ways that are shaped and constrained by the circulatory systems through which the individual bodies commune” (70). Not only are symbols of primary focus for analysis, her framework assumes that “the sharing of public emotions constitutes a key nexus of collective action,” and she uses “the example of anger to illustrate how particular qualities of an emotion shape public discourses surrounding a global event, additional to the ideological preferences or positionality of a public leader and his or her supporters” (209).In the end Condit calls for the programmatic study of other public emotions: “The treatment of anger in this analysis should also provide a model for further academic analyses of emotion and political relations. One can easily imagine analyses of the role of hope, compassion or sorrow employing the method here pursued. The detailed assessment of the proclivities of such emotions at the discursive and biological levels would produce a template to describe the tendencies encouraged by specific complexes. An examination of diverse and key public rhetorics that shared the specific emotion would then allow an understanding of the range and possibilities of the operation of that emotion in particular contexts and for particular purposes” (236). Condit reiterates “that good theory requires familiarity with both rapidly expanding understandings of human biological proclivities and the foundational structures of language” (236).What is particularly new and challenging in this book is that Condit is aiming to genuinely bring together the sciences and the humanities. For decades humanities scholars in several disciplines have earnestly sought to bridge the gap between sciences and humanities, but usually on their own humanistic grounds. Philosophers of science have long bridged the gap by examining the philosophical assumptions animating science and the scientific method, usually within philosophical frames centered on epistemology. So too historians of science have brought science and history together by making science an object of historical study. Finally, scholarship on the Rhetoric of Inquiry, in which humanities scholars explore the central role of rhetoric and communication in the discovery and development of scientific knowledge, undoubtedly effects a sort of union of science and rhetoric, but does so solidly under the sign of rhetoric.What makes Condit's work unique is that it is not merely appropriating science as an object of study under the sign of the humanities. Condit's scholarship, informed by her graduate level experiences in genetics courses and lab work, aspires to something that could be described as a genuinely synthetic view of the biological sciences, humanities, and social sciences. This work aims at a perspective that is pan- or meta-methodological. Critics might express concern that it is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for a scholar to move beyond and transcend a methodological and disciplinary paradigm that has been instilled through decades of study, credentialing, and training within a particular kind of academic community. Indeed Condit recognizes these very barriers, and in other works on transilience has advocated the need for greater collaboration among scholars from different disciplines despite the institutional disciplinary and methodological barriers that divide them.It can be hoped that this book itself can be a place that scholars from many disciplines not only can find theories and concepts that can contribute to their own work, but also can begin to imagine themselves as potential participants in larger and profoundly more enlightening networks of knowledge discovery and creation. But such potential adventurers are to be warned that this journey is not without its infelicitous moments. This reviewer's experiences and stocks of disciplinary knowledge (informed by an undergraduate degree in biology and a PhD in communication and rhetorical studies) were an effective preparation for a positive and engaged response to the overall bio-symbolic approach. However, having only recently completely overcome my epistemological insecurity that a humanist scholar's particular interpretation of a text or message's meaning is meaningless unless empirically verified by a scientific experiment, my inward embattled humanist rhetorical scholar cringed at Condit's repeated concern to back up what would seem to be perfectly reasonable interpretive claims with empirical verification (see for instance 100, 135, 174–78). Such moments of discomfort, born of disciplinary and methodological biases, may be inevitable to most readers at different points in this book. These moments of discomfort or skepticism, one should recognize, are inevitable when one is reading a book that quite deliberately takes the readers out of their academically proscribed comfort zones. Moments of discomfort, however, are a small price to pay for a project of epistemological and disciplinary integration. Such an integration is undoubtedly necessary for the study of emotion—a phenomenon that has long been recognized to have neurological and cultural components. In terms of the much more recent explorations of “shared” and “public” emotion, the complexity of interactions between the emotions of particular organisms, the discourses by which they circulate, and the various political, cultural, and economic contexts within which these discourses circulate will undoubtedly require the insights of many disciplines and all the major research methodologies.One area that remains underdeveloped in Angry Public Rhetorics is a more systematic model of the “public” in public emotion. Thinking about the emotions as a phenomenon of public collectivities as opposed to just individuals requires more effective ways to theorize about how emotions are shared in publics and other communities. One natural way to think about this transition is to imagine communities as being like individual organisms. For instance, it is well established that one of the biological and evolutionary functions of fear is to allow individual organisms to better detect and respond to danger. So too it has been suggested that fear can serve a similar function for societies and polities—alerting us to threats that should engage our collective attention and deliberative political efforts. Condit seems to take this view, at least in the organic metaphors frequently used to describe publics and communities, speaking as she does of “the circulatory systems through which the individual bodies commune” (70). Such organismic imagery is promising in many respects, for it suggests that the assemblages of human beings comprising polities, communities, and societies are akin to the complexes of cells, organs, and symbiots that work together within the body of an organism. If we take the organic metaphor seriously, discourse, communication, and rhetoric will remain central concepts that help us to understand how the “body” of a community is constituted and maintained in the face of the forces of entropy that threaten both bodies and human communities. However, such organic imagery might also distract from alternative conceptions of society, community, and polity that more completely capture the complexity and uniqueness of human communal life.Notwithstanding epistemological complexities or occasionally ambiguous organismic imagery, Condit's “biosymbolic” approach is undoubtedly a valuable contribution to rhetorical studies and the humanities generally because it is another reminder of the continued relevance of biological materiality. Humanistic scholars that treat categories like “the body” and “embodiment” as completely open signifiers that can be construed in any way by the power of culture and convention will be disappointed to bump up against a central material fact of human existence—we have bodies (real bodies, not just cultural representations thereof). Scholars that are already sensitive to the importance of materialist philosophies like Marxism will undoubtedly welcome another reminder that our cultural world is connected in fundamental ways to our material existence within human bodies and societies. In the end the study of language, rhetoric, and culture will be enriched, not eclipsed, by works like Condit's that take the realities of our biological existence seriously.
-
Review of "Algorithms of oppression: how search engines reinforce racism," by Noble, S. U. (2018). New York, New York: NYU Press. ↗
Abstract
Read and considered thoughtfully, Safiya Umoja Noble'sAlgorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racismis devastating. It reduces to rubble the notion that technology is neutral and ideology-free. Noble's crushing the neutrality myth does several things. First, this act lays foundations for her argument: only if you recognize and understand that technology is built with, and integrates, bias, can you then be open to her primary thesis: search engines advance discriminatory and often racist content. Second, it banishes a convenient response for many self-identified meritocratic Silicon Valley "winners" and their supporters. Post-reading, some individuals may retain their beliefs in a neutral and ideology-free technology in spite of the overwhelming evidence and citations Noble brings to bear. Effective countering of Noble's claims is unlikely to occur. For professionals working in technology, information, argumentation, and/or rhetorical studies,Algorithms of Oppressionis refreshing. Agonistic towards structural racism and its defenses, single-minded in its evidentiary presentation, collaborative in its acknowledgement of others' scholarship and research, Noble models many academic, critical, and social moves. Technology scholars and writers will find inAlgorithms of Oppressiona masterful mentor text on how to be an activist researcher scholar. Noble also makes this enjoyable reading. It is uncommon to find academic books that can simultaneously be read, used, and applied by academics and non-academics alike.
-
Review of "Network sense: methods for visualizing a discipline," by Mueller, D. N. (2017). Fort Collins, Colorado: WAC Clearinghouse. ↗
Abstract
Derek N. Mueller's Network Sense: Methods for Visualizing a Discipline (2017) presents a compelling argument for adding distant reading and thin description to the Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (RCWS) research methods portfolio. Not only can these methods help professionals address information overload, but the methods also support disciplinary wayfinding and network awareness for veteran and initiate practitioners and scholars alike. Network Sense 's explicit goal is to help current and new members in RCWS avoid information overload and better understand their discipline and where it is going. Mueller's presentation and evidence builds upon lived academic experience of ever-expanding growth in research, conferences, publications, and professional activities in RCWS. Similarly, his detailing the dearth of non-local, reliable, and consistently gathered data articulates the experience and lived frustration of many scholars. Finally, his presentation and analysis regarding the increasing number of scholars cited at the end of the long tail as opposed to having more repeatedly cited authors explains the felt experience of sharing or disciplinary niching or potential diffusion. Winning the 2018 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award, as well as the 2019 Research Impact Award by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, underscores this book's value to its fields.
-
Abstract
The role of a book review is to serve the authors by bringing visibility to (and increasing the impact of) their work. For readers, it offers a snapshot so they can decide whether or not to invest in the book. For Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ) , book reviews should aim for an audience made of practitioners, teachers, and researchers. So, to resist the bifurcation between academic scholarship and practitioners, we recognize that many of our readers' concerns are shared. Books that are selected for review should be useful for scholars and practitioners alike. Similarly, reviews should aim to address shared concerns.
-
Abstract
“Robbins’ greatest contribution in this book is her ability to move analysis beyond a passive stance, showing how archives can teach and inspire collaboration beyond their initial historical moment through the use of reflection.”
-
Abstract
“While sexism is a backdrop for diverse women’s professional narratives in Elizabeth A. Flynn and Tiffany Bourelle’s collection Women’s Professional Lives in Rhetoric and Composition, Kirsti Cole and Holly Hassel’s edited collection, Surviving Sexism in Academia, brings sexism uncompromisingly into the foreground as contributors define, explore and strategize responses to sexism in higher education.”
-
Abstract
“Together, these two books present a strong justification for incorporating social media into schooled literacies because youth are engaging with social media, and bringing them into schooled literacies allows educators to foster critical thinking and awareness of these technologies.”
-
Review: Tasteful Domesticity: Women's Rhetoric and the American Cookbook, 1790–1940, by Sarah Walden ↗
Abstract
Book Review| November 01 2019 Review: Tasteful Domesticity: Women's Rhetoric and the American Cookbook, 1790–1940, by Sarah Walden Sarah Walden, Tasteful Domesticity: Women's Rhetoric and the American Cookbook, 1790–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. 220 pp. ISBN: 0822965135 Paige V. Banaji Paige V. Banaji Paige V. Banaji Assistant Professor, English Director of First-Year Writing English & Foreign Languages College of Arts & Sciences Barry University 11300 NE 2nd Ave Miami Shores, FL 33161 pbanaji@barry.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (4): 422–424. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.422 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Paige V. Banaji; Review: Tasteful Domesticity: Women's Rhetoric and the American Cookbook, 1790–1940, by Sarah Walden. Rhetorica 1 November 2019; 37 (4): 422–424. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.422 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Abstract
Book Review| November 01 2019 Review: Persuading God: Rhetorical Studies of First-Person Psalms, by Davida H. Charney Davida H. Charney, Persuading God: Rhetorical Studies of First-Person Psalms. Hebrew Bible Monographs 73; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2017. xii + 156 pp. ISBN: 9781909697805. Stanley E. Porter Stanley E. Porter Stanley E. Porter McMaster Divinity College 1280 Main St. W. Hamilton, ON Canada L8S 4K1 princpl@mcmaster.ca Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (4): 427–429. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.427 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Stanley E. Porter; Review: Persuading God: Rhetorical Studies of First-Person Psalms, by Davida H. Charney. Rhetorica 1 November 2019; 37 (4): 427–429. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.427 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Review: Thomas Elyot: Critical Editions of Four Works on Counsel, edited by Robert Sullivan and Arthur E. Walzer, and Thomas Elyot, The Image of Governance and Other Dialogues of Counsel, edited by David R. Carlson ↗
Abstract
Book Review| November 01 2019 Review: Thomas Elyot: Critical Editions of Four Works on Counsel, edited by Robert Sullivan and Arthur E. Walzer, and Thomas Elyot, The Image of Governance and Other Dialogues of Counsel, edited by David R. Carlson Robert Sullivan and Arthur E. Walzer, eds. Thomas Elyot: Critical Editions of Four Works on Counsel, Leiden: Brill, 2018. 412 pp. ISBN 978904365100; David R. Carlson, ed. Thomas Elyot, The Image of Governance and Other Dialogues of Counsel. Cambridge, UK: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2018. 345 pp. ISBN 9781781886205 Alan G. Gross Alan G. Gross Alan Gross Professor of Communication Studies Emeritus University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 401 2nd Street North #308 Minneapolis, MN 55401 agross@umn.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (4): 424–426. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.424 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Alan G. Gross; Review: Thomas Elyot: Critical Editions of Four Works on Counsel, edited by Robert Sullivan and Arthur E. Walzer, and Thomas Elyot, The Image of Governance and Other Dialogues of Counsel, edited by David R. Carlson. Rhetorica 1 November 2019; 37 (4): 424–426. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.424 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Review: The Keys to Power: The Rhetoric and Politics of Transcendentalism, by Nathan Crick, The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric, by Gero Guttzeit, and Emerson and the History of Rhetoric, by Roger Thompson ↗
Abstract
Book Review| November 01 2019 Review: The Keys to Power: The Rhetoric and Politics of Transcendentalism, by Nathan Crick, The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric, by Gero Guttzeit, and Emerson and the History of Rhetoric, by Roger Thompson Nathan Crick, The Keys to Power: The Rhetoric and Politics of Transcendentalism. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2017. 277 pp. ISBN: 9781611177787Gero Guttzeit, The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric. Boston, MA: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2017. 256 pp. ISBN: 9783110520156Roger Thompson, Emerson and the History of Rhetoric. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017. 158 pp. ISBN: 9780809336128 Robert Danisch Robert Danisch Robert Danisch Department of Communication Arts (ML-236B) University of Waterloo 200 University Ave Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 Canada rdansich@uwaterloo.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (4): 433–437. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.433 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Robert Danisch; Review: The Keys to Power: The Rhetoric and Politics of Transcendentalism, by Nathan Crick, The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric, by Gero Guttzeit, and Emerson and the History of Rhetoric, by Roger Thompson. Rhetorica 1 November 2019; 37 (4): 433–437. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.433 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Review: Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE, by John O. Ward ↗
Abstract
Book Review| November 01 2019 Review: Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE, by John O. Ward John O. Ward, Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019. xviii + 706 pp. Rita Copeland Rita Copeland Rita Copeland Department of Classical Studies University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 rcopelan@sas.upenn.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (4): 429–432. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.429 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Rita Copeland; Review: Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE, by John O. Ward. Rhetorica 1 November 2019; 37 (4): 429–432. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.4.429 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Review: Disability in Higher Education: How Ableism Affects Disclosure, Accommodation, and Inclusion ↗
Abstract
Preview this article: Review: Disability in Higher Education: How Ableism Affects Disclosure, Accommodation, and Inclusion, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/82/2/collegeenglish30619-1.gif
October 2019
-
Differentiating Between Potential Goals of Peer Review: An Interview Study of Instructor and Student Perceptions ↗
Abstract
Despite extensive attention to peer review in composition studies literature, the activity remains challenging to design, in part because there are multiple potential goals for peer review. This article draws on existing literature to describe a variety of peer review goals and then presents interview data to illustrate the perceptions of first-year composition instructors (n=3) and students (n=8) about the goals of peer review. The three instructor interviewees each described a specific and distinct goal for peer review: constructing quality feedback, identifying effective writing, and developing peer trust. However, when asked about the purpose of peer review, all eight of the students focused on one goal: improving draft quality. This article recommends increased attention to naming and differentiating among specific goals of peer review, as well as more discussion of ways to deliberately articulate those goals to students.
-
Abstract
Review of The Writer in the Well: On Misreading and Rewriting Literature. By Gary Weissman. The Ohio State University Press, 2016. 219 pages.
-
Abstract
Design-thinking frameworks help professionals to design solutions for complex problems. Design processes take into account the context of a problem, and among these contextual factors is place. Because place is relational, capturing dynamic relationships between other factors of design problems, it deserves special attention from stakeholders trying to tackle wicked problems. This literature review elaborates on the relationship between place and design thinking, focusing on the importance of privileging place in user-centered design processes.
September 2019
-
Abstract
I am grateful and honored to have served as editor of Advances in the History of Rhetoric for four years (2016–2019). A valedictory is an occasion for expressing gratitude, here to all who have made my four-year stint as editor meaningful to me.First, I express gratitude to the American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR) and its Board. During Katya Haskins tenure as editor, the ASHR board voted to devote one issue of the journal to the best papers presented at the ASHR symposium. This policy ensures that the journal represents the interests of ASHR members. In the absence of such a policy, the contents of journal would depend entirely on what came in willy-nilly through the Taylor and Francis portal. If the editor was one who, let us charitably say, was not famous for stretching the boundaries of the discipline, the journal might soon reflect only an editor’s narrow interests. During my tenure, the ASHR policy generated special issues “Rhetoric In Situ,” curated by Kassie Lamp, and “Diversity in and Among Rhetorical Traditions,” curated by Scott Stroud, thus ensuring that Advances documented current interests in visual and material rhetoric and in rhetoric outside of the Western tradition. This policy and Kassie and Scott’s good work helped me to meet my pledge on assuming the editorship to continue Katya Haskins effort to expand the journal’s purview. I should also thank the editors of the other special issues published during my tenure, one on Quintilian, edited by Jerry Murphy, on the occasion of the four-hundred-year anniversary of the discovery in St. Gall, Switzerland by Poggio Bracciolini of the first complete version of Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria; and a most interesting special issue on Rhetoric and Economics edited by Mark Longaker.Under my tenure, Advances also inaugurated the policy of publishing book review forums – three – and book reviews – sixteen – over the four years. The forums enabled me to ensure that the journal continued, in a tradition begun by Robert Gaines in his tenure as editor, to be a place for debate and focused discussion. For the book review forums, I owe special thanks to Heather Hayes, who helped organize them. A forum on a critical edition of Jeannette Rankin’s 1917 Address at Carnegie Hall by Tiffany Lewis and the publication in this issue of a translation of work by Chaim Perelman by Michelle Bolduc and David Frank ensured that Advances remained a depository for primary material, as Robert Gaines hoped it would. For help with this focused issue on Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, I thank Andreea Ritivoi for work on the introduction and for her critical eye and good advice.From its beginning under the editorship of the journal’s founder Rich Enos, Advances has taken seriously its commitment to publishing the work of emerging scholars. Sometimes what that means in practical terms is issuing a “revise and re-submit” for manuscripts that the editor knows will require two, three, four revisions on its way to meeting the journal’s expectations. When I committed to such manuscripts I pledged not only my own time but the time of reviewers as well. Reviewing even the most polished of manuscripts requires critical intelligence and tact and takes hours of uncompensated time. We could not continue as a scholarly community without the commitment of talented, conscientious reviewers. I am most grateful to all who served as reviewers for manuscripts I sent them. I don’t feel I can thank all here (though I considered it) but I will single out Glen McClish, Dave Tell, James Fredal, Michele Kennerly, Brandon Inabinet, and James Kasterly for their help and, especially in Glen’s case, sage advice.I certainly would be remiss if I did not thank those who readied manuscripts for production: my three editorial assistants, Allison Prasch, Tara Wambach, and Brittany Knutson, and the Communication Studies Department at Minnesota, embodied in its Chair, Ron Greene, who paid for their help. I thank Taylor and Francis for supportive collegiality and the Press’s Megan Cimini, who, in response to queries, was always helpful, always professional, and always immediate.
-
The Effect of Leader Rapport-Management Feedback on Leader–Member Relationship Quality and Perceived Group Effectiveness in Student Teams ↗
Abstract
Background: Preparing students to work on teams in the workplace is both important and challenging. The transfer of learning from school to work requires that faculty provide guidance to support teamwork processes, including team communication. Literature review: Leader communication, especially when nondirective, has been associated with team success. Nondirective leaders influence others and develop quality relationships through personal rather than position power. Personal power is created partly through interactions in which a leader's linguistic behavior effectively manages rapport with team members. Research questions: We wanted to explore the influence of team member feedback on leader rapport management, leader-member relationship quality, and perceived team effectiveness. Research methodology: We designed a feedback intervention that was delivered to team leaders within multidisciplinary student teams in a technical writing course. The study was a traditional, intervention-based, between-subjects quasi-experiment. Results/discussion: Despite its singular focus on team leader behavior, the intervention resulted in higher perceived group effectiveness. Although leader rapport management and leader-member relationship quality were higher in teams with feedback intervention, the effects were not statistically significant. Conclusion: We discuss several potential causes of our results, including several options for future research. Ultimately, because the intervention is simple to create and efficient to share, we conclude that it can supply instructors with one useful tool for intervening in student teamwork processes to improve team outcomes and for emphasizing the importance of interpersonal communication and leadership in teams.
-
Abstract
Research problem: This study investigates the way in which large Chinese firms communicated occupational fatalities in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Research questions:1. Did the sample firms disclose information about workplace fatalities in their CSR reports? 2. What communicative strategies were used in the disclosure for the purpose of self-legitimation? 3. How were these strategies manifested linguistically and rhetorically? Literature review: The study is based on legitimacy theory, which suggests that when reporting bad news, firms may use communicative strategies to maintain or restore organizational legitimacy. Previous studies of negative CSR disclosures focus more on information selection and omission than on information presentation. A lack of consideration of actual organizational performance in some studies also makes it less feasible to account for strategies that firms use to misrepresent reality. Methodology: The study compared CSR reports issued by Fortune 500 Chinese firms with the firms' reports of fatal occupational incidents to see whether the incidents were reported faithfully. An integrated analytical framework of legitimation strategies, developed from previous studies of legitimation in organizational communication, was applied to the analysis. Results and conclusions: Most firms disclosed their fatality incidents. Legitimation strategies-in particular, positive performance evaluations and corrective actions-were used by the firms to de-emphasize or minimize the bad news. This study calls for greater attention from CSR monitors and professionals to information presentation as an important indicator of report quality. The findings are limited to one type of CSR disclosure and to the firms that were examined.
-
Abstract
Background: This study adopted a corpus-linguistics approach to investigate the gender effects in students' technical and scientific writing. Specifically, we analyzed whether gender influenced how males and females used adverbs (e.g., very, really, and definitely) and passive voice (e.g., the article was published in the journal). The overuse of both adverbs and passive voice has been associated with poor writing clarity and concision. Literature review: Previous research works on gender effects in language have been mixed. Since these are all the essential elements of effective technical communication, teachers need to know what gender effects might exist. Research questions are as follows: 1. Does gender influence the student writers' use of adverbs? 2. Does gender influence the student writers' use of passive voice? Methodology: The sample included 87 writers (46 females and 41 males) who contributed to a 757,533-word corpus. Researchers analyzed 12,111 instances of adverbs and 4,732 instances of passive voice within a variety of technical texts. Results/discussion: Female writers used significantly more adverbs as well as more additive/restrictive, degree, and stance adverbs than expected. Male writers used more linking and manner adverbs than expected. Female writers also used significantly more passives, particularly passive verbs associated with reporting findings and interpretation. In contrast, male writers associated with passive verbs used to describe methods and analyses. Overall, the results suggested that females and males used the same style markers to fulfill different rhetorical functions.
-
How Technology Support for Contextualization Affects Enterprise Social Media Use: A Media System Dependency Perspective ↗
Abstract
Research background: Using enterprise social media (ESM) in the workplace has become an important channel for initiating communication activities for employees in the organization. However, some organizations reported that they did not obtain expected returns from their ESM investments. This outcome may be attributed to employee underutilization of ESM. Thus, exploring how employees use ESM is vital to improving communication efficiency. Research questions: 1. How does ESM support for contextualization affect employees' dependency relations with ESM? 2. How do dependency relations affect ESM use? Literature review: For professional communicators and other workers, dependency relations can enhance their media use behavior by channeling more useful information. In studying how professional communicators use a medium, researchers indicated that users' continuance intention rarely occurs without users' dependency on the medium, thus making media system dependency (MSD) relations critical for media use. Based on the MSD theory, we investigate how ESM support for cognitive and affective contextualization affects employees' understanding, orientation, and play dependency relations with ESM, and consequently affect work-related and social ESM uses. Methodology: We surveyed 258 employees of a large software development firm in China. Results and conclusions: Our findings suggest that technical and professional communicators who have not yet used ESM in their work may take the following steps: 1. explore ESM and their specific use by employees; 2. manage and control different information sharing among employees on ESM so as to satisfy employees' different goals; and 3. design and develop different ESM functionalities.
-
H. A. McKee and J. E. Porter: Professional Communication and Network Interaction: A Rhetorical and Ethical Approach [Book Review] ↗
Abstract
Digital media abound, so technical communicators must continually invent new ways to communicate in these new technologies. They must understand new media and find the most effective ways to use them. Using rhetorical and ethical theory, the authors of this book analyze the changes to professional communication provoked by technological advancement. The book offers case studies and analysis to demonstrate approaches to network interactions such as phatic communication, rhetorical interaction, social listening, and artificial-intelligence (AI) agents. This book is divided into two sections. The first details rhetorical and ethical approaches in communication; the second examines four “Cases of Network Interaction.” The first half of the book explains how rhetoric and ethics can be used to help create successful networked communication. The second half recommends how to apply rhetoric and ethics in specific workplace settings. Each chapter contains detailed subheadings and a helpful conclusion summarizing its main points, a feature sure to help students and novices digest the theoretical concepts presented. The summaries will also help readers who must quickly read and understand a specific topic without having to read the book in its entirety. This book provides a fairly general overview of the main issues influencing communication using digital media and new technology. It offers case studies and key concepts that could be applied to a variety of fields. This book could be used as an introduction to corporate communication across industries. It focuses on a few key rhetorical concepts; therefore, other theories such as postcritical approaches are not considered. This book introduces rhetorical theory applied to realworld cases. Doing so might help a wider range of readers see practical applications for it, even though the book does not offer rules, checklists, or guidelines to follow in networked communication. Nevertheless, the book clearly offers a comprehensible introduction to cases and considerations for professional communication and network interaction.
-
Abstract
This book offers a hands-on master class in building effective data graphics using the ggplot package for the R language. While the implied audience is researchers in the social sciences, there is a lot of practical wisdom here for anyone who works with numerical data. This book treats both the theoretical principles of effective data visualization design (in the mode of Edward Tufte, Stephen Few, Alberto Cairo, and others) as well as concrete guidance on how to integrate such wisdom into a slick data-analysis workflow in the R ecosystem. This practitioner-oriented approach is a very welcomed addition to the literature. By covering both the whys and the hows of data visualization, this single volume swiftly equips researchers to build compelling graphics from their numerical data. The book itself is attractively typeset. One commendable feature is the direct integration of many graphics alongside the corresponding passage of text, by setting them in the wide scholar’s margins. This richly graphical approach makes the lessons engaging, tangible, and enjoyable to read. The book ends with a generous Appendix, which is a compendium of various productivity-oriented tips for working in the R and tidyverse ecosystems. This single volume represents an excellent entry point for those wishing to enhance their capabilities in data visualization. Much of the relevant theoretical work is covered explicitly, and the rest is clearly signposted. The software tools presented are mainstream, open source, and powerful, and the author’s enthusiasm for the ecosystem is infectious. There is only one topic that felt slightly overlooked: the importance of choosing appropriate ranges and divisions for the axes of a graph. Indeed, many of the figures in the book seemed a bit too cluttered with excessive gridlines and tick marks. These are minor gripes, though. Overall, the book is a welcome and timely volume that is full of practical wisdom for producing attractive and effective technical graphics.
-
Abstract
Preview this article: Review Essay: Applying the “Teaching for Transfer” Model, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/tetyc/47/1/teachingenglishinthetwo-yearcollege30326-1.gif
-
Abstract
Preview this article: Review: Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/tetyc/47/1/teachingenglishinthetwo-yearcollege30327-1.gif
August 2019
-
Abstract
From the perspective of an instructor who teaches "Productivity and Tools" in a Technical Communication program, many concepts from the essays in Rhetoric and Experience Architecture ring true, such as when the writers say we need to focus on human experiences that are augmented by technology. Students enter my classes, and often the technologies they seek to use are their masters. My wish is that they learn to make those technologies serve them as they go forward to design human interactions with complex systems, and that they become sensitive to multi-faceted scenes of rhetorical relations in user experience (UX). In Rhetoric and Experience Architecture , Potts and Salvo successfully foreground the rhetorical dimensions of user experience.
-
Review: Direct Speech in Nonnus' Dionysiaca: Narrative and Rhetorical Functions of the Characters' “Varied” and “Many-Faceted” Words, by Berenice Verhelst ↗
Abstract
Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Direct Speech in Nonnus' Dionysiaca: Narrative and Rhetorical Functions of the Characters' “Varied” and “Many-Faceted” Words, by Berenice Verhelst Berenice Verhelst, Direct Speech in Nonnus' Dionysiaca: Narrative and Rhetorical Functions of the Characters' “Varied” and “Many-Faceted” Words. (Mnemosyne Supplements 397), Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2017. XI + 330 pp. ISBN: 9789004325890 Luuk Huitink Luuk Huitink Classics Department Leiden University Johan Huizinga Building Doelensteeg 16 2311 VL Leiden The Netherlands l.huitink@hum.leidenuniv.nl Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (3): 321–323. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.321 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Luuk Huitink; Review: Direct Speech in Nonnus' Dionysiaca: Narrative and Rhetorical Functions of the Characters' “Varied” and “Many-Faceted” Words, by Berenice Verhelst. Rhetorica 1 August 2019; 37 (3): 321–323. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.321 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Review: Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks, edited by Michele Kennerly and Damien Smith Pfister ↗
Abstract
Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks, edited by Michele Kennerly and Damien Smith Pfister Michele Kennerly and Damien Smith Pfister, eds., Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks, Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2018. 328 pp. ISBN: 9780817359041 Elizabeth Losh Elizabeth Losh American Studies and English William & Mary College Apartments, 318 114 North Boundary St. Williamsburg, VA 23185 lizlosh@wm.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (3): 325–327. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.325 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Elizabeth Losh; Review: Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks, edited by Michele Kennerly and Damien Smith Pfister. Rhetorica 1 August 2019; 37 (3): 325–327. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.325 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Abstract
Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Jean Baudrillard: The Rhetoric of Symbolic Exchange, by Brian Gogan Brian Gogan, Jean Baudrillard: The Rhetoric of Symbolic Exchange. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017. 234 pp. ISBN: 9780809336258 Paul Allen Miller Paul Allen Miller Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures University of South Carolina Welsh Humanities Building Columbia, SC 29204 MILLERPA@mailbox.sc.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (3): 323–325. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.323 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Paul Allen Miller; Review: Jean Baudrillard: The Rhetoric of Symbolic Exchange, by Brian Gogan. Rhetorica 1 August 2019; 37 (3): 323–325. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.323 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Abstract
Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth: The Form and the Way, by Haixia W. Lan Haixia W. Lan. Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth: The Form and the Way. Routledge, 2017. 228 pp. ISBN 9781472487360 LuMing Mao, PhD LuMing Mao, PhD Department of Writing and Rhetoric Studies Languages & Communication Building 255 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm. 3700 Salt Lake City, UT 84112 LuMing.Mao@utah.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2019) 37 (3): 328–330. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.328 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation LuMing Mao; Review: Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth: The Form and the Way, by Haixia W. Lan. Rhetorica 1 August 2019; 37 (3): 328–330. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2019.37.3.328 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
July 2019
-
Abstract
Preview this article: Review: WPAs Across Contexts and Thresholds, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/81/6/collegeenglish30224-1.gif
June 2019
-
Abstract
Background: Professional communication instructors give profuse feedback on student writing in service or introductory courses; however, professional communication has traditionally borrowed feedback practices from first-year writing. In addition, professional communication instructors have relied on lore instead of data when giving students feedback. Literature review: Three recent studies examine the content of feedback comments given by professional communication instructors; nevertheless, these studies open questions about how professional communication instructors enact their pedagogical values when giving feedback. Research questions: 1. What do instructors value when teaching professional communication service courses? 2. What do instructors emphasize in their feedback? 3. To what extent do instructors' values align with the feedback that they give on students' writing? Research methodology: To answer these questions, this pilot study does close qualitative work to test interview questions and a coding scheme formed by inductive content analysis. I triangulated four interviews about instructors' pedagogical values with content analysis of their 599 feedback comments on students' writing. Results and discussion: The results reveal three implications: Rhetorical terminology may contradict the goals of professional communication, overly conversational or directive feedback may not give students tools to improve their writing, and borrowing pedagogical training from first-year composition may not prepare instructors to teach professional communication. Conclusion: Tensions between instructors' values and their feedback comments highlight a lack of consensus about professional communication's pedagogical values for the service course, particularly higher order values, such as audience analysis or purpose through giving feedback.
-
Abstract
Background: Virtual teams are more and more common since the internet and mobile revolutions. Organizations are facing new challenges due to the lack of interpersonal relationships between the members of these teams. This study examines common team processes in an e-environment, relying upon two virtual team types: temporary and ongoing teams. Literature review: The aim of the review is to provide an overview of the challenges of such teams and to understand the complexity of team processes in such an environment. Research questions: 1. Does the type of virtual team have an impact on the quality of common team processes? 2. Can criteria be identified to determine which type of virtual team is more appropriate for given tasks? Research methodology: A quantitative test was conducted to compare the mean gaps between temporary and ongoing teams in trust, communication, and five collaborative processes. Then, by employing qualitative thematic analysis, we constructed a conceptual model to understand the reasons for these mean gaps. Results: Primary findings indicate that all but one of the tested processes achieved higher levels in ongoing teams rather than in temporary ones. Also, the more the collaborative process entails complex activities involving social bonds, the greater the gaps between the two team types. Conclusion: At the initiation of a virtual team, it would be best to focus on projects limited to elementary activities. If more complex team activities are anticipated, virtual team members should work together for an extended period.
-
Abstract
"Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology", written by David C. Evans and technically reviewed by Dr. Peter Meyers, informs "entrepreneurs, designers, developers, publishers, and advertisers" of the relationship between user psychology and UX design, stating that "digital innovations must survive the psychological bottlenecks of attention, perception, memory, disposition, motivation and social-influence if they are to proliferate" (p. xiii). Bottlenecks aims for readers to understand the psychological considerations that one must make when instituting digital memes, which are digital ideas, inventions, or particles of culture whose diffusion through a population can be observed (p. xiv). Overall, Bottlenecks is an excellent resource for anyone in a marketing, research and development, or design role at a company that produces digital memes.
-
Abstract
Introduction: ABET has approved changes to the EAC's Criterion 3 that will take effect for the 2019-2020 accreditation cycle. Among many changes and rearrangements is the introduction of the term “engineering judgment” as one of the competencies that students must develop to prepare for professional engineering. Literature review: However, engineering judgment is not defined in the criterion, and although it is a ubiquitous concept in the philosophy of engineering and engineering education, little empirical investigation has been undertaken into the practice of engineering judgment. And there is even less conceptual or empirical investigation into communication's role in the practice of engineering judgment. Research questions: 1. What does engineering judgment look like in practice? 2. How does the sociotechnical situation affect engineering judgment? 3. What role does rhetoric have, not only in communicating judgments, but informing them as well? 4. How can teachers and practitioners in engineering and technical communication use these findings to facilitate better judgment in the classroom and at work? Methods: Using videotape and fieldnotes, the author examines the two sequences of decision-making from a student engineering design project. An ethnomethodologically inspired framework is used to exhibit the phenomenal details of “doing” engineering judgment. Discussion/conclusion: Data reveal that engineering judgment may be fruitfully understood by educators as not just a cognitive and individual ability to apply technical knowledge, but instead a capacity of participants to rhetorically establish common cause to interrogate and reflect on the relations between technical data and situations.
-
Abstract
Background: Although agile and Scrum have been important frameworks in software engineering for over a decade, little research has explored how teams use Scrum language within their sprints. Literature review: Most explorations of Scrum communication have been collected through self-reported means. These studies are inherently unable to explore how Scrum teams use Scrum-centric language in their meetings in ways that adhere or run counter to standard Scrum practice. Research questions: 1. In what ways is Scrum reflected in the language used by team members in various sprint meetings? 2. What associations exist between the job title of team members and their use of Scrum language? 3. What does a discourse analysis reveal about the ways in which this team uses language to value and discount Scrum? Research methodology: For three sprints over 10 weeks, I recorded meetings of 27 Scrum team members. I transcribed these meetings, developed a codebook for assigning Scrum language categories, conducted an interrater reliability agreement on the data, completed a correspondence analysis on how Scrum language associates with meeting types and job titles, and conducted a discourse analysis to determine in what ways these teams value and discount Scrum. Results/discussion: Scrum language was found in all recorded meetings across all three sprints, with much language found in the planning meetings. Few associations existed between Scrum language and job title, suggesting that Scrum at this engineering firm is an egalitarian process. In addition, the discourse analysis revealed that this engineering firm valued User Story and Sprint Execution language while discounting Capacity and Story Pointing language. Conclusions: Although this group broadly adheres to Scrum practices about 68% of the time, this study finds that several current standard components of Scrum are routinely discounted. This exploratory study suggests that more research into the in-situ use of Scrum language in engineering workplaces is necessary to better inform engineering professionals about the communicative expectations of Scrum and to better enable engineering communication educators to prepare future engineers for Scrum realities.
-
Abstract
Comprehensive descriptions of early writing development are needed to adequately inform instruction and intervention and yet knowledge about how early writing develops is fragmented. This paper provides a critical review of longitudinal studies of early writing development with specific attention to the logics of inquiry used. Twenty-seven studies of children up to age 10, spanning 34 years from 5 countries, are included. Researchers’ theoretical framing, research questions, definitions of writing, study designs, time span, analytic procedures, measurement or classification of writing, key findings, and attention to context or instruction are examined. Findings show that definitions of writing vary considerably or, in some instances, are nonexistent. These definitions have implications for the research designs and measures used, and how data were classified. Many studies describe developmental trends in a global way but few describe how the development occurs or goes awry. Few studies examine cognition in conjunction with context. Similarly, few studies present strong theoretical orientations toward writing with coherent connections between problem formulation and design, measures, or classifications used. Recommendations for future research are provided.
-
Abstract
Book Review| June 01 2019 The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy. By Jeremy Engels. State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2015. pp. i+221. $29.95 paper. Paul Johnson Paul Johnson University of Pittsburgh Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 327–331. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0327 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Paul Johnson; The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 327–331. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0327 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Abstract
Book Review| June 01 2019 Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. By Sara L. McKinnon. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016; pp. viii+165. $95.00 cloth, $24.00 paper. Jiyeon Kang Jiyeon Kang University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 336–338. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0336 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Jiyeon Kang; Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 336–338. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0336 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Abstract
Book Review| June 01 2019 God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. By Rebecca Barrett-Fox. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2016; pp. i+296. $24.95 cloth. Eric C. Miller Eric C. Miller Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 339–341. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0339 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Eric C. Miller; God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 339–341. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0339 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
-
Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ ↗
Abstract
Book Review| June 01 2019 Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ. By Michael Middleton, Aaron Hess, Danielle Endres, and Samantha Senda-Cook. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015; pp. xxix-210. $67.49 cloth; $44.99 paper. Caitlin Frances Bruce Caitlin Frances Bruce University of Pittsburgh Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2019) 22 (2): 332–335. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0332 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Caitlin Frances Bruce; Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2019; 22 (2): 332–335. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.2.0332 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.