We explore the design of the Writing Studies Tree prototype as an intervention in both writing studies and the study of academic genealogy. We articulate the many exigencies for the project and explain the design choices we have made in response. Finally, we argue for data-driven academic genealogy as a valuable framework for understanding how influence circulates within writing studies.

While composition studies researchers have examined the ways social media are impacting our lives inside and outside of the classroom, less attention has been given to the ways in which social media—specifically Social Network Sites (SNSs)—may enhance our own research methods and methodologies by helping to combat research participant attrition and build a community around a research project. In this article, we share some of the successes and shortfalls of using SNSs for research purposes, based on our own experiences using Facebook in the context of our writing program’s Longitudinal Study of Student Writers. Specifically, we present five considerations related to the integration of Facebook for research—Building a Community, Sharing Study Data, Constructing Identity, Understanding Analytics, and Conducting Usability Testing—and we discuss how these methods can be extended to other SNSs.

The objective of this study was to explore effects of writing modality on word recall and recognition. The following three writing modalities were used: handwriting with pen on paper; typewriting on a conventional laptop keyboard; and typewriting on an iPad touch keyboard. Thirty-six females aged 19-54 years participated in a fully counterbalanced within-subjects experimental design. Using a wordlist paradigm, participants were instructed to write down words (one list per writing modality) read out loud to them, in the three writing modalities. Memory for words written using handwriting, a conventional keyboard and a virtual iPad keyboard was assessed using oral free recall and recognition. The data was analyzed using non-parametric statistics. Results show that there was an omnibus effect of writing modality and follow-up analyses showed that, for the free recall measure, participants had significantly better free recall of words written in the handwriting condition, compared to both keyboard writing conditions. There was no effect of writing modality in the recognition condition. This indicates that, with respect to aspects of word recall, there may be certain cognitive benefits to handwriting which may not be fully retained in keyboard writing. Cognitive and educational implications of this finding are discussed.

The objective of this study was to explore effects of writing modality on word recall and recognition. The following three writing modalities were used: handwriting with pen on paper; typewriting on a conventional laptop keyboard; and typewriting on an iPad touch keyboard. Thirty-six females aged 19-54 years participated in a fully counterbalanced within-subjects experimental design. Using a wordlist paradigm, participants were instructed to write down words (one list per writing modality) read out loud to them, in the three writing modalities. Memory for words written using handwriting, a conventional keyboard and a virtual iPad keyboard was assessed using oral free recall and recognition. The data was analyzed using non-parametric statistics. Results show that there was an omnibus effect of writing modality and follow-up analyses showed that, for the free recall measure, participants had significantly better free recall of words written in the handwriting condition, compared to both keyboard writing conditions. There was no effect of writing modality in the recognition condition. This indicates that, with respect to aspects of word recall, there may be certain cognitive benefits to handwriting which may not be fully retained in keyboard writing. Cognitive and educational implications of this finding are discussed.

“The insights afforded by GFA matter—especially for research that is designed to create spaces in which to listen to marginalized people’s perspectives.”

This article seeks to characterize the discourse community represented by the biennial conferences of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW). Drawing on information from EATAW's conference programs, the authors define the topical emphases of the 565 standard presentation abstracts (SPAs) accepted for the first six conferences, identify some of the community's dominant research practices and common methods of presentation, and track the changing international distribution of presenters over time. We conclude that the EATAW discourse community, true to its name, has remained focused primarily on pedagogy and on pragmatic research aimed at improving teaching practices. Working in a multilingual context, EATAW teachers/researchers tend towards an 'internationalist perspective' (Horner and Trimbur 2002: 624), one that is attentive to linguistic and cultural differences and favours empirical research as a means of identifying diverse student needs. This perspective, along with a tendency toward cross-institutional and international research partnerships, stands in contrast to the perspective of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) the conference which best represents the American composition tradition.

Writing scholars often note the heterogeneity of the second language (L2) student population in higher education writing courses, but only recently have researchers begun to carefully examine differences in the writing ability of international L2 learners and U.S. resident L2 learners. Most of the empirical research to date focuses on the two groups’ grammatical accuracy to the exclusion of other dimensions of writing ability. Such a limited focus not only underrepresents the multifaceted construct of writing ability, but also overlooks potential areas where noticeable differences across the two groups’ writing ability might surface. Although arguably less salient than grammatical (in)accuracy, and not as prevalent in scoring rubrics, students’ use of sociopragmatic features in writing offers an alternative approach for comparing the two groups of learners beyond their use of grammatical forms. Thus, the current study describes and compares how international and U.S. resident L2 learners used certain sociopragmatic markers in their writing. By focusing on the meanings associated with these markers, the study suggests that students’ use of such markers reflects their sociopragmatic awareness. Findings indicate that the two groups of writers may be more similar than different, contrary to previous research.

Research problem: Over the past decade, the popularity of fantasy sports games has grown dramatically. A fantasy sport is a simulation game in which game players act as owners to build, manage, and coach imaginary teams that compete against one another, based on statistics generated by actual players or teams of a professional sport. In line with this, we have seen the emergence of various forms of media content being produced directly for those who participate in fantasy sports games-the most prolific example of this is writing for fantasy sports. This study aims to establish an understanding of how fantasy sport articles are currently being constructed by assessing the contributions of professional journalists and amateur writers. Research questions: RQ1: If the standardization of written discourse genres stems from the reciprocity between generic conventions and the responses to situations, then what are the differences between the discourse strategy used by professional journalists and that by their amateur counterparts in fantasy sports writing? RQ2: What are the writers' rhetorical goals and the reader-writer relationships they wish to establish through the fantasy sports texts? Literature review: This study is rooted in the notion of genre, a communicative event through which the writer and reader interact to make meanings in a particular context. Communication of fantasy sports involves the production of content that provides readers with news, analysis, and opinions about-and knowledge of-matters that concern the games, thus creating pools of intelligence which other fantasy sports players can use, add to, argue against, or ignore. This amateur-produced content and resulting knowledge communities formed by fantasy sports players have led to a genre development that professional communicators should examine because it reflects so much technical documentation and instructions have migrated into user-generated spaces. “The move” in genre analysis is a meaningful rhetorical unit that is related to the communicative purpose of a social activity and that contributes to the text's overall strategy within its situational context. Moves operate in coherence rather than isolation in a text. Methodology: A discourse analysis was conducted on 60 fantasy sports texts (30 by professional journalists and 30 by amateur writers) randomly selected from a few specific sources in 2012. A custom move scheme was devised for analyzing fantasy sports texts in this study. The results were analyzed using a chi-square test. Results and discussion: Results reveal significant differences between the discourse strategy used by professional journalists and that by amateur writers. These differences include amateur writers differing to some extent in their rhetorical goals from professional journalists as they offer media consumers a more balanced spread of information, that professional journalists place a substantially lower value on making predictions, that amateur writers and professional journalists share similar regard in terms of the appropriate amount of casualness to include in their writing although amateur writers are more included to build casualness in their articles, and that the use of writing techniques to invite further connection or engagement from readers is being underutilized by both professional and amateur writers. The major implications for the professional communicators are the insights into user-generated content, an approach in which organizations increasingly rely on for their product and service documentation.

Research problem: No study has explored how incorporating personas into heuristic evaluation of products, namely websites, affects the kinds of findings reported and the recommendations presented by usability evaluators. Research questions: (1) Do findings resulting from heuristic evaluations of a website without the use of personas differ from findings resulting from heuristic evaluations of the same website with the use of personas? (2) Do findings from persona-based heuristic evaluations in which evaluators develop their own personas differ from findings from persona-based heuristic evaluations in which evaluators are given personas? (3) If findings and recommendations are different, how do they differ? (4) How does the use of personas affect the evaluators' confidence in the findings of a heuristic evaluation? Literature review: First, previous research of heuristic evaluation has concluded that although heuristic evaluation is inexpensive and does not require advance planning, it has several shortcomings, including its too-intense focus on minor issues and its inability to capture all usability issues. Second, data-driven personas, which have long been a resource in user-centered design, have been suggested as a way to improve or enhance heuristic evaluation, and several studies suggest that usability professionals are indeed using personas in their evaluations. However, no empirical study has assessed heuristic evaluations that include personas. Methodology: In this exploratory study involving three sections of an advanced technical writing course, groups of evaluators conducted a heuristic evaluation of a website. Each section was randomly assigned a different condition with which they would conduct the heuristic evaluation: (a) a traditional heuristic evaluation, (b) a persona-led heuristic evaluation in which the personas were given to the evaluators, or (c) a persona-led heuristic evaluation in which the evaluators themselves created their own personas. Each group wrote a report identifying the major problems with the website and provided recommendations to solve the identified problems. The evaluators completed pretesting demographic surveys and posttesting confidence surveys. Results and discussion: This exploratory study found few detectable differences in the findings reported by groups that used personas in heuristic evaluation and groups that did not use personas. The groups that used personas were more likely to report findings related to navigation than the groups that did not use personas, while the groups that did not use personas were more likely to report findings related to design than the groups that used personas. The groups that created their own personas were more likely than the other groups to include complex issues in their reports and include language that directly references users and user needs. All groups were confident in their findings.

The study takes a situated and material approach to texts and writing practices and examines writing ethnographically as it transpires and displayed in museums. The ethnography highlights the richness and sociality embodied in writing practices as well as the ideological, communal, and ritualistic functions that writing and texts serve in cultural institutions. Specifically, I offer a comparative study of visitor books and similar writing platforms in two Jewish heritage museums in the United States. Extended ethnographic observations of visitors’ writing activities are augmented by analysis of visitors’ texts, which, following Bakhtin, are understood in terms of their addressivity structures or whom they are addressed to. The study shows how visitors’ texts amount to collective contributions that are part of museums’ heritage display, and that visitors become rhetors when their mode of heritage consumption is the production of texts.

Peer tutoring non-native writers seems to pose particular challenges to tutors with regard to the overall goals and principles of peer tutoring that have been expressed in the literature. Principles such as non-directivity and long-term emphasis on the process quality of writing are often assumed to be in conflict with non-native writers’ desire to be actively and directly guided in their process of learning to write in a foreign language. Peer tutoring’s appropriateness therefore remains rather controversial within this particular context. In this article we outline the results of an empirical study focusing on the potential, as well as the limitations, of peer tutoring with regard to non-native writers in a German writing center. Using the method of qualitative content analysis designed to achieve a healthy balance between deductive and inductive aspects of empirical research, we ask the open question: ‘How do peer tutors deal with non-native writers?’ Results show that the limitations of rigid peer tutoring principles become obvious more quickly with non-native writers. However, peer tutoring with non-native writers reveals larger potential, too, and can offer recommendations for peer tutoring in general.

AbstractThis article explores the rhetoric of regret as a way to rethink the aesthetic dimension of two hitherto artificially separated late ancient corpora of thought—rabbinic and “pagan.” Moving away from the thinking in terms of historicist “influences” I arrive at a point of mutual illumination of the corpora, thereby advancing a new model of philosophical and rhetorical analysis that both justifies the importance of the modern discussion of relationships between philosophy, rhetoric, and aesthetics for understanding the Talmud as a late ancient body of text and thought and shows how the Talmud, thus understood, complicates and raises the stakes in that discussion. I first draw on the framework of this bidirectional analysis for probing the rhetoric of the rabbis and of the “pagan” philosophers. I consequently work against the grain of a modern interpretation of late ancient aesthetics to arrive to a comparative study of the aesthetics of rabbinic discourse.

Over a three year period beginning in 2011, our writing center conducted IRB -approved empirical research on the role of tutor-posed and writer-posed questions in writing center dialogues. Using a corpus comprising three linguistically accurate transcripts and 25 glossed transcripts, we1 painstakingly identified and coded writers' and tutors' questions using a question taxonomy based on Arthur C. Graesser & Natalie K. We also identified and coded the cognitive moves revealed in both writers' and tutors' resultant answers using an answer taxonomy, the revised Bloom's taxonomy proposed by Iowa State's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (Heer, 2012). 2 While we intend future articles to discuss our findings, especially those significantly informing our internal practice and staff development, our research plays a different role in this article. In a typical research write-up, the data reveals the plot; that is, researchers start with a question that leads them to collect data. Researchers then handle the data, analyze it, and interpret it to answer their research questions. But for the purposes of this article, which is a metacognitive reflection on our research process, Data plays a different role. In a way, this is the story of how Data handled us.

In this profile we describe changes to the composition program at Missouri University of Science and Technology, prompted by the hiring of the university’s first writing program administrator (WPA). We describe our efforts to implement evidence-based best practices in undergraduate writing courses in a context where very little program specific evidence was available. We also describe how challenges of effecting change at a university largely composed of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students has meant that many of the changes have been framed by the spirit of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiatives. Several new methods of assessment have been introduced to the program, including instructor feedback, student surveys, and skills tests. Allowing assessment to drive standardization has begun a process of measuring the transfer of student knowledge we believe other departments will find interesting. We close by outlining unresolved issues and ongoing challenges as the program moves forward.

This program profile demonstrates how the first-year writing program at Oakland University has engaged contingent faculty in research, assessment, and program development over the years, employing evidence-based practices to improve individual classroom instruction and to redesign the entire first-year curriculum. The authors describe their efforts to develop an inclusive model for research and professional development, a model that seeks to empower the faculty to join disciplinary conversations about the teaching of writing. Overall, the profile contributes to existing scholarship on large college writing programs by illustrating how faculty may collaborate to develop and assess curricula, to conduct and publish research, and to build a program that shifts the conversation from what individual instructors may believe about writing instruction (“I think”) to what the department may collaboratively know about best practices (“we know”).

Research problem: Although organizations have been exerting a significant effort to leverage policies and procedures to improve information security, their impact and effectiveness is under scrutiny as employees' compliance with information security procedures remains problematic. Research questions: (1) What is the role of information security climate (ISC) in cultivating individual's compliance with security policy? (2) Do individual affective and normative states mediate the effect of ISC to increase security policy compliance intention while thwarting employees' security avoidance? Literature review: Drawing upon Griffin and Neal's safety climate model, which states the effect of safety climate on individual safety behaviors that lead to specific performance outcomes, we develop an ISC model to empirically examine the efficacy of security climate in governing employee's policy compliance. The literature suggests that there could be practical reasons for employees not to observe the security policies and procedures. These go beyond the simple lack of use or negligence, and include rationalizing security violation, particularly in light of the fact that they are under pressure to get something done without delays in daily work. To empirically address such employee behavior, we employed the term, security avoidance in this study-an employee's deliberate intention to avoid security policies or procedures in daily work despite the need and opportunity to do so. Methodology: We surveyed IT users in South Korea about individuals' perception about various organizational/managerial information security practices in the work environment. Results and discussion: The results from 581 participants strongly support the fundamental proposition that the information security climate has a significant positive impact on employee's conformity with the security policy. The study also reveals that the security climate nurtures the employee's affective and cognitive states through affective commitment and normative commitment. These, in turn, mediate the influence of security climate on employee policy compliance by facilitating rule adherence among employees while, at the same time, inspiring self-adjusted behaviors to neutralize their deliberate intents of negligence. Overall, the findings support our view that the creation of strong security climate is the adequate alternative to a sanction-based deterrence to employees' security policy compliance, which limits the presence of security avoidance. The implications to theory are the multidimensional nature of ISC construct and its linkage to a systematic view of individual level information security activities. The implications to practice are the ISC's favorable role of discouraging employee's security avoidance while inducing the security policy compliance intention at the same time, given the limit of sanctions.

This study explores the characteristics of authors who have published in technical communication journals between 2008 and 2012 to generate insights into who is actively contributing to scholarship in the field. These insights drive a broader discussion regarding programmatic implications and interdisciplinary approaches to research. Research questions: (1) Who is publishing in technical communication journals? In which departments are they housed and in which departments did they receive their Ph.D. training? (2) What relationship exists between an author's departments (current and Ph.D.) and the publication venues he or she chooses? (3) What relationship exists between an author's department (current and Ph.D.) and the type of research he or she produces? (4) What relationship exists between an author's department (current and Ph.D.) and collaboratively authored articles? Also, is there a relationship between doctoral training outside the US and collaboratively authored articles? (5) Among authors with Ph.D.'s in technical communication, is there a relationship between doctoral program and research output (collaboratively authored articles and research method)? Literature review: All disciplines, especially maturing disciplines, must examine and evaluate the research its scholars produce in order to identify trends that signal growth and areas that require additional growth. Previous research indicates that departments in which people trained and where they work influence the research profiles of individuals, and by extension, the field. This is particularly true in technical communication, whose research features a plurality of methods, a positive attribute of the field. However, an uneven distribution of research methods used in the field also presents potential areas for growth. Methodology: A data set of 674 authors who have published in the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (TPC), Technical Communication Quarterly, and Journal of Business and Technical Communication (JBTC), between 2008 and 2012 was coded for current department, Ph.D. department, department with a technical communication degree program, research method, and collaboratively authored articles. Data were analyzed using contingency table analysis and correspondence analysis. Results and discussion: Authors from English departments constitute nearly 30% of the sample; authors from information systems and technology departments and management, business, and economics departments made up more than 20% of the total sample. A little over 20% of the sample received a Ph.D. degree in technical communication. Authors from information systems and technology departments and management, business, and economics departments are highly associated with TPC. Authors from English departments and writing departments were associated with TCQ and JBTC. TC is associated with authors from education departments and human-centered design departments. Authors from information systems and technology departments and management, business, and economics departments were associated with surveys and experiments. Authors from English departments were associated with case study and mixed methods research. Non-US authors and ones from engineering, computer science, linguistics, information systems and technology, and management, business, and economics departments were all highly associated with collaboratively authored articles. These results provide insights into which disciplines are most influential and opportunities to consider the approaches and training of our diverse population of scholars in an effort to build a cohesive body of research. The results are limited by the time frame of the study, and future studies could examine a more extensive sample to examine shifts in authorship characteristics over time.

This November issue of RTE once again contains the annual “Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English.” This bibliography includes abstracts of selected empirical research studies as well as titles of other related studies and books published between June 2013 and May 2014. Abstracts are only written for research studies that employed systematic analysis of phenomena using experimental, qualitative, ethnographic, discourse analysis, literary critical, content analysis, or linguistic analysis methods. Priority is given to research most directly related to the teaching of English language arts. Citations in the “Other Related Research” sections include additional important research studies in the field, position papers from leading organizations, or comprehensive handbooks.

Abstract: In this paper, I report the effects of explicitly teaching five technical genres to English first-language students enrolled in a multi-major technical writing course. Previous experimental research has demonstrated the efficacy of explicitly teaching academic writing to English first-language adults, but no comparable study on technical writing exists. I used a mixed-method approach to examine these effects, including a control-group quasi-experimental design and a qualitative analysis to more fully describe the 534 texts produced by 316 student writers. Results indicated the genre participants constructed texts demonstrating a significantly greater awareness to audience, purpose, structure, design, style, and editing than participants taught through more traditional approaches. Within the technical genres, participants demonstrated greater awareness to audience, purpose, and editing in the job materials text type than with correspondence or procedures text types.

Spontaneous writing observed in chats, instant messengers, and social media has become established as productive modes of communication and discourse genres. However, they remain understudied from the perspective of writing process research. In this paper, we present an empirical study wherein keystrokes made by chat users in a game were recorded. The distributions of the inter-key intervals were analyzed and fitted with ex-Gaussian distribution equation, and an argument for psycholinguistic interpretation of the distribution parameters is presented. This analysis leads to establishing a threshold of 500 ms for the identification of pauses in spontaneous writing. Furthermore, we demonstrate that pauses longer than 1.2 s may correspond to higher-level linguistic processing beyond a single propositional expression (functional element of the discourse).

While grand claims have been made for the power of literature, there is a dearth of experimental research in English education examining the effects of reading literature—and specifically young adult literature—on students’ attitudes and moral development. Little work of any kind has been done on the efficacy of literary interventions in reducing adolescents’ rape myth acceptance. In response, this study examined the capacity of a dialogically organized, reader response–based literary unit focused on the young adult novel Speak to reduce adolescents’ rape myth acceptance. An experimental design was used with eighth-grade English language arts students in seven classes that were randomly assigned to treatment or control. Rape myth acceptance was measured using the Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Burt, 1980) and a researcher-created scale, the Adolescent Rape Myth Scale (ARMS). Results revealed that girls had significantly lower levels of pretest rape myth acceptance than boys, that intervention significantly lowered participants’ rape myth acceptance, and that there was no backlash to treatment. Factor analysis revealed a two-component solution for the ARMS representing common rape myths; further analysis found that treatment was more effective in reducing the component She Wanted It than the component She Lied. The results demonstrate the instructional value of young adult literature, support the use of reader response–based dialogic instruction, and show it is possible to effectively address topics such as rape at the middle school level. I argue that future research should examine whether similar literary units can affect attitudinal constructs such as homophobia, tolerance of bullying, and attitudes toward disabilities. The potential marginalization of this type of literary instruction due to current educational reforms is also discussed.

Technical writers and translators struggle with language consistency in emerging technologies. Corpus linguistics can track language structures in such quickly developing environments. An ad-hoc corpus may be the tool needed for technical communicators. Key concepts: Mega-corpora versus ad-hoc corpora: The term “mega-corpora” typically covers the existing national corpora, whereas ad-hoc corpora can be created quickly for technical communication. Variation versus consistency: variation covers the range of possible solutions compared to the need for consistency of terminology in given contexts. Representativeness versus adequacy: representativeness defines the possibility of variation within the scope of the field; in contrast , adequacy represents contextual suitability. Key lessons: To use ad-hoc corpora as a tool for keeping track of and understanding language variation in texts about emerging technology: (1) design and compile a small set of relevant descriptions regarding the emerging technology, (2) use the software corpus tool representation of corpora to evaluate whether the ad-hoc corpus is representative-meaning that adding new texts does not add new words or variations in terminology use, (3) use the software corpus tool AntConc to analyze the ad-hoc corpus finding concordance patterns and variation in terminology usage, and (4) use linguistic strategies for selecting terminology based on linguistic evidence rather than intuition. Implications for practice: The ad-hoc corpus method offers an evidence-based approach for determining patterns of terminology. This method can be applied to standardizing product documentation or tracking variations in language use and can help technical writers and translators keep track of evolving terminology for emerging technologies.

We report our survey research about what American business professionals consider appropriate or civil mobile phone behavior during formal and informal meetings. The findings come from two of our recent research studies: an open-ended survey of 204 employees at a beverage distributor on the East Coast and a nationwide, random-sample survey of 350 business professionals in the United States. There were significant differences by age, group, gender, region, and income level. The differences between women and men were quite striking, with men nearly twice as likely to consider various mobile phone behaviors as acceptable in informal meetings.

This essay argues for a broad theoretical perspective in writing center work that simultaneously contextualizes tutoring practices and complements research agendas. Writing center scholarship shows considerable resistance to both empirical research agendas and theoretical perspectives. Confronting this, the author chooses to examine the issue of directive/nondirective tutoring to evaluate theory as a framework.

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

This article explores the ramifications of deploying free and open source software (F/OSS) for technical communication program development. Against the backdrop of the recession, the article draws on empirical research to examine how different stakeholders understand the F in F/OSS, its relationship with proprietary software, and the institutional contexts surrounding these technologies. It contributes four recommendations for working with F/OSS that might help programs shore up in tough times and thrive postdownturn.

Teaching problem: Students' written assignments show that they tend to list ideas rather than provide evidence-based arguments. This might be because they do not have a framework to base their arguments on. Research question: Does the communication model framework help students to write evidence-based arguments when evaluating the communicative effectiveness in corporate blogs? Situating the case: The ability to engage in argument from evidence is one of the Next Generation Science Standards for scientific and engineering practices. Thus, it is important for engineering students to know how to present evidence-based arguments. The communication model framework was introduced to provide students with a framework to base their arguments on. This framework builds on the genre-based and academic literacies approaches to teaching writing. More companies are now using corporate blogs (an open, participatory, and globally networked social media tool) to engage stakeholders directly across multiple contexts. The framework is useful in analyzing evolving genres like corporate blogs because it is not only structured but also flexible. About the case: This teaching case describes the use of the communication model framework as the basis for students' arguments. The framework was used in a general writing course for engineering students. Working in groups, the students used the framework for their oral practice critique and their critique assignment on a given piece of academic writing or corporate blog. They also had to write a reflection paper individually at the end of the course. Results: Overall, the mixed groups and international students groups made a stronger attempt to apply the framework compared to the Singaporean student groups. The students' educational backgrounds, the group dynamics within the group, and the nature of the discussions affected the level of adoption of the framework in their writing. Conclusions: This teaching case reflects the value of mixed group, face-to-face discussions, and personal reflection in teaching students evidence-based writing, and calls for more research on flexible frameworks as genres evolve.

Research problem: Despite the increasing interests raised by incident reporting systems, it is still unclear what dimensions of user experience (UX) and other contextual factors should be taken into account for the various stages of declaring an incident using mobile-phone applications. Research questions: How do citizens perceive and describe urban incidents? What UX dimensions are important for reporting an incident with a mobile-phone application? What other (contextual) factors are important from the users' point of view when declaring incidents? Which of the UX dimensions and contextual factors are important when in the various phases during an incident declaration? Literature review: Overall, there is a lack of empirical research in the domain of incident reporting. In general, the UX dimensions-visual and aesthetic experience, emotion, stimulation, identification, meaning and value, and social relatedness/coexperience-are important when designing interactive systems. It also shows that incidents are related to the citizen's perception of the environment. Methodology: A triangulated method approach combining interviews, a survey of existing systems, and a model-based task analysis were applied. This allows us to present a generic task model for incident reporting with a detailed description of UX dimensions affected in the various subtasks. Results and conclusions: Our findings point out the effect of UX dimensions in the task engaged by users when reporting urban citizens. The overall UX is directly influenced by the perceived level of severity, inconvenience and involvement, the personal context, and the technological mobile context. We have found that while several UX dimensions are highly relevant, they are not equally distributed along the several subtasks that citizens engage when reporting incidents. This study shows that semistructured requirement interviews can provide information about UX dimensions and it highlights the importance of the identification of UX dimensions in early phases of the development process.

Scholars in business and technical communication have continuously made efforts to look for effective teaching approaches for cross-cultural business and technical communication; however, little research has been conducted to study the process by which students develop intercultural competence; fewer studies have been conducted to assess learners' needs for gaining intercultural competence in the globalization age. To assess students' level of intercultural competence and understand whether they are likely to change in response to teaching, I first introduce a two-part framework for teaching and learning intercultural business and technical communication: the DMIS model—Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, and the related instrument to assess intercultural sensitivity—the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Then I report the results of using the framework to assess and develop students' intercultural competence, and conclude the study by emphasizing the significance of the current empirical research and discuss the framework's limitations.

Many books, designers, and design educators talk about visual design principles such as balance, contrast, and alignment, but with little consistency. This study uses empirical methods to explore the lore surrounding design principles. The study took the form of two stages: a quantitative literature review to determine what design principles are mentioned most often in discourse on design, and a card sorting exercise to explore the relationships designers, design educators, and design students saw among the most common design principles. Along with the card sorting exercise, I used pre- and post-exercise surveys to gauge how participants felt and thought about design principles and their use in design practice.

This article investigates the social justice implications of localization and reports the results of an empirical study that examines poor designer localization efforts in documentation used in marketing sexuopharmaceuticals. It argues against a top-down view of design and communication and instead advocates a participatory approach that takes into account user linguacultural, political, economic, legal, and local knowledge systems in the localization process. The article also offers suggestions to guide localization theory and practice.

Teaching problem: Undergraduate research at the university level often focuses on the production of a traditional research paper, one with an academic orientation, often information heavy and analysis light, emphasizing the importance of secondary sources and documentation style over the process of inquiry. What approaches to undergraduate research would enable aspiring technical communicators to develop research skills that would better prepare them for success in a professional environment? Situating the case: The approaches described in this paper draw on the work of Mel Levine as presented in , in which he delineates several reasons why young people encounter problems when they enter professional environments: overly managed lives, no experience of delayed gratification, inability to think critically, limited knowledge of their own strengths and weaknesses, and an expectation of stability in the so-called adult world. Levine claims that these problems can be addressed by helping students develop a sense of inner direction as opposed to direction from without, an understanding of how to think critically and apply knowledge, a willingness to build and refine skills over time, and competent writing and speaking skills. In addition, the approaches described in this paper draw on three well-established research traditions: mixed methods research, problem-based research, and action research. How this case was studied: This paper describes the experiences of using two approaches to teach Research in Technical and Scientific Communication at a mid-sized state university in Virginia. The material was collected informally over a period of six years of teaching the course-through observation, student feedback, and completed research reports. About the case: Research in Technical and Scientific Communication required students to produce a research report within the context of real-world inquiry, appropriately focused for a specific audience and purpose, using both primary and secondary sources, and including analysis as well as information. Two approaches were used. The Real Client approach required students to investigate a small-scale, real-world problem or need, which became the focus of a research report that could be submitted to a specific audience for a specific purpose, both identified by the student early in the research process. The Impact of Technology approach required students to consider the impact of technology on modern life, investigate a narrower topic within this broad topic, and prepare a report that could be published in the university magazine or student newspaper. Examples of strong and weak research reports illustrate which features of each approach worked well and which posed challenges. Overall, students responded well to both approaches, but found the Impact of Technology approach more congenial because it was more familiar to them than the Real Client approach. Nonetheless, with both approaches, but especially with the Real Client approach, students seemed reluctant to make necessary contacts, conduct in-depth interviews, and include well-developed analysis. They were more comfortable gathering information anonymously through secondary source material or online surveys, and presenting that information with a limited amount of analysis. Both approaches served to move students toward a more realistic understanding of the kind of research needed in professional environments. Conclusions: These approaches also addressed the concerns raised by Levine. The study was limited by its informal nature, with observations and conclusions resulting from a six-year period of informal experimentation and refinement, during which the requirements for the research report were continually redesigned to better address what students would need to be successful in a workplace.

Abstract In Aristotle's biological treatise, On the Parts of Animals, one finds a rare and unexpected burst of rhetorical eloquence. While justifying the study of “less valued animals,” he erupts into praise for the study of all natural phenomena and condemns the small-mindedness of those who trivialize its worth. Without equal in Aristotle's remaining works for its rhetorical quality, it reveals the otherwise coolheaded researcher as a passionate seeker of truth and an unabashed lover of natural beauty. For Aristotle, rhetoric not only discloses the truth (aletheia) of appearances by refuting counterarguments and defending one's claims within agonistic forums; rhetoric also defends and advances whole fields of study on the promise on wonder (thaumazein). By examining Aristotle's example in practice, this article seeks to elucidate a notion of the rhetoric for inquiry that calls lovers of wisdom to the empirical study of nature.

To build upon user-centered design methods, we used a collaborative and multi-modal approach to involve users early in the design process for a website. This article presents our methods and results and addresses the benefits and limitations of the Collaborative Prototype Design Process (CPDP), including ways in which this new method can be implemented. The CPDP is an innovative approach to user-centered website design that emphasizes collaboration, iterative testing, and data-driven design. The CPDP balances the power and needs of users with those of designers and, thus, enables design teams to test more tasks and involve more users. We divided our initial team into three independent design teams to separately profile users, test usability of low-fidelity paper prototypes, and then create and test usability of resulting wireframes. After completing the user-centered design and usability testing, the three teams merged to analyze their diverse findings and create a final prototype.

While a number of scholars have discussed a need to retheorize the fifth canon in the age of the digital (K. Welch; Trimbur; DeVoss and Porter), the field lacks empirical research on rhetorical delivery itself (Rude). By examining one case example from a larger research project, this article explores how practitioner stories can challenge and expand existing theoretical frameworks of rhetorical delivery to include insights from practitioners' knowledge. This article argues that gathering qualitative case examples is a useful, though by no means exhaustive, methodological research framework for studying rhetorical delivery.

Writing performance of a complex recommendation report produced by student teams for an actual client during a 15-week semester was compared in a writing-intensive Agronomy 356 course and in paired Agronomy 356/ English 309 courses. The longitudinal study investigated differences that existed between reports produced for each learning environment in terms of argument effectiveness, document usability, and professionalism. Three agronomy and three professional communication raters ranked the 12 lengthy reports in the sample. The study found that all top-rated reports were generated in the paired courses and all lowest-rated reports were generated in the stand-alone agronomy course. Four pedagogical factors appear influential in this result: working in dual problem-solving spaces, pushing the boundaries on problem solving, incorporating workplace realities, and using just-in-time teaching.

Research problem: The study explored think-aloud methods usage within usability testing by examining the following questions: How, and why is the think-aloud method used? What is the gap between theory and practice? Where does this gap occur? Literature review: The review informed the survey design. Usability research based on field studies and empirical tests indicates that variations in think-aloud procedures may reduce test reliability. The guidance offered on think-aloud procedures within a number of handbooks on usability testing is also mixed. This indicates potential variability in practice, but how much and for what reasons is unknown. Methodology: An exploratory, qualitative survey was conducted using a web-based questionnaire (during November-December 2010). Usability evaluators were sought via emails (sent to personal contacts, usability companies, conference attendees, and special interest groups) to be cascaded to the international community. As a result we received 207 full responses. Descriptive statistics and thematic coding were used to analyze the data sets. Results: Respondents found the concurrent technique particularly suited usability testing as it was fast, easy for users to relate to, and requires limited resources. Divergent practice was reported in terms of think-aloud instructions, practice, interventions, and the use of demonstrations. A range of interventions was used to better understand participant actions and verbalizations, however, respondents were aware of potential threats to test reliability, and took steps to reduce this impact. Implications: The reliability considerations underpinning the classic think-aloud approach are pragmatically balanced against the need to capture useful data in the time available. A limitation of the study is the focus on the concurrent method; other methods were explored but the differences in application were not considered. Future work is needed to explore the impact of divergent use of think-aloud instructions, practice tasks, and the use of demonstrations on test reliability.

The purpose of the present study is to examine concurrent and predictive evidence used in the validation of ACCUPLACER, a purchased test used to place first-year students into writing courses at an urban, public research university devoted to science and technology education. Concurrent evidence was determined by correlations between ACCUPLACER scores and scores on two other tests designed to measure writing ability: the New Jersey Basic Skills Placement Test and the SAT Writing Section. Predictive evidence was determined by coefficients of determination between ACCUPLACER scores and end-of-semester performance measures. A longitudinal study was also conducted to investigate the grade history of students placed into first-year writing by established and new methods. When analyzed in terms of gender and ethnicity impact, ACCUPLACER failed to achieve statistically significant prediction rates for student performance. The study reveals some limits of placement testing and the problems related to it.

User-generated tutorial videos are quickly emerging as a new form of technical communication, one that relies on text, images, video, and sound alike to convey a message. In this article, we present an approach—a rubric—for assessing the instructional content of tutorial videos that considers the specific roles of modal and multimodal content in effective delivery. The rubric is based on descriptive data derived from a constant comparative study of user-rated YouTube videos.

This empirical study surveyed academic staff at a Swedish university about their experiences and perceptions of the use of English in their academic fields. The objective was to examine how the influence of English in disciplinary domains might affect the viability of Swedish in the academic sphere and to investigate how it might disadvantage Swedish scholars. The data findings were analyzed quantitatively and are complemented with a qualitative content analysis, outlining perception and attitude patterns in the responses. Findings suggest power asymmetry between English and Swedish, as the data contain indications of perceived unequal opportunities between native and nonnative speakers in the international academic community. Swedish scholars highlighted the nuanced expressions of academic discourse found in social science writing as creating particular difficulty when writing in English.

This article reflects on where and how empirical research, focusing particularly on college/adult writing and literate practice, has appeared over the last century in the complete runs of English Journal, College English, College Composition and Communication, Research in the Teaching of English, and Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Recounting our story of the empirical scholarship published in NCTE’s journals, we first appraise what has been meant by empirical research over the century and clarify how we define it for this article. We then frame that definition by considering how alternative discourse has regularly offered a significant counterpoint to that research. We next turn to the central theme of our reflections, the expanding scene of writing that has developed across the century. Finally, we conclude by considering emergent interests in global scholarship on writing and literate practice.

Critical reviews allow access to the critical thinking abilities of their writers, especially with regard to analyzing and synthesizing ideas. In most institutions of higher learning, critical reviews are assigned as coursework, and the general assumption is that students would know how to produce a ‘good’ review, one that meets its readers’ expectations. Is this a fair assumption? If not, which particular skills and strategies do we, as academics, teach them? This study was undertaken to find the answers to these questions and focused on the critical review writing of postgraduates. A mixed methods approach was adopted incorporating questionnaires, interviews and critical reviews of articles written in English by ESL postgraduate students at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya. The critical reviews were analyzed from two perspectives (contents and presentation) using a checklist devised by the researchers. The findings revealed that most of the students lacked the skills and strategies for writing effective reviews.

Undergraduate social work education in England requires the completion of the necessary academic credits for an honours degree, alongside the demonstration of the necessary standards and competencies associated with a professional award. This requires a challenging and diverse programme of study. However, the skills necessary for successful academic enquiry complement those required for effective practice. In particular, academic writing skills support effective professional communication and research skills allow for evidence-based practice. This paper describes the development of academic skills within a new undergraduate social work programme at a UK university, designed to meet the needs of a diverse and atypical student cohort. Having recognised the flaws in the early delivery of the programme, a revised curriculum has placed the development of academic research and writing skills at its core.

Composition theorists concerned with students’ academic writing ability have long questioned the application of voice as a standard for writing competence, and second language compositionists have suggested that English language learners may be disadvantaged by the practice of emphasizing voice in the evaluation of student writing. Despite these criticisms, however, voice continues to frequently appear as a goal in guidelines for teaching writing and on high-stakes writing assessment rubrics in the United States. Given the apparent lack of alignment between theory and practice regarding its use, more empirical research is needed to understand how teachers apply voice as a criterion in the evaluation of student writing. Researchers have used sociocultural and functionalist frameworks to analyze voice-related discursive patterns, yet we do not know how readers evaluate written texts for voice. To address this gap in research the present study asked: 1) What language features do secondary English teachers associate with voice in secondary students’ writing and how do they explain their associations? 2) How do such identified features vary across genres as well as among readers? Nineteen teachers were interviewed using a think-aloud protocol designed to illuminate their perceptions of voice in narrative and expository samples of secondary students’ writing. Results from an inductive analysis of interview transcripts suggest that participating teachers associated voice with appraisal features, such as amplified expressions of affect and judgment, that are characteristic of literary genres.