The Communicative Work of Biology-Journal Captions: Lessons for Technical and Professional Communication

Technical Communication Quarterly Oct 2016

The Communicative Work of Biology-Journal Captions: Lessons for Technical and Professional Communication

Jordan Smith Iowa State University ; Jo Mackiewicz Iowa State University ; Derek Hanson Iowa State University ; Shannon N. Fanning Iowa State University ; Sara Doan University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Abstract

The authors examined a corpus of figure captions from technical and professional communication (TPC)-journal articles to test their sense that TPC captions do not fulfill their communicative potential as well as, they sensed, journals in science often do. The authors performed a content analysis on captions from biology-journal articles and iteratively tested a coding scheme of caption content. The resulting scheme can help in analyzing caption content, developing captions, and imparting a variety of TPC-related skills to students.

Journal: Technical Communication Quarterly
Published: 2016-10-01
DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2016.1222453
Open Access: Closed
Topics: professional writing

Citation Context

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