Technical Communication Quarterly Jul 2015

Influences on Creativity in Technical Communication: Invention, Motivation, and Constraints

Yuejiao Zhang ; Karla Saari Kitalong Michigan Technological University

Abstract

Interviews with 14 technical communicators reveal that skills in rhetorical invention help them creatively address communication problems. They define creativity in relation to four interrelated exigencies of invention: thinking like a user, reinvigorating dry content, inventing visual ideas, and alternating between heuristic and algorithmic processes. They recognize intrinsic factors such as curiosity and sympathy as motivations for their creativity, while being conscious of the external factors (people, money, and time) that may restrain creativity.

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
2015-07-03
DOI
10.1080/10572252.2015.1043028
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Topics
rhetorical criticism technical communication
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (10)

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CrossRef global citation count: 14 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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