Journal of Business and Technical Communication Apr 2010

Recycled Writing: Assembling Actor Networks From Reusable Content

Jason Swarts North Carolina State University

Abstract

Drawing on a study of writers reusing content from one document to another, this study examines the rhetorical purpose of reuse. Writing reuse is predominantly studied through the literature on single sourcing and enacted via technologies built on single-sourcing models. Such theoretical models and derivative technologies cast reusable content as context-less and rhetorically neutral, a perspective that overlooks the underlying rhetorical strategies of reuse. The author argues for a new understanding of reuse as a rhetorical act of creating hybrid utterances that gather their rhetorical strength by assembling ever larger and denser actor networks.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2010-04-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651909353307
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Topics
rhetorical criticism
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Citation Context

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