Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Apr 2017

Helping Doctoral Students Establish Long-Term Identities as Technical Communication Scholars

Keith Grant-Davie Utah State University ; Breeanne Matheson Utah State University ; Eric James Stephens Clemson University

Abstract

This article aims to help doctoral students in technical communication prepare themselves for the academic job market and for the subsequent process of earning tenure and promotion in increasingly demanding environments. The authors propose that students do four things: (a) learn to spot and articulate research problems; (b) find their vocation—the work to which they feel a personal calling—within technical communication; (c) identify the research methods that best suit their personalities; and (d) articulate a research identity and agenda that they can explain at three different levels of abstraction: describing individual projects, naming the coherent themes that connect these projects, and defining themselves concisely as scholars. All these orienting practices involve students in stepping back, looking for larger patterns in their work and in their professional interests, and finding specific language to represent them.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2017-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0047281617692071
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
graduate education technical communication labor and working conditions
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Moeggenberg (2022)
    Job Market Mentoring in Rhetoric and Composition and Technical Communication
    Rhetoric Review
  2. Tham et al. (2020)
    Toward a Radical Collaboratory Model for Graduate Research Education: A Collabo…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Rosselot-Merritt et al. (2020)
    Mentoring in Business and Professional Communication: Case Study of a Multiyear…
    Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  4. Molloy (2019)
    Durable, Portable Research through Partnerships with Interdisciplinary Advocacy…
    Technical Communication Quarterly

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