Time Talk: On Small Changes That Enact Infrastructural Mentoring for Undergraduate Women in Technical Fields

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jul 2013

Time Talk: On Small Changes That Enact Infrastructural Mentoring for Undergraduate Women in Technical Fields

Patricia Sullivan ; Kristen Moore Texas Tech University

Abstract

This article brings together the communication needs and positioning of women in technical areas, and asks “how can technical communication classes contribute to the mentoring of young women engineers at a time when many of those women want to be identified as engineers instead of being spotlighted as women in engineering?” Incorporating research into mentoring for women in engineering, and feminist approaches to mentoring in general, we adopt Heath and Heath's strategy in Switch, instituting small changes in technical communication classes (and sometimes their infrastructures) that target a mentoring problem—i.e., talk about time—with the hope of flipping a switch toward larger changes. Thus, the article demonstrates two tactics that we can use to deliver improvement in managing the discourse surrounding time and its deadlines. Our approach both mentors undergraduate women in more actively and effectively discussing and scheduling their work without singling them out as women and also integrates good mentoring practice into the infrastructure of technical communication service classes.

Journal: Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published: 2013-07-01
DOI: 10.2190/tw.43.3.f
Open Access: Closed
Topics: technical communication

Citation Context

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Cites in this index (4)

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The Coaching and Mentoring Process: The Obvious Knowledge and Skill Set for Org…

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Thompson et al. (2006)

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CrossRef global citation count: 11 View in citation network →