Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Oct 2012

Immutable Mobiles Revisited: A Framework for Evaluating the Function of Ephemeral Texts in Design Arguments

Stewart Whittemore Auburn University

Abstract

This article makes the argument that material evidence for many of the most valuable contributions that contemporary technical communicators make to their organizations is often found not in the traditional documentation that they produce but, rather, in the more fragmentary and provisional documents they create as daily participants in their work teams. To make this argument, the article presents data from a case study of a technical communicator at a software firm, showing how a reminder note he carried to a meeting helped him achieve an important design change. The article unpacks the concept of immutable mobiles from actor network theory to derive a framework that helps us interpret the multiple functions of this note in helping the technical communicator warrant and win a design argument with software developers.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2012-10-01
DOI
10.2190/tw.42.4.e
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
technical communication qualitative research
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Friess (2023)
    Scrum in Classroom Collaborations: A Quasi-Experimental Study
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Doan (2019)
    Contradictory Comments: Feedback in Professional Communication Service Courses
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  3. Robles (2018)
    Visualizing Certainty: What the Cultural History of the Gantt Chart Teaches Tec…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Getto et al. (2017)
    Mapping Personas: Designing UX Relationships for an Online Coastal Atlas
    Computers and Composition

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CrossRef global citation count: 4 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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