Achieving Objectivity through Genred Activity: A Case Study

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jan 2007

Achieving Objectivity through Genred Activity: A Case Study

Joseph Little

Abstract

Finding itself at the center of highly publicized legal and political deliberations over fairness in testing, personnel credibility, and legal liability, the training department at a North American transit authority adopted a genre system that enabled the production of objective evidence of job competence, which was then used to make objective decisions about who passed and failed various training programs. The ongoing genre-structured activity of the department involved not only the regularization of organizational texts but also the regularization of social interaction mediated by those texts, which, while producing the types of interpretively stable documents required for successful public deliberation, led to a shift in authority and social relations within the department that instigated considerable resentment and loss of morale among many veteran instructors.

Journal: Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published: 2007-01-01
DOI: 10.2190/t85g-0265-p628-6236
Topics: qualitative research

Citation Context

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Cites in this index (6)

Bazerman et al. (2003)

The Production of Information for Genred Activity Spaces

Written Communication
Little (2003)

The Peter Effect in Early Experimental Education Research

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Little (2001)

Understanding Statistical Significance: A Conceptual History

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BERKENKOTTER (2001)

Genre Systems at Work

Written Communication
Little (2000)

Analogy in science: Where do we go from here?

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Show all 6 →

RUSSELL (1997)

Rethinking Genre in School and Society

Written Communication

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CrossRef global citation count: 3 View in citation network →