Ann Shivers-McNair
10 articles-
“Wayfinding” through the AI wilderness: Mapping rhetorics of ChatGPT prompt writing on X (formerly Twitter) to promote critical AI literacies ↗
Abstract
In this paper, we demonstrate how studying the rhetorics of ChatGPT prompt writing on social media can promote critical AI literacies. Prompt writing is the process of writing instructions for generative AI tools like ChatGPT to elicit desired outputs and there has been an upsurge of conversations about it on social media. To study this rhetorical activity, we build on four overlapping traditions of digital writing research in computers and composition that inform how we frame literacies, how we study social media rhetorics, how we engage iteratively and reflexively with methodologies and technologies, and how we blend computational methods with qualitative methods. Drawing on these four traditions, our paper shows our iterative research process through which we gathered and analyzed a dataset of 32,000 posts (formerly known as tweets) from X (formerly Twitter) about prompt writing posted between November 2022 to May 2023. We present five themes about these emerging AI literacy practices: (1) areas of communication impacted by prompt writing, (2) micro-literacy resources shared for prompt writing, (3) market rhetoric shaping prompt writing, (4) rhetorical characteristics of prompts, and (5) definitions of prompt writing. In discussing these themes and our methodologies, we highlight takeaways for digital writing teachers and researchers who are teaching and analyzing critical AI literacies.
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Abstract
This special issue contains articles, reflections, and discussions stemming from the 2021 Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) Virtual Conference, which was themed “Language, Access, and Power in Technical Communication.” This theme was originally set for the 2020 ATTW Conference. When the conference co-chairs Ann Shivers-McNair and Laura Gonzales originally developed the theme for the 2020 ATTW conference, we drew inspiration from Dr. Cecilia Shelton’s (2020) call to “shift out of neutral” in our technical communication practices. At that time, we reflected on the ongoing racial violence perpetuated through police brutality across the world, on the border crisis that kept separate, and continues to separate children and families, and on a violent government administration that reflected the hatred too long ingrained in US nationalism. We knew that technical communicators could not and should not sit by idly and pretend to embrace a stance of neutrality amidst so much injustice.
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Preview this article: Introduction: Transdisciplinary Intra-actions, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/82/5/collegeenglish30761-1.gif
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In this article, we describe the philosophy, objectives, and development of Multilingual User-Experience (Multilingual UX), a community-driven initiative for supporting technology innovation with marginalized communities. We highlight how community-based mentorship can guide innovative technology design through an intersectional technofeminist perspective. We begin with a discussion of the impetus for building this initiative before discussing how we are collaboratively designing a research center to facilitate technology design with and for marginalized communities. We both theorize and enact the intersectional technofeminist principles of our work by telling the story of our project with our collaborators and community partners, in the form of vignettes from a symposium. We conclude by looking ahead to our next steps and by offering strategies for intersectional technofeminist community building and technology innovation, in the hope that our experiences can be further developed and localized to support similar initiatives that highlight the value of feminist collaboration in technology design.
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The authors, an instructor and students, describe our practice of user-centered design on three levels: in the design and structure of an advanced undergraduate course in which we all participated, in student projects designed during the course, and in our reflections on the course presented here. We argue that principles of user-centered design can and should be more than course concepts and assignments; they can be core practices of the course that hold both students and teachers accountable for the impacts of their rhetorical choices. We offer a model for other teacher-scholars looking to involve students in the design of their courses and in writing together about their work.
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Review of "Risk Communication and Miscommunication: Case Studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, Government, and Community Organizations," by Boiarsky, C. (2016). Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press ↗
Abstract
What if something as seemingly routine as an email or an interoffice memorandum could make the difference between preventing a crisis or allowing a dangerous situation to deteriorate? This is the question Carolyn Boiarsky asks her readers to grapple with in Risk Communication and Miscommunication: Case Studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, Government, and Community Organizations, as she presents analyses of communication artifacts in case studies from the last few decades of US history. In a year that brought catastrophic flooding in Louisiana and national controversy over a proposed oil pipeline's threats to drinking water and sacred sites on Native American land, Boiarsky's case studies---which include the 2010 BP/ Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, the 2011 opening of the Mississippi Spillway during river flooding, and the 2014 expansion of the Enbridge Pipeline after a leak in Michigan four years prior---are a timely addition to the literature on risk communication. Communication designers will find this book particularly useful because of its concrete, actionable strategies for practitioners and chapter summaries that lend themselves to quick access for future reference.
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Preview this article: Vignette: (Becoming) At Ease: A First-Year Writing Class on a Military Post, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/66/2/collegecompositionandcommunication26218-1.gif
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Shivers-McNair and Inman analyze and reflect upon the dissolution of a partnership between their institution's basic writing program and writing center. In their network reading of the partnership, the authors argue that their efforts to combat institutional discourses about students and faculty in two marginalized programs were complicated by asymmetrical relations of power. The authors conclude with reflections on possibilities for partnerships and collaborations between marginalized programs.