Journal of Business and Technical Communication recent issues

Starter Ecologies: Introduction to the Special Issue on Social Software

Spinuzzi, C. — 2009-06-08

Genre, Activity, and Collaborative Work and Play in World of Warcraft: Places and Problems of Open Systems in Online Gaming

Sherlock, L. — 2009-06-08

This article examines the characteristics of collaborative work and overlapping activity systems in the popular online game World of Warcraft. Using genre theory and activity theory as frames to work out the genre ecology of gameplay, the article focuses on how players coordinate ad hoc grouping activity across and through genres. It articulates the related development of open systems in online gaming in a discussion of interface modifications (AddOns) and online information databases that players generate, drawing on De Certeau's formulation of strategies and tactics and Warner's discussion of publics and counterpublics. The article concludes by discussing implications of online gaming for an open-systems approach to information design in professional communication and for professional communication in general.

Networked Exchanges, Identity, Writing

Rice, J. — 2009-06-08

This article argues for a rhetoric of networked exchanges that focuses on the response. Working from Spinuzzi's call for a rhetoric of horizontal learning, it examines two kinds of online writing spaces in order to propose such a rhetoric. After surveying conflicting, academic attitudes regarding networked exchanges, the article proposes the response as a type of professional communication. A specific message board thread and a series of blog carnivals serve as examples of the rhetoric of response, a way that horizontal learning produces a specific type of networked writing identity. The article concludes with a call for response-based communication practices.

``With My Head Up in the Clouds'': Using Social Tagging to Organize Knowledge

Panke, S., Gaiser, B. — 2009-06-08

Social tagging ranges among the ``killer applications'' of Web 2.0. An ever-growing international community uses Web sites such as the photo database Flickr and the bookmarking service Delicious. In addition, a number of other portals use tagging to compile user-specific metadata on information on any subject—whether it be travel destinations, personal contacts, films, or museum exhibits. Retrieving and storing information via tagging seems to meet users' needs for a number of purposes and in many contexts. Starting with a synopsis of the current literature on social tagging and then focusing on the results of two surveys—qualitative interviews and an online questionnaire—this article explores the potential and limitations of tagging as a tool for organizing shared and personal knowledge.

Integrating Social Media Into Existing Work Environments: The Case of Delicious

Stolley, K. — 2009-06-08

This article offers an example case of technical communicators integrating the social bookmarking site Delicious into existing work environments. Using activity theory to present conceptual foundations and concrete steps for integrating the functionalities of social media, the article builds on research within technical communication that argues for professional communicators to participate more fully in the design of communication systems and software. By examining the use of add-ons and tools created for Delicious, and the customized use of Rich Site Syndication (RSS) feeds that the site publishes, the author argues for addressing the context-sensitive needs of project teams by integrating the functionality of social media applications generally and repurposing their user-generated data.

Book Review: Ahonen, Tomi, and O'Reilly, Jim. (2007). Digital Korea: Convergence of Broadband Internet, 3G Cell Phones, Multiplayer Gaming, Digital TV, Virtual Reality, Electronic Cash, Telematics, Robotics, E-Government and the Intelligent Home. London: Futuretext. 284 pages

Sun, H. — 2009-06-08

Book Review: Benkler, Yochai. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 515 pages

Edwards, M. — 2009-06-08

Book Review: Kaptelinin, Victor, and Nardi, Bonnie A. (2006). Acting With Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 333 pages

Walls, D. M. — 2009-06-08

Book Review: Karaganis, Joe. (Ed.). (2007). Structures of Participation in Digital Culture. New York: Social Science Research Council. 284 pages

Jones, J. M. — 2009-06-08

Board of Reviewers

2009-06-08

Submission Guidelines

2009-06-08

Introduction to the Themed Issue on the State of Research in Technical Communication

Russell, D. R. — 2009-03-05

The Technical Communication Research Landscape

Blakeslee, A. M. — 2009-03-05

This article reports data from questionnaires assessing the day-to-day experiences that members of the technical communication field have in carrying out their research. The data revealed that most members experience at least some frustration and numerous constraints that prevent them from doing the kinds and amounts of research that they want to do and that may affect the quality of their research. In short, technical communication scholars face an array of challenges. This article presents examples of these challenges and ideas that respondents had both for lessening the challenges scholars face and for better preparing graduate students. It suggests several practical initiatives for addressing these challenges along with realistic strategies for implementing those initiatives.

Mapping the Research Questions in Technical Communication

Rude, C. D. — 2009-03-05

Agreement about research questions can strengthen disciplinary identity and give direction to a field that is still maturing. The central research question this article poses foregrounds texts, broadly defined as verbal, visual, and multimedia, and the power of texts to mediate knowledge, values, and action in a variety of contexts. Related questions concern disciplinarity, pedagogy, practice, and social change. These questions overlap and inform each other. Any single study does not necessarily fall exclusively into one area. A mapping of a field's research questions is a political act, emphasizing some questions and marginalizing or excluding others. The emphases may change over time. This mapping illustrates reasons for the tensions between the academic and practitioner areas of the field. It also points out their shared research interests and opportunities for future research.

Practitioner Research Instruction: A Neglected Curricular Area in Technical Communication Undergraduate Programs

Spilka, R. — 2009-03-05

Most technical communication practitioners conduct research throughout their careers. Yet, a survey of the Web sites of 114 undergraduate technical communication programs between September 2006 and April 2007 revealed that 65% (about two thirds) of these programs are providing minimal or no exposure to research instruction and therefore are not sufficiently preparing students to handle the types of research they will encounter in their upcoming careers. Given the disconnect between the centrality of research in the work that technical communicators do and the low presence of research instruction at the undergraduate level, academics need to look for ways to overcome institutional and other constraints in order to give research training greater priority in their undergraduate programs.

Book Review: Artemeva, Natasha, and Freedman, Aviva (Eds.). (2006). Rhetorical Genre Studies and Beyond. Winnipeg, Canada: Inkshed. 282 pages

Johnson, K. — 2009-03-05

Book Review: Faber, Brenton. (2007). Discourse, Technology and Change. New York: Continuum. 206 pages

Stolley, K. — 2009-03-05

Time and Exigence in Temporal Genres

Markel, M. — 2008-11-20

Genre use entails a rhetorical response to an exigence in the writer's context. In one category of genres, which the author calls temporal genres, linear time constitutes a major exigence to which writers must respond. Temporal genres, such as annual reports and status reports, call for writers to publish texts because a certain amount of time has passed, even if they are not yet ready to do so. The first annual report of the Privacy Office of the Department of Homeland Security reveals an ineffective ethos and discontinuities between the mission of the office and that of the department. But the second annual report reveals a more effective ethos and greater harmony between the missions. This study shows how the requirement to report can force writers to decide existential issues of identity and mission.

Rethinking Loci Communes and Burkean Transcendence: Rhetorical Leadership While Contesting Change in the Takeover Struggle Between AirTran and Midwest Airlines

Olson, K. M. — 2008-11-20

In situations of potential business change, the cooperation of various direct and indirect stakeholders (i.e., employees, customers, shareholders, neighbors) is crucial. The alternative policy courses may all be reasonable, and yet none of them may be clearly best for all stakeholders; support for an option must be cultivated through public rhetoric. Loci communes and Burkean transcendence are two potent rhetorical strategies that can help business leaders publicly weigh and civilly advocate a policy position relative to competing alternatives. This article develops and illustrates that argument by analyzing the public rhetoric involved in AirTran's attempt to build support for its hostile takeover of Midwest Airlines and Midwest's successful resistance to that attempt. Midwest's deft development of the transcendent term value helped it circumvent the initial deadlock between its preferred loci communes (i.e., the existent and quality) and AirTran's (i.e., the possible and quantity). The article advances a rationale and call for rhetorical scholarship to adopt more situated, social practice views of loci communes and transcendence.

Squaring the Learning Circle: Cross-Classroom Collaborations and the Impact of Audience on Student Outcomes in Professional Writing

Ward, M. — 2008-11-20

Student compositions traditionally are written for the teacher. Yet instructors of professional communication genres have discovered that students' motivation may be enhanced when they write assignments for audiences of peers within the classroom or professionals outside the campus. Yet client-based projects require writing students who have never yet written for an external audience to make a leap beyond the classroom. To bridge the gap between writing for classroom peers and writing for professional clients, this article describes a third and intermediate choice of audience, namely, external peers in cross-classroom collaborations that occur via telecommunication. The author places this intermediate-audience strategy within the larger conversation about the impact of audience on student writing outcomes, applies the strategy to professional writing pedagogy, and reports the results of a small pilot study that provide some preliminary support for the strategy.

Methods and Results of an Accreditation-Driven Writing Assessment in a Business College

Warnock, S. — 2008-11-20

This article describes a pilot effort for an accreditation-driven writing assessment in a business college, detailing the pilot's logistics and methods. Supported by rubric software and a philosophy of "real readers, real documents," the assessment was piloted in summer 2006 with five evaluators who were English instructors and four who worked or taught in business environments. The nine evaluators were each given 10 reports that were drawn from a sample of 50 reports completed in a writing-intensive course. They created 88 individual assessments using a 10-category rubric. While the overarching purpose of the pilot was to determine the effectiveness of the methods used, the results may also be of interest to those involved with the assessment of writing.

Book Review: Book Review Editor: Jeffrey Jablonski, University of Nevada, Las Vegas: Scott, J. Blake, Longo, Bernadette, and Wills, Katherine V. (Eds.). (2006). Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies. Albany: SUNY. 293 pages

Herndl, C. G. — 2008-11-20

Book Review: Brown, Dan M. (2007). Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. 352 pages

Krause, T. — 2008-11-20

Board of Reviewers

2008-11-20

Submission Guidelines

2008-11-20

A Critique of Hall's Contexting Model: A Meta-Analysis of Literature on Intercultural Business and Technical Communication

Cardon, P. W. — 2008-09-15

Edward Hall's model of low-context and high-context cultures is one of the dominant theoretical frameworks for interpreting intercultural communication. This article reports a meta-analysis of 224 articles in business and technical communication journals between 1990 and 2006 and addresses two primary issues: (a) the degree to which contexting is embedded in intercultural communication theory and (b) the degree to which the contexting model has been empirically validated. Contexting is the most cited theoretical framework in articles about intercultural communication in business and technical communication journals and in intercultural communication textbooks. An extensive set of contexting propositions has emerged in the literature; however, few of these propositions have been examined empirically. Furthermore, those propositions tested most frequently have failed to support many contexting propositions, particularly those related to directness. This article provides several recommendations for those researchers who seek to address this popular and appealing yet unsubstantiated and underdeveloped communication theory.

Ethos as Market Maker: The Creative Role of Technical Marketing Communication in an Aviation Start-Up

Mara, A. — 2008-09-15

This study examines how a very light jet start-up, Eclipse Aviation, changed its ethos appeals in order to survive the loss of its principally declared innovation, a jet aircraft engine. Eclipse Aviation's corporate transformation from a spin-off company to a convergence-of-innovation company hinged on modifying an early marketing strategy. To overcome the loss of the jet engine, employees had to radically modify earlier expert representations and adopt rhetorical appeals that more closely parallel what Miller described as "cyborg discourse." To understand how Eclipse Aviation survived the typically fatal loss of a stated primary innovation and to explore the implications that this particular start-up's rupture has for technology transfer and technical marketing, this study centers its analysis on a Web site that marketers used to "ventilate" the company and prevent financial collapse. The transformation in the company's marketing strategy illustrates how cyborg ethos appeals aggregate and discipline distributed stakeholder roles.

Qualitative Sampling Methods: A Primer for Technical Communicators

Koerber, A., McMichael, L. — 2008-09-15

Qualitative sampling methods have been largely ignored in technical communication texts, making this concept difficult to teach in graduate courses on research methods. Using concepts from qualitative health research, this article provides a primer on qualitative methods as an initial effort to fill this gap in the technical communication literature. Specifically, the authors attempt to clarify some of the current confusion over qualitative sampling terminology, explain what qualitative sampling methods are and why they need to be implemented, and offer examples of how to apply commonly used qualitative sampling methods.

When West Meets East: Teaching a Managerial Communication Course in Hong Kong

Roberts, E., Tuleja, E. A. — 2008-09-15

Although considerable previous research has focused on Chinese students' expectations and experiences while studying in English-speaking cultures, little research to date has focused on how the instructor's cultural background affects the learning process within a managerial communication classroom Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, this exploratory case study involves two U.S. instructors teaching a managerial communication course to 106 Chinese students in Hong Kong. The findings from this study provide implications for managerial communication pedagogy and further research.

Book Review: Smart, Graham. (2007). Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking. London: Equinox

Bremner, S. — 2008-09-15

Call for Papers: 22nd Annual Research Network Forum at CCCC: March 11, 2009 San Francisco Hilton, California

2008-09-15

Board of Reviewers

2008-09-15