Dissertations in Technical Communication and Rhetoric

2007

TCR

Tim Hadley

The Effect of Direct, In-Class Grammar Instruction on the Quality of Student Writing

Rebecca Rickly, chair, Rebecca Rickly, Locke Carter

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-11282007-134441/

The study behind this dissertation examines the difference in the quality of writing between two groups of students in freshman English classes at a large public university. The study compares one cohort of students, which met in traditional face-to-face class meetings as well as in an online environment and received direct grammar instruction in every class session, with a comparable group of extended studies students who took the same freshman English course but met only in an online environment, and so did not receive direct classroom instruction in grammar. The comparison between an onsite class and an extended studies class allowed an extensive analysis of the grammar-teaching factor and its effect on the quality of student writing. In addition, the study examines the issue of writing quality editorially, by looking at the number and types of errors, and stylistically, by looking at sentence structure, especially right-branching free modifiers, final free modifiers, and words per clause, criteria suggested by scholars as being essential to the stylistic fluency and maturity of college students’ texts. Quantitative methods and results are balanced by qualitative analysis of students’ writing reviews and interviews with composition instructors. A summarizing conclusion suggests ways that this study contributes to the knowledge base of the grammar-and-writing environment, and proposes areas that remain under-researched in the grammar-and-writing controversy even after more than 100 years of intense study.

Current Position: Missouri State University

2007

TCR

Laura Palmer

Reconsidering Minimalist Documentation: Developing and Testing a Visual For Experiential Learning

Thomas Barker, chair, Miles Kimball, Susan Lang

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-11162007-115507/

This dissertation uses the work of John Carroll and his model of minimalist documentation to establish if a visual can effectively perform as a minimalist instruction and activate the experiential learning that Carroll identified as critical to the success of his model. In the study, best practices from information design and visual theory were used to revisit and redesign the screen capture. The redesigned screen capture, as a minimalist model of instruction, was tested in a study.

In the study, twenty-five participants were randomly assigned to the visual instruction or verbal instruction and given two psychometric inventories: one for experiential learning style and the other for learning styles. Next, participants were asked to replicate a simple picture using a drawing program available via the internet. Participants were observed and timed as they completed the drawing task. Comments from the talk aloud protocol were noted and the final drawing artifacts were collected for further analysis.

The study revealed that in a college population, 80% of the participants were visual learners and half were not strong experiential learners. The hypothesis a visual instruction would result in the drawing task being completed in less time was refuted; participants in the visual condition took longer to complete the task. Artifact analysis revealed that participants used more tools and completed the sample drawing with more accuracy when assigned to the visual group—they were more engaged in the task. Styles that were less experiential created a better artifact in the visual group and, for the five verbal learners in the study, the visual demonstrated some promise at acting as an instructional device.

In conclusion, this study asserts that a need exists to create materials that address what may be an increasing population of visual learners. For the artifact designed here, there is a link indicating that experiential learning is fostered by a visual. This visual focuses its design on elements key to the task, positions them centrally for the viewer and addresses major areas of functionality. Such a visual serves to engage the user more.

Current Position: Texas Tech University

2007

TCR

Dmitri Stanchevici

Stalinist Genetics: The Constitutional Rhetoric of T.D. Lysenko

Ken Baake, chair, Sam Dragga, Kirk St. Amant

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-10102007-120948/

This study focuses on the constitutional rhetoric of T. D. Lysenko, the founder of an agrobiological doctrine (Lysenkoism) in the Stalinist Soviet Union. As the result of using not only scientific, but also political and ideological arguments, the Lysenkoists achieved an official ban on Mendelian genetics in the Soviet Union. Though the ban was brief and Lysenkoism as a leading biological doctrine was eventually deposed in favor of Mendelianism, today Lysenkoism remains a paradigmatic example of the pernicious political interference in science.

My critical orientation in reading Lysenko’s two major speeches is constitutional rhetoric. It combines Kenneth Burke’s dialectic of constitutions, on the one hand, and rhetoric of the subject, on the other. My analysis shows that (1) Lysenko had to constitute his science against an enemy (Mendelism); (2) the Lysenkoist constitution depended on its context, but also on the arbitrary wishes of Lysenko and his followers; and (3) this constitution rhetorically invented its audience and got the people it addressed to identify with this invention. I also show that Lysenko’s constitutional rhetoric created a space where scientific terms transformed into political and ideological ones, and vice versa. Contrary to Lysenko’s intentions, his language also gave his opponents, Soviet Mendelians, grounds on which to defend their science and criticize Lysenkoism.

This study of Lysenko’s constitutional rhetoric contributes to a better understanding of modern science. I argue for a blurriness of the boundaries between what is scientific and political in the discourse of contemporary scientific controversies. I also argue that scientific language reveals more plasticity and capability to adapt to the political situation than has hitherto been assumed.

Current Position: Texas Tech

2007

TCR

Roland Jones

ObjectRhetoric: An Object-Oriented Rhetoric of Hypertext for Technical Communication

Fred Kemp, chair, Susan Lang, Rich Rice

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-10292007-130449/

Technical communication is becoming increasingly focused on the efficient production of documentation, largely commoditizing a profession based, at least in part, on the art of rhetoric. As technical communicators embrace single sourcing, the practice of writing content for one context and reusing it in others, the impetus is on technological solutions that enable more output with less effort. This dissertation will describe a new rhetoric to help technical communicators in dealing with the complexities of composing within a hypertextual and single-source based environment while employing the traditional skills of the profession.

A useful model for technical communicators working with reusable content is that offered by object-orientation, a programming method that likewise focuses on reusable content, specifically program code. Rather than defining a series of algorithms in program code, which results in inefficiencies similar to those of writing and maintaining individual documents, object-orientation segregates code by creating models of interaction among code objects which then govern themselves. Such a process could help create more efficient and sustainable methods of creating documentation if applied to technical communication. Since these objects offer a new approach to authoring, a rhetoric of such objects becomes necessary before they can be implemented for technical communication. Since these objects are connected through complex referential relationships, they are also an advanced form of hypertext.

Object-orientation and the hypertext theory of Ted Nelson provide language suitable for defining such a rhetoric. A theory of invention is equivalent to understanding how knowledge is formed, manipulated, and stored within the mind; cognitive theory and the work of Marvin Minsky and Roger Shank help define a suitable metaphor for this rhetoric. Lastly, elements of the process will be shown through the example of real-world activities such as those involved in complex documentation efforts.

Current Position: Phoenix

2007

TCR

Anna Sallee

An Analysis of Risk Communication During a Natural Disaster at a Large Metropolitan Hospital

Thomas Barker, chair, Sam Dragga, Locke Carter

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-06212007-131825/

Since September 11, 2001 national attention has been drawn to the need for clear, concise plans for disaster events with high number of injuries. The potential for manmade disaster is great, but natural disasters remain the most likely threat to the average person. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities are among the organizations that are required by their governing and accrediting agencies to have a formal disaster plan. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, it became apparent that hospital plans may not be sufficient to support successful disaster response.

To facilitate progress in the readiness continuum, the Disaster Readiness Maturity Model (DRMM) was developed. The DRMM supports disaster preparedness as a process rather than simply a written document with yearly or bi-annual drills. The DRMM identifies levels of maturity in the disaster readiness continuum and transitional activities that help healthcare organizations move toward the next level. As a process, disaster readiness is defined as a dynamic, ever-present state of mind, creating an atmosphere of disaster preparedness in the daily activities of the healthcare organization.

Current Position: Prairie View A&M University-Houston, Texas

2007

TCR

Nicole Madison

The Effect of Translation Changes on the Efficacy of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Patient Information Pamphlets for a West Texas Tejano Population

Kirk St. Amant, chair, Amy Koerber, Sean Zdenek

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-10312007-111104/

My primary research question is: “What kind of translation and localization disparities exist between the English versions of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist’s patient information pamphlets and the Spanish translations of those pamphlets for a Tejano audience?” It is essential that this question is answered, both for the growing Tejano population, and for the healthcare industry as a whole. With the results of this study, the healthcare industry might be able to reassess their policies toward translation, and make the appropriate adjustments toward including Spanish and Tejano Spanish translations for their users. This study examined 142 examples of patient information brochures handed out by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) – both the original English version and the translated Spanish version- using comparative analysis backed by contrastive rhetoric, the analysis of two professional medical translators, and interview data with Tejano women. Several problems were found with the Spanish translations including (but not limited to) lack of available translations, poor translation, and changed or incorrect information in the Spanish versions. These problems could lead to poor healthcare for Spanish-speaking Tejanos, as well as lawsuits.

Current Position: Angelo State University

2007

TCR

Junhua Wang

Linking Contextual Factors with Rhetorical Patterns in Chinese and American Business Letters: Moving toward Convergence?

Kirk St. Amant, chair, Amy Koerber, Ken Baake

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-06212007-131825/

The purpose for this research is to show whether rhetorical patterns in the collected business letters from two classes in China and the United States are moving toward convergence. By convergence, I mean the tendency for communication participants’ rhetorical patterns to move toward one another. The perspective of convergence contrasts with the assertion that communication patterns from different cultures “diverge,” which primarily focuses on cultural differences and highlights the communicative diversity across cultures.

In this research, I conducted an experimental study in the classroom settings from two universities in China and the United States. Student participants were required to draft claim letters based on a scenario about a defective laptop. The experimental research was complemented by a historical exploration on the relationship between social context and rhetorical systems, a genre-based textual analysis, surveys, interviews, and textbook analysis. Starting from the perspective of culture as a process, I hypothesized that in the globalization age, there would be a convergent rhetorical pattern in terms of directness (explicit approach to communication) and indirectness (implicit approach to communication) in the business letters written by the two groups of students from China and the United States. Contradictory to what the present scholarship would suggest on the long-held belief about the East-West dichotomy on directness and indirectness in communication, this research shows that similar rhetorical preferences on directness and indirectness were emerging from claim letters writing and teaching practices in the two cultural groups of participants.

By addressing the issue of East-West dichotomy on directness and indirectness in claim letters written by cross-cultural student writers, I have shown the significance of re-examining issues relating to concepts of culture and communication in the globalization age. The research especially sheds light on the research and pedagogy in the field of cross-cultural technical communication. Based on this research, our teaching practices should be adjusted to reflect changes happened to both cultures and communication styles. On the other hand, as an experimental research, this study needs to be complemented and further proved by research in the same nature.

Current Position: University of Minnesota, Duluth

2007

TCR

Yingqin Liu

Rhetorical Organization in Contemporary Chinese and English Argumentation: A Contrastive and Comparative Study

Rebecca Rickly, chair, Ken Baake, Kirk St. Amant

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-07092007-120106/

Contrastive and comparative rhetorical approaches to Chinese rhetoric/argumentation tend to suggest that such writing features an essential indirectness when compared to a more straightforward and direct Western standard. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that studies such as those of Kaplan (1966) and Matalene (1985) may be compromised by various methodological concerns. Additionally, in today’s multicultural educational settings, any possible reductive notions about the rhetorics of different languages and cultures need to be reexamined so as to avoid simplistic expectations and interpretations of ESL students and their writing and to avoid an ethnocentric, assimilationist pedagogical stance.

With a combination of research methods of qualitative content analysis, in-person interviews and focus groups, the present study seeks to address the question of indirectness in Chinese rhetoric/argumentation by comparing English language essays composed by samples of Chinese ESL/EFL and U.S. college students. These essays were analyzed for rhetorical organizations. The results indicated that the Chinese and U.S. subjects organized their essays in similar deductive fashion (i.e., a pattern usually considered direct). Further, Chinese language and English language essays composed by samples of Chinese college and high school students are compared in an effort to assess language-specific and cultural characteristics, the effects of bilingualism, and English learning developmental factors on how these essays are organized. The results analyzed for these samples indicated that, while Chinese high school students favored a more inductive organization in both English and Chinese language essays, the Chinese college students composed in a more “Western” or deductive pattern. Next, interview and focus groups results from samples of Chinese and U.S. college students were analyzed to assess the effects of cultural factors such as values and English writing learning backgrounds on the subjects’ choice of rhetorical organization in English argumentative writing. Finally the study attempts to address implications of the study for future research on contrastive and comparative rhetoric in an intercultural (technical) communication context and for English composition instructions in a global ESL/EFL teaching and learning environment.

Current Position:

2006

TCR

Mialisa Hubbard

Knowledge-Building Spaces in Technical Communication: Navigating a Tertiary Orality

Rebecca Rickly, chair, Craig Baehr, Fred Kemp

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-11052006-203558/

Technical communication graduate programs facilitate the transition of graduate students into the academy and into the world of business and industry by enabling knowledge of tools and theory in their students, more and more frequently through online communication. Graduate programs within the field of technical communication and their students hold a vested interest in reconciling demand for abstract theoretical knowledge with demand for applied skills and abilities in online technological communication tools, while facing unique constructs of power, voice, and culture. This research, an approach using rhetorical analysis of text and case study which reveals snapshots in time, produces an understanding of individual choices, illustrating not only a culture utilizing online communication in the social construction of knowledge, but also an evolving change specific to cultures of orality and literacy within individuals communicating online. As technical communication graduate students move into a culture of tertiary orality, they need to recognize that they are operating in a new culture, one where they can no longer recognize exactly what it means to be simply print literate, but rather cyberliterate, because these are the individuals who will be responsible for instantiating others into that culture in their future roles as technical communicators in the workplace and/or in the academy. The knowledge gained from understanding individual subconscious changes specific to a culture of tertiary orality informs those within that culture about how they arrived and survived in such a culture and how they might assist others wishing to move into that culture. The individual must recognize that he or she is no longer print literate, but may be placed in a position to help the print literate to move into a culture of tertiary orality. The communicators living beyond the cusp of such a transition should recognize the changes they have undergone, articulating not only how one has changed but how others must change in the future to successfully navigate a tertiary orality. This research focuses on graduate student preferences in the knowledge-building process and graduate program expectations and requirements as they successfully operate in online communities. The research findings were designed to reveal how technical communication graduate students and programs work toward developing theoretical and practical knowledge of technical communication in online communities, in cultures of tertiary orality, and how they might assist others in achieving the same.

Current Position: University of Wisconsin -- River Falls

2006

TCR

Natalia Matveeva

Teaching Intercultural Communication in a Service Technical Writing Course: Alternative Ways of Presenting Intercultural Issues in Technical Writing Textbooks and in Real Classrooms

Thomas Barker, chair, Greta Gorsuch, Ken Baake, Kirk St. Amant

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-11062006-172848/

Presenting intercultural materials in a service technical writing course has been a challenge for instructors as well as textbook writers. The traditional predominant method of teaching is the information acquisition approach, which presupposes collecting information about cultures and labeling or characterizing cultures using various dimensions and typologies. In textbooks, such an approach leads to the prevalence of factual information about other cultures' communication practices and stereotypes. An alternative method is the dialogic/paralogic approach that sees intercultural communication as interpersonal communication, re-emphasizes the dialogic nature of communication, and focuses on developing in students a better understanding of culture through discussions of their own culture.

However, in order to accept any approach, one must explore the current contexts of teaching and reveal any potential constraints with intercultural teaching that instructors may face in real classrooms. This dissertation is the first in-depth study that examines the teaching contexts and textbooks, using survey, discourse analysis, and quasi-experiment as methodologies, and discusses the problems and constraints that teachers face with intercultural teaching. Such examination allows for better understanding of instructors' needs and helps create an alternative intercultural sub-curriculum for a service technical writing course.

Based on the analysis of teaching and textbook discourses and further theoretical inquiry, I articulate and justify the dialogic pedagogical perspective for intercultural teaching in a service technical writing course. Such a perspective is a compilation of theories and methods offered by philosophy (pragmatism), sociology (symbolic interactionism), applied linguistics (communicative teaching), rhetoric (paralogic hermeneutics), technical communication (Weiss’s dialogic approach) and intercultural training (experiential learning). The combination of those ideas and techniques allows for more complex, thoughtful, and ethical intercultural teaching that relies on developing in students a better understanding of culture as a concept, experiencing cultures, treating intercultural communication as interpersonal communication, and avoiding stereotyping. Such perspective and the results of my research help me develop an alternative preliminary intercultural sub-curriculum for a service technical writing course that can be adapted by instructors for their classes.

Current Position:

2006

TCR

Dave Yeats

Open-Source Software Development and User-Centered Design: A Study of Open-Source Practices and Participants

Sam Dragga, chair, Locke Carter, Amy Koerber, Sean Zdenek

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-07232006-221754/

Despite its seemingly attractive adherence to user-centered design principles of participatory design and democratized technology, open-source software fails to effectively address the usability needs of typical software users. Instead, it embodies a system-centered design approach facilitated by the efforts of developer-users. Through a plurality of research methods including discourse analysis, rhetorical analysis, and primary research methods such as interviews and surveys, this study attempts to examine the representations of the “user” in the communication and development practices of open-source software developers.

Current Position: Auburn University

2006

TCR

Tiffany Craft Portewig

The Role of Rhetorical Invention for Visuals: A Study of Technical Communicators in the Workplace

Miles Kimball, chair, Craig Baehr, Sam Dragga

publication number here

Current Position:  Auburn University

2005

TCR

Rachel Harlow

Technical Communication in the Public Sector: Convergence Analysis of Historical Discourse and the Reports of the Immigration Commission, 1911

Amy Koerber, chair, Locke Carter, Miles Kimball, David Williams

This dissertation represents the first attempt to examine the specific rhetorical strategies employed in the 1911 Reports of the Immigration Commission, an ad hoc commission created by Congress in 1907 with a mandate of investigating all aspects of American immigration at that time. The study focuses on the 1,800 pages of volumes I and II, which consist of the abstract of each report and seven short reports; the level of detail and type of information in these volumes indicate that they were written for public consumption, as well as for Congress. Specifically, the study examines the Commission report as a rhetorical and technical artifact, analyzing the arguments that focused the Commission’s inquiry alongside public discussions of immigration in periodicals to discover how technical documents participated in producing public knowledge in the early twentieth century. In addition, it discusses how the report writers maximized the rhetorical impact of their arguments, and it explains what the form of the reports reveals about their purpose and function.

This study demonstrates the rhetorical significance of the deliberative report genre, and it develops and tests a new method for understanding the epistemic function of public-sector deliberative reports: not only do they supply information, but they produce and communicate scientific knowledge about an exigence for both Congress and the public. The Commission’s inquiry sustained a rhetorical vision of immigration (that is, the acceptance of large numbers of foreigners in a relatively short period of time) and immigrants (individuals and groups who immigrated to the United States) as sources of instability and change in America. It did so by developing four fantasy types that shaped audience perceptions about the administration of daily life in America and about a national consciousness. Moreover, by relying on inductive rather than deductive reasoning, and by employing common knowledge without appearing to rely on it, the Commission could recommend that Congress adopt the popular solution of a literacy test as a means of immigration restriction, without appearing predisposed to that solution. In doing so, the Commission provided some of the scientific knowledge that shaped early twentieth-century Americans’ understanding of the controversial subject of immigration.

publication number here

2005

TCR

Miriam Williams

Culture and Context: Invention and Style in Historical and Contemporary Regulations

Susan Lang, chair, Ken Baake, Thomas Barker

publication number here

In this study, a discourse analysis of post-bellum Texas Black Codes was conducted to determine if the legalese style of writing coupled with the discriminatory motives of the regulatory writers might have contributed to African-American distrust in the government. The results of this portion of the study reveal that there are certain rhetorical and stylistic choices evident in the legalese style that make some of Texas’ most deceptive regulations even more deceptive. The historical and discourse analysis portion also revealed that regulations, even in the Plain English style, can be deceptive and evoke distrust if critical data informed by the historical, social, political, or economic contexts in which regulations are invented are intentionally or unintentionally left out of the regulation.

A second research method, contextual inquiry, was employed to unveil cultural factors that contemporary regulatory writers consider when drafting regulations in the Plain English style. This portion of the study reveals that regulatory writers consider more than their “addressed” audience, but also a voiceless “invoked” audience that will likely never read the regulation, but whose voices should certainly be considered (Villanueva 78-83). Contemporary regulatory writers consider and address both those protected by the regulations and those required to read and comply with the regulations.  This portion of the study also revealed areas where regulatory writers need guidance and instruction from technical communicators to write effective regulations for their multi-ethnic audiences.

The third research method, the focus group method, was used to record the responses of contemporary African-American business owners to two styles of regulations, Plain English and legalese. This portion of the research revealed that African-American business owners are still distrustful of the government, but the Plain English style of writing is effective in evoking trust in this audience. The findings of these three research methods are compiled in an apparatus that can be used by regulatory writers when addressing audiences who are distrustful. More important, this apparatus may be used to develop a new style of regulatory writing that responds to the needs of the regulatory agency and the audience and forces the regulatory writer to consider culture and contexts when attempting to persuade historically marginalized audiences.

Current Position:  Texas State University

2005

TCR

Ida Rodgers

Web-based Training Evaluation in the Workplace: Practices, Instructional Architectures, and Skills

Locke Carter, chair, Craig Baehr, Sam Dragga

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-07242006-174106/

On August 19, 2005, I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation with my committee, which included Dr. Locke Carter (Chair), Dr. Sam Dragga (Department Chair), and Dr. Craig Baehr. In addition to my dissertation committee, Dr. David Roach from Communications Studies represented the university. The research for the dissertation, "Web-based training evaluation in the workplace: Practices, instructional architectures, and skills," examined WBT evaluation (WBTE) in workplaces.

The problem, to which this research responds, is the scarcity of information about WBTE in the field of technical communication. Thus, practitioners may lack expertise that would make them valuable to WBT development teams and their companies. In addition, academic program developers may lack courses or course components suiting the needs of students taking jobs with companies that create WBT. The problem stems from three factors: (a) training has mostly shifted from the classroom to the Web, (b) technical communicators work on Web-based training projects, and (c) evaluation is a necessary component of WBT projects. The problem affects both practitioners and academics because the field does not identify itself as WBT developers and evaluation experts.

The study's multiple methods included a workplace site visit, an expert panel for validity review of survey items, a usability test, an online survey, a second expert panel validity review of results, and researcher reflections to identify results that triangulate. Another feature of this study is that it crossed many disciplinary boundaries, which presented challenges to validity. The challenges to validity became a methods thread in the study as I sought to build a case for validity.

Results of the study include information valuable to technical communication practitioners and academics responsible for program development. Some results show that my participants are highly educated, come from widely varied fields, work on teams of three to five people, often perform the team role of project manager, and employ a wide variety of formative, summative, and reflective evaluation measures. Results of the instructional architecture methods used were less clear except to illustrate the technical communication maxim that form and content depend on context, audience, and purpose.

The study results may affect practitioner self-study, program development, and research methods in our field because the results illustrate the desirability of expanding our field's definition of itself to include WBT developers and evaluation experts. The study, in addition to collecting data, represents a model of the three evaluation stages: formative, summative, and reflective (a term I adopted from the field of composition that applies to some evaluation and research methods).

The study concludes with three practical products. One product includes suggestions for both practitioners and academic program developers for crossing disciplinary boundaries to achieve this expansion. Another product is a list of online types of training or education and suggestions for evaluation methods that apply to each type. The third product is a research methods model that includes formative, summative, and reflective practices.

This study revealed many additional areas for research. These include examination of evaluation methods appropriate and useful for various types of online education particularly in the field of technical communication, of WBT evaluation measures of results and how these impact public discourse, and decision-making in the WBT and online educational development processes including rhetorical, ethical, and methodical considerations.

2005

TCR

Russell Willerton

Ethos and Exigence: The White Paper in Technical Communication

Locke Carter, chair, Thomas Barker, Sam Dragga

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-05042005-130433/

In recent years, many high-tech firms have used documents called white papers to describe the products and services they offer, and white papers on high-tech subjects have had an increasing presence on the World Wide Web. On TECHWR-L, an e-mail list for practicing technical communicators, discussions have shown that some companies ask technical communicators to help write white papers, but that many technical communicators are unfamiliar with these documents. The extent to which technical communicators produce white papers has not been studied, and white papers have not been examined for their fit within the field of technical communication.

In this study, I examined the history and background of white papers, and I compared them to reports and proposals – better known genres of technical communication – to make applications for pedagogy. I examined the exigencies that lead companies to produce white papers and the forces that shape the white paper genre. I described how white papers are read and used in high-tech industries. I also examined the extent to which practicing technical communicators are involved in writing white papers, and the extent to which white papers have a place in academic technical communication curricula.

I employed methodological triangulation to answer my research questions. I examined reports and proposals in a sample of technical communication textbooks; I interviewed professionals who write white papers in high-tech industries; I observed and interviewed engineering consultants at a particular firm as they read white papers; and I surveyed practicing technical communicators as well as directors of academic technical communication programs.

White papers do not completely resemble reports or proposals. My investigation shows that current white papers generally function as marketing documents that mix objective and promotional material; they help shape a company’s ethos or credibility in crowded marketplaces. Readers expect white papers to provide valuable technical information, and yet they realize white papers promote the sponsoring companies’ interests. Academics need to acknowledge white papers’ hybrid nature as well as the skepticism white paper readers show. Many technical communicators write white papers, and white papers provide them another way to add value to their organizations.

Current Position: Boise State University

2004

TCR

Pinfan Zhu

Translation Issues in Chinese Folk Medical Texts

Ken Baake, chair, Sam Dragga, Maryjane Hurst

This dissertation addresses the problems inherent in cross-cultural technical communication of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It differs from previous similar works in that, for the first time, it approaches the problems of cross-cultural technical communication from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The author holds that complicated challenges in cross-cultural technical communication need to be studied in a multi-dimensional context because cross-cultural technical communication is concerned with different fields. The author uses combined qualitative research methods--interviews, a survey, and text analysis--to critique a web site designed to explain TCM to Western audiences. He uses theories from the fields of rhetoric, linguistics, cross-cultural communication, technical editing, translation, and document design to analyze the shortcomings of the web page. Then he suggests ways in which the page could be modified to better serve its audience. These are some of the problems the author identifies: inappropriate discourse patterns; common language errors in sentence structures and word choice; inappropriate and erroneous translations, such as overtranslation, undertranslation, mistranslation, inconsistency, and awkward language; editing weaknesses in typography, graphics, and text; and document design problems. Together with possible solutions suggested, this analysis is a practical guide to those who are studying or pursuing cross-cultural technical communication. The findings and principles the dissertation discussed are also applicable to other types of cross-cultural communication.

http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-02012005-152009

Current Position:  Texas State University

2004

TCR

Jennifer Bowie

Exploring User / Webtext Interactions: An Examination of Gender and Sex Differences in Web Use

Rebecca Rickly, chair, Locke Carter, Sam Dragga

abstract to come

UMI publication number here

Current Position:  Georgia State University

2004

TCR

Carlos Evia

Technical communication learning on the United States-Mexico border: Factors affecting cross-cultural competence in globalized settings

Sam Dragga, chair, Ken Baake, Locke Carter

This dissertation studies the way in which instructors and students in border universities deal with multiculturalism in the introductory course to technical communication. It addresses the need for a proper balance between embracing the students' native cultural elements and teaching them formal American writing in order to maintain the cross-cultural competence in the multicultural technical communication classroom. Specifically, it analyzes the way in which technical communication is being learned in the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to determine (a) if nonimmigrant Mexican students are able to perform satisfactorily in American technical communication courses, (b) what are the positive contributions of those nonimmigrant Mexican students to the multicultural environment in the classroom, (c) what factors could make Mexican student perform better in technical communication courses, and (d) how are the instructors addressing the multicultural nature of the student body in border classes. The research took place in the El Paso-Las Cruces/Ciudad Juarez border zone during the summer and fall academic terms of 2003, and was conducted at two American higher education institutions (New Mexico State University and the University of Texas at El Paso) with considerable Mexican enrollment in their sections of the introductory course to technical communication. The study's methodological triangulation included the following data gathering techniques: interviews with instructors, a survey to measure the level of cross-cultural competence among the students (based on the model of cultural differences developed by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner), assessment of students' writing samples, and focus group sessions with students. The main findings were that Mexican students in the population studied did not have a sense of purpose in their writing. Their documents were mostly about format and presentation, but they did not take under consideration the audience's needs for information. Also, the research reported that experiences with previous English and writing courses create differences between American and international students. This dissertation provides the field of technical communication a new way to look at cultural differences that would normally be considered as subtle, thus creating awareness for cases with more dissimilar cultures. It also emphasizes the differences between teaching about multicultural audiences and teaching to multicultural audiences.

UMI publication number AAT 3124513

Current Position:  Virginia Tech University

2004

TCR

Kathryn Northcut

The making of knowledge in science: Case studies of paleontology illustration

Ken Baake, chair, Sam Dragga, Rebecca Rickly

Current theories for analyzing images in technical communication are inadequate to handle the complex and rhetorically powerful images with which technical communicators work. Illustrations are “diverse and situationally specific” (Brasseur, 2003, p. 49), and the same applies to sites for empirical research into illustrations. Paleontology provides an excellent case for examining the insufficiency of contemporary theories of visual communication to adequately explain technical illustrations. My study, focusing on the production of images in paleontology, unveils the complex rhetorical situations faced by the collaborators (scientists and artists and others) responsible for dinosaur images. While pictures of dinosaurs (along with innumerable other objects of scientific inquiry both observable and invisible) serve multiple purposes and help create knowledge in both technical and public spheres, technical communication scholarship is based on assumptions and paradigms which effectively limit a rich and complete understanding of the rhetorical function of the images. Because current visual theories in technical communication tend to minimize the rhetorical power and complexity of images, I propose an alternative way to theorize about visuals—a critical theory of illustrations—that will enable researchers, teachers, and practitioners to exploit and understand the way illustrations can function in knowledge-making. This alternative critical theory might replace the default assumptions in technical communication that images and words have distinct roles; that technical images have less power than words in both rhetorical efficacy and knowledge-making; and that technical and scientific images merely convey neutral information in a non-ideological manner to an audience. This dissertation foregrounds the problem presented by the lack of an adequate theory of visual communication within technical communication, submits my research study of the production of paleoimagery, and proposes a modified approach to technical illustrations to expand the current state of knowledge in the field.

UMI publication number AAT 3124492

Current Position:  University of Missouria, Rolla

2004

TCR

Charlsye Smith Diaz

Decision-Making as a Rhetorical Act:  The Role of Choice in the Design and Delivery of an Online Education Program

Sam Dragga and Carolyn Rude, chairs, Ken Baake, Locke Carter

On the job, technical communicators make decisions about technology and communication, including decisions about technologies to be used for rhetorical purposes. This dissertation draws on theories from rhetoric, decision making, communication studies, and technology as well as scholarship from others who address technology and communication together. These theories provide the basis for proposing a rhetorical decision method that includes five phases of analysis: (1) Nature of the Decision Situation: Basic overview of the potential audience's needs and an understanding of the problem. (2) Audience and Influence in the Decision Situation: More complete and complex understanding of audience and contextual factors that influence a decision situation. (3) Agency in Decision Practice: Influences in decision making, including a process, specific kinds of data, an influential person, etc. (4) Decision Articulation and Implementation: Determination of whether the articulation and implementation of the decision reflect each other. (5) Response and Reinvention: The response of the audience based on feedback from users. I apply this method to a case study of the decisions made about the design and delivery of NALA Campus, an online education center, www.nalacampus.com. The purpose of studying NALA's decision-making process is to test and further refine the method. Applying the method raised four issues. First, the place of technology within the decision situation may matter. The first time a group chooses a communication technology, the rhetorical situation drives the decision, but subsequent decisions are made with the technology solution already in place in mind. Second, the success of communication technologies may be driven by two audiences: the participant user audience—the audience that uses the technology—and the recipient user audience—the audience that receives the communication. Third, the participant user audience's ability to interact with the technology affects the composition of a communication. Last, decision practices involving communication technologies include an inherent layering of information and abilities: knowledge, technological skills, change agents (influential people or influential evidence), and rhetorical sensitivities.

UMI publication number AAT 3124471

Current Position:  University of Maine

2003

TCR

Brad Butler

Defining technical communication success: Skills, contexts, and values in the workplace and the classroom

Carolyn Rude, Chair, Sam Dragga, Fred Kemp

Technical communication literature theorizes on the vast potential of technical communication practitioners to make expansive and large-scale contributions to their individual workplaces. Practitioners influence complex and dynamic systems through their roles as boundary spanners, knowledge workers, change agents, and information designers. My research, which uses qualitative interview methods to produce narratives of successful practitioners, illustrates how practitioners are constructing these new and essentially untested visions of the future. My research focuses on fairly recent graduates of technical communication programs and the connections between career success and academic preparation. I am interested especially in information that enables educators to inform students of qualities that will help them to succeed in the workplace long after initial employment. My research focuses on four questions related to this matter: (1) “What do technical communicators do and need to know on the job?”; (2) “What career paths do successful technical communicators take to reach a high level of success?”; (3) “What connections exist between academic preparation and workplace success?” and (4) “Considering recent changes in technical communication (e.g. increasingly strong ties with the computer industry and movements toward expansive and knowledge-based definitions of the field), do past efforts at establishing a curriculum need rethinking?”. Determining what a successful technical communicator does and knows is particularly important for technical communicator educators because of the perceived gap in knowledge between the academic world and the world of business. Are educational institutions providing both the knowledge and theories that practitioners will need in the field and that will lead to long-term and meaningful success? Providing a well-informed answer to this inquiry is particularly important considering recent changes in the technology industry and in sites of technical communication practice. As the computer industry has fueled the demand for technical communicators, new programs have emerged but without full knowledge of what prepares students for long-term success in the field. I am not interested in vocational training and careerism. I am looking holistically at the kind of work that technical communicators do, including knowledge work, and I assess the influence of higher education that offers humanities as well as technical education.

UMI publication number AAT 3095985

Current Position:  Sul Ross State University

2003

TCR

Kathy Gillis

Understanding Users Undergoing Change: An Examination of an Innovative Hybrid First-Year Composition Course

Susan Lang, Chair, Locke Carter, Sam Dragga, Fred Kemp

Technical communication, rhetorical theory, user-centered theory, and diffusion theory—four disparate areas brought together in this dissertation to examine the adoption of an allegedly user-centered innovation. This project may be of particular interest to technical communication scholars and practitioners, writing program administrators, software developers, usability engineers, and writing instructors who teach technical communication and/or first-year composition. The project is structured in three steps in order to explore the tension that arises each time technical communicators apply the term user-centered to the development of an artifact. Step one is a critical analysis of the term user-centered. The premise of the review is that the term user-centered has become a slogan in the literature and has little consistency in its meaning and purpose. The discussion examines how the term fluctuates by looking at the various ways scholars define users, explain their needs, and prescribe roles for technical communicators to create more user-centered artifacts. Step two explains the rationale behind the methods used in this project. Through an introduction to diffusion theory, alternative ways to examine the theory and practice of user-centered design are presented. Step three provides the context for bringing together the term user-centered and diffusion theory. The context is the First-Year Composition Program at Texas Tech University, which is undertaking a massive restructuring of the way writing instruction is delivered. Specifically, the new Interactive Composition Online (ICON) project separates the process of delivering classroom instruction from the process of delivering instructional feedback and assessment to student writing. The success of ICON relies on the simultaneous adoption by all participants in the composition program's system. For a program that handles close to six thousand students per academic year, this wholesale adoption represents a dramatic shift in the use of computer technology in higher education. Thus, the purpose of this project is to gain a better understanding of some of the ways in which writing instructors respond to the simultaneous adoption of both a pedagogical and technological innovation. Its goal is to develop more effective means for accommodating the needs of writing program administrators, software developers, writing instructors, and their students.

UMI publication number AAT 3095997

Current Position:  Texas Tech University Writing Center

2002

TCR

John Gooch 

Interdisciplinary Group Process as an Indeterminate Zone for Collaboration and Technical Communication: A Case Study of Proposal Writing for an Immune Building and Test Bed

Carolyn Rude, Chair, Ken Baake, Sam Dragga                defense presentation

This research on interdisciplinary collaboration and technical communication explores how communication in a non-corporate setting influences collaboration and the preparation of written discourse. The case study example represents an indeterminate zone or unfamiliar situation for collaboration due to both the participants' different backgrounds and the reasons for which they collaborate. Problems as complex as biological and chemical terrorism require collaborative solutions and interdisciplinary communication, and these experts bring different disciplinary perspectives and literacies to the collaborative writing situation. Bakhtin’s centripetal forces, which create cohesion within a group, and centrifugal forces, which disrupt group process, are present in this collaborative writing situation. Geoffrey Cross has used these Bakhtinian concepts in his research of writers within an insurance corporation; however, these findings and subsequent conclusions expand the scope of Cross’s study by examining how the group leader's role, the mediating artifact, and consensus building operate to create centripetal forces for collaboration.

Effective interdisciplinary collaboration can share three basic characteristics. First, the different disciplinary professionals use mediating artifacts to focus the task and define goals. These artifacts can include diagrams, graphics, and pictures as well as previous documents that help create a new document. Furthermore, the artifacts constitute and reconstitute social and institutional structures; the artifacts also represent tools that participants have used before thereby reinforcing the culture from which the tool originated.  Second, experts must work to overcome sometimes competing disciplinary perspectives. At times, the architect and the engineer do not see things the same way because they both use a different approach to problem solving. Third, a strong leader should emerge to unify the group and manage the various disciplinary points of view. For this case study, the leader of the group created stability so that they could effectively complete the proposal writing task. Such centripetal forces brought this group together so that they could write the proposal.

UMI publication number AAT 3056086

Current Position:  University of Texas at Dallas

2002

TCR

Bih-shia Huang

A Comparison of Greek and Chinese Rhetoric and Their Influence on Later Rhetoric

Fred Kemp, Chair, Locke Carter, James Whitlark

At the turn of the twenty-first century, some western scholars still hold that no classical rhetoric exists except classical Greek rhetoric. This paper presents the evidence to show that classical Chinese rhetoric is not only a natural practice but also a study of effective discourse like classical Greek rhetoric. In addition, the factors that contribute to the differences between two rhetorics are explored. Moreover, subsequent rhetorics that were influenced by classical rhetorics are discussed and compared. Chapter I explains the reason why this study must be done and introduces what are going to be addressed in the following chapters. Chapter II describes the Greek geographical features that led to the liberal types of politics, economy, and rhetoric. The emergence of the Greek Sophists followed the practice of the democratic system. Aristotle's Rhetoric is used as a model for Chinese rhetoric that is discussed in the second chapter. Rhetoric after the classical period is summarized so that the influence of classical Greek rhetoric on later western rhetoric can be understood. Chapter III explicates the Chinese geographical features that gave rise to the conservative type of politics, economy, and rhetoric. This chapter emphasizes classical Chinese rhetoric that occurred in the period of Spring-Autumn and Warring States (from the eighth to the third centuries B.C.). The classical Chinese thinkers whose speeches and theories influenced the later generations are introduced one by one. Rhetoric after the unification of the Chin (Qin) dynasty (221 B.C.) is also summarized in order to show the influence of classical Chinese rhetoric on later Chinese rhetoric. Chapter IV deals with the contrastive study between two ancient countries from the geographical, political, economical, social, and rhetorical perspectives. The reasons why Western rhetoric and Chinese rhetoric after the classical periods had their own emphases is explained. Chapter V concludes the causes, the development, and the suppression of both rhetorics and makes some suggestions.

UMI publication number AAT 3043218

2002

TCR

Bill Karr

Technical Communication in the Self-Structuring Organization

Sam Dragga, Chair, Thomas Barker, Fred Kemp, Rebecca Rickly

Technical communicators have historically been viewed as designers and producers of paper documents in the traditional business setting. With the growing use of computers by individuals and businesses, technical communicators continue their paper document work but have migrated into the design and production of Web sites and information documents for use on the Internet. Even with this expansion of expertise and the growing demand for communication skills in corporations, technical communicators are not represented at the top levels of business management.

This dissertation explores the potential for technical communicators to move to the corporate executive suite by serving as the central hub of communication in small self-forming Internet based organizations with the potential to become independent economic entities. By examining the contributions of one technical communicator to a seed stage start up project, it is hoped that continued research into activities and opportunities that will elevate the role of the technical communicator in corporate structures will be realized.

The organization used as the basis for the study was developed through the interaction of several independent groups with differing organizational missions. The Texas Tech/K-12 Instructional Partnership for Schools (TIPS) was formed when the University Writing Center at Texas Tech University joined forces with Texas Region XV Education Service Center and public schools selected for the project. The project was developed to deliver Internet based, just-in-time writing instruction assistance from university trained writing tutors to 4^th and 8^th grade students in predominantly rural Region XV public schools. The goal of the project was to assist the public school teachers in preparing their students for the state mandated Texas Assessment of academic Skills.

Autopoietic theory and its association with knowledge management, information management, and self-forming organizations informs the dissertation as it assesses the management contribution of the technical communicator who served as the central information hub of the project.  The contribution of technical communication skills and rhetorical training led to the technical communicator being vital to the evolution of the university based organization to a start up company with the technical communicator slated to be the chief operations officer.

UMI publication number AAT 3069147

Current Position:  University of Houston, Victoria

2002

TCR

Michael Knievel

Rethinking the "Humanistic": Technical Communication and Computers and Writing as Sites of Change in English Studies

Fred Kemp, Chair, Rebecca Rickly, Carolyn Rude

The conflict between what C.P. Snow names the “two cultures” of literature and the humanities, and science and technology, respectively, is a well-documented source of tension in the modern academy.  In Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, Martha Nussbaum, for instance, describes a vision of the academic humanities that seeks to produce students who are “world citizens,” yet her articulation of such a humanistic education all but excludes technology and technological instruction, thus reinscribing Snow’s bifurcation.  The tension between the “cultures” plays an important role in contemporary English Studies, as well, made particularly palpable in the “technologized rhetorical subdisciplines” of English: technical communication and computer-based composition.

Following the work of Robert Johnson, Jay David Bolter, and others, this dissertation traces efforts by scholars in both technical communication and computers and writing to sketch descriptions of the humanistic nature of their respective fields of inquiry, a process that has been a necessary part of both defining the boundaries of each  and reconciling their definitional relationships to technology with the values of English Studies, the usual departmental home for each.  

Interestingly, these efforts to articulate a humanistic character, what Paul M. Dombrowski calls the “humanistic aspects” of these technologized rhetorical subdisciplines, have often relied on conservative, techno-skeptical notions of the humanistic that align well with academic humanities ideology but oftentimes resist alternative humanistic frameworks that recognize technology as central, rather than opposed, to humanistic goals and action.  More inclusive philosophies of humanism like those defined in the three twentieth-century publications of the Humanist Manifesto can help scholars recast a more pragmatic interpretation of the humanistic that rehabilitates technology in English Studies eyes by complicating traditional assumptions, often polemical in nature, which situate technology against the values advanced in English Studies and the academic humanities. Doing so not only helps technical communication and computers and writing develop a more representative description of their humanistic character and disciplinary definition but also holds promise for extending the reach and vitality of English Studies broadly defined, as cultural demands for a more sophisticated and holistic view of technology increase.

UMI publication number AAT 3056071

Current Position:  University of Wyoming

2002

TCR

Heather McGovern (Sehmel)

Web Sites and Advocacy Campaigns: Decision Making, Implementation, and Audience in an Environmental Advocacy Group's Use of Web Sites as Part of its Communication Campaign

Carolyn Rude, Chair, Sam Dragga, Rebecca Rickly

Professional communicators designing websites need to know more about common barriers to good decision-making they might face.  They also need to know how the websites they make function rhetorically and how audiences interact with them.  Current publications on web design do not answer some of the designers’ most important questions, especially for non-commercial websites.  I begin to answer some of these questions through a case study portraying how an environmental advocacy group plans and uses websites as part of its advocacy campaigns. 

I interviewed and observed group staff, investigating barriers to good decision-making including not having clear goals, not knowing the consequences of one’s choices, and dealing with cognitive constraints such as time and technical knowledge.  My findings suggest using a more defined publication management process may lead to better decision-making. 

I also conducted a rhetorical and content analysis, studying how the websites functioned rhetorically.  My analysis demonstrates the importance of visual elements for emphasizing more important web material.  In addition, by comparing the content of the websites to the group’s goals for the website, my analysis also shows how groups might check whether their websites reflect their goals.  My analysis of the websites provides a foundation for building a definition of the unique genre of an environmental advocacy site. 

I also surveyed audiences for the group’s websites, learning who visits the websites and why and completing a comprehensive portrait of how the group’s websites function within a larger communication context that includes face-to-face, email, and other contact with the organization.  The survey respondents demonstrated a heartening interest in taking action for the environment online and offline. 

Finally, my dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of how one group plans and uses its websites that can guide website planning and use in environmental advocacy organizations and other small groups that are likely to suffer from similar decision-making barriers (such as not having a full-time web designer on staff).  More systematically analyzing web audiences, using better routines to plan, create, and maintain websites, and evaluating the effectiveness of web communications might lead to more successful web discourse.

UMI publication number AAT 3056111

Current Position:  Richard Stockton

2001

TCR

David Dayton

Electronic Editing in Technical Communication: Practices, Attitudes, and Impacts

Winner, Outstanding Dissertation in Technical and Scientific Communication 2002 (from the National Council of Teachers of English) 

Carolyn Rude, Chair, Thomas Barker, Sam Dragga

This dissertation examines the adoption and diffusion of computer-aided editing methods in technical communication. It begins with a literature-based, critical investigation into the reported reluctance of technical editors to adopt electronic editing procedures. The theory advanced is that for many editors the greater responsiveness and tangibility of hard-copy editing creates inherent advantages over on-screen editing which they are unwilling to give up for potential gains in efficiency.

Preliminary qualitative research and a pilot survey produced substantial evidence that most technical communicators did indeed associate hard-copy editing with ergonomic, portability, and text-processing advantages. Most of those contacted, however, also valued the potential gains in efficiency of editing on screen. While a good number of them chose hard-copy markup over on-screen markup options, most reported frequently or primarily editing on screen.

A more in-depth study involving 20 face-to-face interviews with technical communicators at five different workplaces showed that organizational cultures mediate perceptions of electronic editing according to their unique configuration of priorities and established practices. Finally, a sample survey of 992 members of the Society for Technical Communication provided a global snapshot of editing practices in technical communication. In 1998, technical communicators who edited others were about evenly divided between those who used hard-copy markup alone as their primary editing method and those who used one form or another of keyboarding changes and annotations directly into computer files. Most technical communicators who edited others used both hard-copy and electronic editing procedures, alternately or together. About two-thirds at least occasionally used some form of electronic procedures when editing others, and most of those used hard copy to mark up or to proofread as part of their standard electronic editing process.

The erratic diffusion of electronic editing in technical communication is explained from a theoretical perspective that combines the Diffusion of Innovations theory and the explanatory conceptual framework of cultural-historical activity theory. Predictions about the future evolution of electronic editing practices are offered, along with recommendations for future research into technical editing and, more generally, the adoption and diffusion process by which new technologies affect the lifeworlds of practitioners.  

UMI publication number AAT 3015734

Current Position:  Southern Polytechnic

2001

TCR

Corey Wick

Knowledge Management at a Multinational Information Technology Services Firm

Sam Dragga, Chair, Locke Carter, Fred Kemp

In recent years, issues traditionally associated with the field of technical communication have been increasingly referred to in business settings as "knowledge management." Technical communicators generally contribute to knowledge management through their skills of audience analysis, interviews, and research-synthesizing relevant knowledge from volumes of information and compiling that knowledge into printed and electronic forms. Their skills allow people to (1) access it quickly, (2) understand it with relative ease, and (3) apply this knowledge within the context of their work. Technical communicators, however, also possess in-depth knowledge of pedagogy, learning theory, and rhetoric--in other words, an understanding of how humans learn, understand, and communicate--which enable them to facilitate organizational learning and sharing of knowledge through social means as well, not just through documentation. Technical communicators, then, are logical professionals to lead organizational knowledge management efforts. 

Organizational knowledge management initiatives generally take one of two approaches. Codification approaches emphasize knowledge codified into documents and distributed to vast audiences through high-powered information systems. Personalization approaches emphasize learning and the sharing of knowledge through close social interaction and collaboration among professionals. Efforts to integrate these approaches to knowledge management, however, have traditionally met with limited success, and little is understood about the factors impeding successful integration. 

This dissertation presents a case study conducted at a multinational information technology services firm, a company attempting to implement a knowledge management initiative that integrates both codification and personalization approaches. The firm will be referred to as Acme IT to protect its anonymity, and the names of all personnel have been changed. The purpose of the case study was to identify the barriers impeding the successful integration of these approaches. Acme IT's difficulties in integrating codification and personalization and codification approaches can be best summarized as the growing pains of an old economy company attempting to implement new economy practices. The limited success of knowledge management at Acme IT was largely the result of a socio-organizational environment that stifled the efficacies associated with personalization knowledge management approaches. These efficacies were ultimately filtered out of the knowledge management initiative as a result of several characteristics frequently present in old economy companies: (1) Restrictive control over communication and employee behavior; (2) An organizational culture and social climate that impeded trust, jeopardizing effective collaboration among employees; (3) And excessive concerns over documentation, bureaucracy, and intermediation that misdirected resources toward activities that added little value to the initiative.

UMI link

2000

TCR

Joanna Castner

Digital Discussion: A Qualitative Study of Online Discussion in Writing Classes

Fred Kemp, Chair, Rebecca Rickly, Carolyn Rude

This dissertation examined the online discussions in five writing classes, two technical writing, two composition, and one creative writing. The purpose of the analysis was to determine effective ways for teachers to manage interaction in the digital environment. A five-part coding system was used in the first part of the analysis, and then two additional methods were used to contextualize the coding data. The assumptions underlying the coding system came from a long tradition of research into the traditional, whole class discussion. Results of this part of the analysis indicated that researchers should not pursue projects that analyze the digital environment using methods derived from research into the face-to-face classroom. Too many differences exist between the environments to make such methods useful. For example, turn-taking is not a factor in the digital environment, while managing turn-taking in the face-to-face classroom is an essential role of the teacher. Results of the additional two methods included common sense data. For example, teachers should see online discussions with open-ended questions; they should highlight important issues while the discussion is taking place, and they should make students comfortable enough to participate freely. 

UMI publication number AAT 9963501

Current Position:  University of Central Arkansas

2000

TCR

Kelli Cargile Cook

Online Technical Communication: Pedagogy, Instructional Design, and Student Preference in Internet-Based Distance Education

Carolyn Rude, Chair, Thomas Barker, Sam Dragga, Fred Kemp

In response to the growing popularity of internet-based instruction in technical and professional communication, this dissertation is the first study to offer a comprehensive examination of pedagogical designs for such instruction. To answer the study's primary research question—How should program directors and instructors design curricula and employ technologies to best deliver technical communication courses and their associated literacies online?—two different pedagogical designs (one presentational, the other interactive) are compared in the study. The presentational design is most similar to traditional paper-based correspondence courses: materials are provided online; students work independently and at their own pace; and student/teacher interactions are restricted to student-initiated questions and teacher feedback on assignments. The interactive design employs three additional communication features—a bulletin board, a chat room, and an internet-based collaborative writing application—in the course's technology mix. Through these technologies, students interact with the instructor on a regular basis, comparable to the interactions onsite students have with their writing instructors. From these two designs, data was gathered on the formative and summative assessment opportunities each design afforded, on student grades as a result of the opportunities, on student literacy demonstration and achievement, and, finally, on student satisfaction with each design. This data was then analyzed to determine which design was most effective. The results of this study did not definitively demonstrate that one design was superior to the other, although the interactive design did appear to promote increased literacy achievement. In fact, both designs seem to have their advantages, depending on the course's literacy goals, students' needs, and institutional constraints, such as class size and instructional load. Because neither pedagogical design in this study was clearly better than the other, the study suggests that a variety of effective designs are not only possible but desirable. Based on these findings, the study recommends an online instructional continuum ranging from presentational to interactive designs. Using this continuum as a starting point for planning a distance course, instructors can locate their own pedagogical and student needs and create an individualized design that best delivers instruction to satisfy these needs.

UMI publication number AAT 9976957

Current Position:  Utah State University

2000

E/R

Basnagoda Rahula

The Untold Story about Greek Rational Thought: Buddhist and Other Indian Rationalist Influences on Sophist Rhetoric

Fred Kemp, Chair, Locke Carter, James Whitlark

During the fifth and the fourth century B.C., Greek Sophist rhetoricians developed rational thinking in many fields such as in epistemology, anthropology, sociology, religion, and politics. Despite the popular belief that the traditional Greek society provided the influential sources for sophist rational thinkers, the dissertation argues that Greeks sophist thinkers--Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Critias, and others--mainly borrowed and adopted Buddhist and other Indian rational thoughts that were prevalent in India during and prior to the rise of the Greek sophistic movement. This dissertation is the first in-depth study of Buddhist and other Indian rationalist influences on Greek sophist rhetoric. 

Chapter One deals with the natural origin and development of Indian rational thinking. As a reaction to the social difficulties caused by the metaphysical and ideological concepts invented by the early Hindu tradition, Indian skeptics, materialists, and Buddhists developed rational argument against Hindu beliefs. In this development, the Brahmin myths of creation, transmigration, Brahma, and the soul were challenged vigorously by the new rationalist traditions. This criticism gave rise to rational concepts and rhetoric as opposed to the metaphysics and idealistic dogma of the early Hindu tradition. Chapter Two discusses the parallel development of rational thought in Greece with attention to the systematic borrowing of Greek thinkers from Indian sources since the sixth century B.C. Attention is drawn in this chapter mainly to Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Democritus, the forefathers of Greek sophist rhetoric, as the imitators of Indian rational concepts. Chapter Three discusses in detail the similarities between Indian and Greek rational thought. Here, the rationalistic concepts of Protagoras, Gorgias, and several other sophist thinkers are closely evaluated in the light of Indian rationalistic counterparts in order to prove the Indian influences on the Older Sophists. Chapter Four discusses the evidence of influence such as Greek thinkers' visits to India, easy accessibility to Indian concepts in Greece and in Persia, and the ancient routes of communication between India and Greece.

UMI publication number AAT 9991842

Current Position:  Houston Buddhist Vihara

2000

TCR

Michael J. Salvo

Literacy, Hypermedia, and the Holocaust: Reconfiguring Rhetoric in Hypermedia Environments

Fred Kemp, Chair, Locke Carter, Sam Dragga, Myrna Harringer

Winner, Hugh Burns Award, for the best dissertation in Computers and Composition Studies 2001 (from the editors of Computers and Composition)

Accompanying the move from an industrial-based to an information-based economy is a shift from a paper-based to a digit-based culture. As more American households are connected to the Internet there is a shift not only in the speed of communication but also in the mode and media of communication. While some critics are predicting the demise of literacy as we know it, electronic mail, hypertext and the World Wide Web are offering examples of different constructions of literacy. These new forms of writing are contexts for communication--new rhetorical situations. These new rhetorical situations require analysis so that literacy workers (writing teachers, language scholars, as well as other intellectuals in the humanities) can address the literacy needs of twenty-first century students. Literacy, technology, and the Holocaust come together in a technological system signaling a shift in how our culture stores and disseminates its stories and histories. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has constructed The Wexner Learning Center to house a database of Witness narratives. This hypermedia archive represents change in historical narrative and the way it is written, stored, and retrieved. Beyond the technical aspects of designing and implementing this system, the system itself signals a shift in the skills necessary to comprehend the historical stories being told. The images of witnesses retelling their experiences alter the cultural representation of the Holocaust. Utilizing high technology to convert filmed accounts of witnesses into computer-accessible files, the database of witness narratives is an example of a new means of sharing history that requires a sophisticated hyper-literate user. This dissertation investigates both the idea of an emerging high-technology hyper-rhetoric and the hyper-literacy necessary to read, write, and manipulate texts in the twenty-first century. Its theme should interest readers from a variety of humanistic and technical disciplines while contributing a new perspective on literacy in the digital age.

UMI publication number AAT 9963505

Current Position:  Purdue University

1999

TCR

Michael Albers

Development of a Goal-Driven Analysis for Requirements Definition in Hypertext Information Systems Supporting Complex Problem-Solving

Thomas Barker, Chair, Sam Dragga, Fred Kemp

When engaged in open-ended problem solving, the user must evaluate information from multiple sources. Unfortunately, people find it difficult to effectively search for and integrate multiple sources of information, requiring the system to provide the information in a manner which relates to the context of the problem. Also, rather than needing information in pre-defined ways, the viewing order and specific information required changes with each problem. As a result, the methods used in conventional task analysis, which focus on defining the individual steps of a well-defined sequence, fail to provide good requirements for systems intended for supporting open-ended problem solving. Rather than focusing on individual steps, this dissertation develops a goal-driven analysis methodology based on defining and relating users' goals and information needs. Unlike a task-based analysis, the goal-driven analysis methodology revolves around uncovering the users' goals, the information needed to achieve those goals, and the contextual relationships between information elements. The analysis strives to uncover the major potential problem-solving paths and the information required to support following those paths to provide the problem solver with varied routes to solving a specific problem. The unique feature of goal-driven analysis is that, throughout the methodology, it focuses on maintaining a connection between users' goals, information needs, and problem contexts. This dissertation integrates the technical communication, cognitive psychology, and situation awareness literature, and explores the socio-cognitive aspects of information design as they relate to complex problem solving. It begins by arguing that effective information presentation requires a match between the users' mental model, the real-world context, and the factors which contribute to situation awareness. The dissertation then develops a four-step methodology, ethnography, interviews, scenario development, and group discussion, to develop a goal-information diagram which captures a graphical representation of the users' goals and information needs. The goal-information diagram then becomes the foundation for the analyst to use when developing system requirements. The dissertation also provides an extended example of how to perform a goal-driven analysis.

UMI publication number AAT 9925620

Current Position:  University of Memphis

1999

E/R

Liliana Anglada

On-Line Writing Center Responses and Advanced EFL Students’ Writing: An Analysis of Comments, Students’ Attitudes, and Textual Revisions

Patricia Goubil-Gambrell, Chair, Maryjane Hurst, Fred Kemp

This dissertation analyzes the suggestions for revision sent by on-line writing center consultants in the United States to advanced EFL students in Argentina and examines the students' reactions to this type of feedback. Previous ESL/EFL writing process research, specifically in the area of revision, has explored issues such as peer critique and teacher feedback. Quite a few studies have focused on learners' attitudes to feedback, while others have paid particular attention to feedback incorporation during revision work. Most of these studies, however, have been conducted in regular classes where either ESL/EFL instructors or peers responded to drafts. Results from these studies tend to be inconclusive and cannot be applied to specific monolingual settings. Furthermore, very few studies have investigated how having a real audience of native speakers of English, and receiving suggestions from them, may affect ESL/EFL writing. The research conducted for this project was an attempt to explore this issue.

This study follows a case study methodology. During the 1997 academic year, one group of advanced EFL students taking a literature course at the teacher-training college "Juan Zorrilla de San Martín" (Córdoba, Argentina) e-mailed their short essays to and received feedback on two occasions from the writing consultants at the Texas Tech University On-line Writing Center. The participants' attitudes toward these electronic exchanges were analyzed through survey answers and interviews. The types of comments from the On-line Writing Center consultants and the textual changes made by the students were coded and subsequently examined employing three different taxonomies created for the purposes of this study.

Results show that, despite a few difficulties with the technical implementation of the project, these EFL students benefited from interaction with native-speaker consultants via e-mail exchanges. These students not only appreciated the feedback received but also employed a high percentage of comments to their advantage by making changes that enhanced the quality of their texts. Although a high percentage of the revisions involved formal or structural problems--as opposed to global or macrostructural concerns--the number of modifications the students incorporated in their final drafts supports the use of on-line writing center responses during the revision stage in EFL settings.

UMI publication number AAT 9925612

Current Position:  Argentina

1999

TCR

John Chandler

Managing Cross-Functional Teams: An Activity-Theory Approach to Software Development and Documentation

Thomas Barker, Chair, Locke Carter, Fred Kemp

While there is growing consensus in the literature that wider inclusion of technical communicators has potential for improving the processes by which software is developed—there is little agreement regarding the extent of this inclusion nor how it should be accomplished. This dissertation examines ways in which technical communicators participate in software development—specifically, examining the complexities of their roles in interdisciplinary development teams. The trend toward interdisciplinary development teams is based upon recognition that the specialized skills and expertise of a number of disciplines have potential to improve software processes and products. Ideally, cross-functional processes and roles would take advantage of specialized skills and integrate them into a single, cohesive development effort. This combined effort is in many ways the rationale for cross-functional teams, defined as a level of process maturity at which stages of development are characterized by interdisciplinary cooperation in delineating the process and resolving problems. This dissertation uses an Activity Theory approach to address many of the political and epistemic barriers inherent in contemporary development processes. Many theories posit that process improvement must evolve through careful management of various organizational behaviors. This perspective is complicated by recognition of two levels of organizational behavior: a formal level represented in “official” artifacts of the organization, and an informal level of human activity networks. The literature on knowledge management argues that a critical success factor for administering change in organizational processes is devising intervention strategies that reconcile these two dimensions of organizational behavior. In light of these issues, what factors should be considered in management strategies for software development process improvement, and how might these intervention strategies affect the roles of technical communicators? This dissertation addresses these questions by examining various issues that shape contemporary software development models and practice. The first chapter reviews the literature pertinent to team development. In the second chapter provides a rationale for activity theory as the lens through which the research is contextualized. Chapters three and four describe research methods and results of a case study investigation, which observes the activities and artifacts of a collaborative development project between a class of computer science students and technical communication students. And in the last chapter suggests strategies for implementing a cross-functional approach to process improvement efforts.

UMI publication number AAT 9951511

Current Position:  Texas Tech University

1999

TCR

Amy Hanson

Aristotelian Appeals in Corporate Communication: Tracing the Communication Patterns in an Organizational Division Moving to Intranet Documentation

Patricia Goubil-Gambrell, Chair, Sam Dragga, Fred Kemp

Struggling with problems of document and data distribution and the desire for flexible and integrated information access, more and more companies are turning to intranets to maximize document accessibility and employee efficiency. However, many organizations begin the process of moving to an intranet system, failing to realize that intranets are communication technologies that can have significant affects on corporate culture. This dissertation, an ethnographic study of the communication trends in an organization in the process of incorporating an intranet system, is a study of the ways in which some members of a plastic-injection molding company communicate and how that communication reflects the culture of their division and of the organization itself. The communication within this division takes three forms—oral (meeting transcripts), written (instructional materials, intranet documents), and electronic (email). This dissertation examines the communication trends by applying Aristotle's three appeals—ethos, logos, and pathos—to the three communication situations. Ethos appeals were by far the most commonly used appeals, particularly in oral communication, and they reflected a power struggle within the division as members of the team vied for control over the group. Logos appeals were the second most commonly used appeal overall and the most commonly used in written communication. These logos appeals, which fell outside of the divisional power struggle, served to further action within the division and encouraged team members to accomplish tasks and to meet deadlines. Pathos appeals were the least commonly used appeal overall, although they were the most commonly used in electronic communication. These appeals were most often used as an attempt either to end an ethos-based argument within the division or to smooth over the friction caused by the divisional power struggle. The communication trends within this division reflected not only their production and certification events but also the attitudes and values of the individual team members, as well as the ways in which the culture of the division affected the culture of the entire organization. The findings of this study show the interconnectedness of the structural, cultural, and communication systems of an organization in shaping attitude, productivity, and cohesion.

UMI publication number AAT 9925649

Current Position:  Texas Tech University

1999

E/R

Mark Jordan

Networked Electronic Discourse in a Liberatory Composition Pedagogy: A Cultural Critique

Fred Kemp, Chair, Maryjane Hurst, Carolyn Rude

This dissertation examines the similar goals and characteristics of liberatory pedagogy and networked electronic discourse pedagogy. Both pedagogies attempt to cultivate within students a critical consciousness. Both pedagogies share the two fundamental qualities of a formal dialogic communication model and a nascent postmodernity. Dialogically, both pedagogies demonstrate awareness of the dynamic ambiguity of language, privileging of communal dialogue, encouragement of epistemological knowledge-making, and nurturing of a critical consciousness. Common postmodern qualities are innate skepticism for prescribed values, an awareness of the decentered yet often oppressive nature of contemporary power formulations, and an intrinsic respect for diverse voices and different subjectivities.

Despite such similarities, the literature regarding liberatory pedagogy seems scarcely aware of the parallels between it and network discourse pedagogy. Literature on the latter pedagogy, meanwhile, shows more awareness of liberatory pedagogy but tends to borrow from it in piecemeal fashion. Nevertheless, the similar goals and characteristics of both pedagogies suggest that they can be mutually beneficial allies which together can create a more effective learning environment than either can separately. Further, this alliance of similar pedagogies can find a fruitful context for implementation in the community college, the third major element examined. Despite the typical community college focus on preparatory or vocational goals, some features which make the community college fertile ground for the suggested pedagogical alliance are the diversity of student populations, their large percentage of ethnic minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged students, and such colleges’ own typical identity as small, locally-rooted, largely independent and thus versatile entities.

UMI publication number AAT 9925650

Current Position:  Odessa College

1999

E/R

Donna Smith

Basic Writing and Stigma

Carolyn Rude, Chair, Maryjane Hurst, Fred Kemp

The number of college students who need remediation before they can function successfully in a college writing class is significant and likelier to increase than decrease because of economic factors that make a college degree a necessity. In addition, institutions and governmental entities are demanding accountability from remedial programs in the form of students who remediate quickly and persevere through subsequent courses to attain a degree. However, no consistent effective pedagogy exists for helping remedial writers, largely because our understanding of these students is both fragmentary and reductive. Basic writers have been traditionally defined too restrictively, recognizable either through their flawed texts or by their faulty cognitive, affective or epistemological processes. This dissertation argues that we lack an effective pedagogy because the paradigm we apply to define and understand basic writers is too static and narrow. Drawing on Mary Louise Pratt's notion of contact zone and Henry Giroux's border pedagogy, this study redefines basic writers relationally, arguing that the individual must be understood within a system of behaviors rather thin in self-contained isolation. Erving Goffman's discussion of stigma supplies a workable description of this system of behaviors, providing a malleable explanatory model of the basic, writing experience, rather than a definition of the basic writer. Goffman's ideas on stigma not only establish basic writers' unique position as stigmatized in the academic community, but also offer insight into the deeper patterns that guide their responses and interactions as they recognize and adjust to their stigmatized status and work through the ways they present themselves to others and the ways they come to terms with andtranscend their position within the academy.

UMI publication number AAT 9925644

Current position:  Odessa College

1998

TCR

Michael Dean Bellah

Person-Based Response: A Postmodern Alternative to Text-Based Teacher Comments

Sam Dragga, Chair, Patricia Goubil-Gambrell, Linda Breslin

This dissertation offers a theory of teacher response that privileges persons over text. It is based on the finding that there are two major trends in current teacher response: one text-based, a legacy of modernism and founded on the principles of New Criticism, which locates meaning in the text, and the other, person-based, founded on postmodern thought, which locates meaning in the writer and the reader. During the last 25 years, composition scholars have unearthed a number of problems with text-based response, including the following: an overemphasis on formal error, the teacher's inability to function as a real reader, a corresponding lack of 'humanness' in teacher voice, a lack of clarity, including illegible handwriting and undefined proof-reading marks, a failure to gear comments to specific audiences including basic writers and ESL students, a lack of positive reinforcement with some teachers displaying overt hostility toward their student writers, a tendency for teachers to appropriate student writing so that the student's own voice is lost, and comments showing a product-centered rather than process-centered approach to writing, which discounts the role of rhetorical invention. After documenting these deficiencies in teacher response strategies, this study presents a solution in the form of four tenets of person-based response. Phrased in the imperative, they are (1) Respond first as a genuine (human) reader; (2) Emphasize student successes not errors; (3) Empower student writers; don't silence their voices or appropriate their work; and (4) Emphasize student process (successful writers in-the-making) not product ('finished' and flawed papers). In a descriptive quantitative analysis involving 303 beginning college composition students, this study goes on to show how all four tenets of person-based response correlate with positive student motivation, a condition which writing apprehension theory says is crucial for effective writing. In addition, this study analyzes some confounds to person-based response, presents the stories of eight students who react to the methodology, and suggests further study of the theory, especially a project linking the tenets of person-based response empirically to the Daly and Miller Writing Apprehension Scale. Finally, the dissertation emphasizes the need for what Burke calls consubstantiality, the act of really connecting with one's audience, including teachers with students and students with each other.

UMI Publication number AAT 9826439

Current position:  Amarillo College

1998

E/R

Elizabeth R. Pass

Electronic Academic Journals: An Analysis of the Striated and Smooth Spaces of Electronic Journal Forms

Sam Dragga, Chair, Thomas Barker, Fred Kemp

While print classic journals have been analyzed in depth, electronic academic journals have not yet been widely studied. This dissertation looks seriously at this new form of knowledge making and knowledge dispersal in order to reveal characteristics unique to electronic journals, showing advantages and opportunities for scholarship and knowledge-making that are not afforded to print journals. With the appearance of electronic academic journals comes many questions. The three questions that I focus on are: (1) How does digital communication (specifically, electronic academic journals) sustain and advance the discourse and distribution of knowledge in the field of computers and writing? (2) What advantage(s) do digital means of distributed knowledge offer readers that print academic journals cannot? (3) What are the research and pedagogical implications of electronic academic journals for the field of English, specifically computers and writing? The method I use to analyze electronic academic journals is interpretive, through a historical and rhetorical study. Specifically, the theoretical lens being employed to examine them is Deleuze and Guattari's concept of