Group work and collaboration are buzz words for almost every job on the market right now, but not all industries center writing and communication in the same way that we do as technical communicators. So, how do we expose students in the sciences (for example) to the multifaceted topic of collaboration? In chapter 9 of Read More…
Author: Gabriela Calderon
To Put It Plainly: Plain Language Is Advocacy
~ In her chapter “Engaging Plain Language in the Technical Communication Classroom,” Kira Dreher argues for a framework for teaching technical communication that asks students to use and evaluate plain language and PL strategies. Dreher points out the PL is so important to several industries that we have gone so far as to develop conventions Read More…
The Accidental Endorsement
The Accidental Endorsement If you’re reading this, then you’re a digital citizen, too. Nice to meet you. Social media is ubiquitous. It’s arguably harder to avoid social media and online communities than it is to grow a following online. Honestly, it goes to show that even when our society occupies the same space– the same Read More…
Make Room For Discomfort
— That universal question: “Am I doing enough to challenge my students’ perspectives without making them too uncomfortable?” April Baker-Bell and Jessica Edwards remind us (in Linguistic Justice and “Inclusive Practices in the Technical Communication Classroom” from Citizenship and Advocacy in Technical Communication: Scholarly and Pedagogical Perspectives, respectively) that educators are still actively ironing-out the Read More…
Cathartic Realizations: Other TCP Teachers Struggle, Too!
As instructors of technical communication, I wonder if you’ve ever considered that our university doesn’t offer an undergraduate program specifically for technical communication. Our English department is growing and evolving and every year we gain new interest and new students, but like many collegiate institutions, we only offer undergraduates a taste of technical communication through Read More…
The Problem with Purpose
Jessica McCaughey and Brian Fitzpatrick push teachers of technical communication to help our students unobscure and explore some of the more nuanced, subtle instances of “persuasion” in the workplace. In Chapter 16, titled, “Hidden Arguments: Rhetoric and Persuasion in Diverse Forms of Technical Communication,” McCaughey and Fitzpatrick talk about how technical communication is best taught Read More…
An Invitation to Participate: What, How, and Why
Charles Dickens bored the crap out of me in high school. I missed a section of reading one night, and even though I knew our English teacher wouldn’t allow me to retake her reading quiz, I went to class the next day in fine spirits. Looking down at five open response questions I couldn’t answer, Read More…
Goldilocks and the Three Characteristics of Intellectual Participation
“‘Goldiloxxing’ Intellectual Participation: Getting it ‘Just Right’” Genevieve Critel sought to define the elusive concept of “participation,” and when her colleagues took up her mantle, they continued to investigate different interpretations of this term. One exploration led Kelly Bradbury and Paul Muhlhauser to another topoi, or commonplace of participation: intellectualism. Bradbury and Muhlhauser further Critel’s Read More…