In my undergraduate and more nerdy days, a piece of advice my professor gave me has been turning over in my mind ever since, “For the last time. No! You cannot pick your groups, and if you ask me again, I will fail you Garby.” These were hard times, especially since Garby wasn’t my name. Read More…
Tag: Technical communication
The Practical, the Theoretical
In “Regenerating Once Fallow Ground:Theorizing Process and Product in 21st-Century Technical Communication Ecologies,” Adrienne Lamberti and David M. Grant write, “We ultimately found ourselves needing to repeatedly return to this argument: pointedly theorizing both pedagogy and the purposes of technical communication does not have to squeeze out application in the classroom, but rather can enrich 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…
Plain Language and How it Relates to Technical Writing
Something we always teach our technical writing students early on in the semester is the art of plain language, and why it’s a valuable skill when dealing with a broad audience. Kira Dreher, author of “Engaging Plain Language in the Technical Communication Classroom” does an incredible job at breaking down the benefits of plain language Read More…
Hidden Arguments, Known Secrets
THE MYTH OF OBJECTIVITY In Hidden Arguments: Rhetoric and Persuasion in Diverse Forms of Technical Communication, Jessica McCaughey and Brian Fitzpatrick explore a gap in Technical Communication education. They claim that, unlike popular perceptions (both internal and external) of Tech Comm, persuasion and rhetoric are a part of the ways technical communicators write. They are, Read More…