Technical Communication

Rude (2009) identifies the breath of these inquiries when she summarizes, “Research in technical communication asks questions that are variations of this central question ‘How do texts print, digital, multimedia; visual, verbal and related communication practices mediate knowledge, values, and action in a variety of social and professional contexts?”’ (p. 176).

TC and Technology

Albers (2005) work is a good summary that although TC has often focused on writing documents, scholars also widen their scope into interface, interaction, and information design as well as usability and information architecture (p. 266), almost always with an underlying technological base. These technological bases are as much as understanding tools as they are to understanding technology. It is important to not just see a tool like Word as an instrument to get work accomplished but to also understand the larger context of word processing to begin to study similar tools. In this way, technology becomes the medium, not a tool. What drives work isn't working with one particular technology, but seeing what is the best tool in a communicative situation by understanding the larger context. This second part emphasizes the importance of not just context, but also rhetoric.

Teaching Beyond Workplace Training

According to Ding (2009), As Kienzler (2001) observed, the teaching of critical thinking skills and ethical practices should be accompanied by explicit discussion of the dangers and consequences that such decisions may bring to students. The use of narrative details in cases and scenarios is particularly useful to teach ethics in technical communication classrooms (Dragga, 1997). As a part of teaching ethical practices, we should point out possible choices and channels of communication that can be used to release risk messages through case studies of risk communications in which formal or alternative media were employed. We should also discuss the ethical and professional implications of such decisions. Understanding both their options and the issues and costs of those options, students can make more informed and carefully negotiated decisions. To help cultivate their ability to cope with difficult communicative situations, we can help students to collaboratively develop rhetorical heuristics or principles to explore ethical issues surrounding their decision-making processes and to fully examine the circumstances, power relations, and possible choices of specific cases or scenarios. Porter (1998) considered heuristics as tactics, which means they are on the constant search for “situated and kairotic rhetorical” ethical solutions rather than offering universal, innocent, or neutral principles(p. 133). The exercise of developing their own heuristics for cases offers students the opportunity to explore the full complexity of the rhetorical situations surrounding the cases and to negotiate with each other before deciding on their own solutions and plans of action. In addition to developing heuristics for cases, class discussion and follow-up assignments should be carefully designed to enhance students’ critical reflection skills and to help them gain practical wisdom, or phronesis, through thoughtful practices. The cultivation of critical reflection can help students to better understand processes and procedures involved in developing heuristics as a tool for critical rhetorical ethics and to promote thoughtful practices” (Ding, 2009, p. 346)."

References:

Albers, Michael J. (2005). The future of technical communication: Introduction to this special issue. Technical Communication, 52(3), 267-272.

Ding, H. (2009). Rhetorics of Alternative Media in an Emerging Epidemic: SARS, Censorship, and Extra-Institutional Risk Communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 18(4), 327-350.

Rude, C. D. (2009). Mapping the research questions in technical communication. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 23(2), 174-215. doi:10.1177/1050651908329562