Reshaping Technical Communication

This anthology brings together voices from industry and academia in a call for elevating the status, identity, value, and influence of technical communicators. Editors Barbara Mirel and Rachel Spilka assert that technical communicators must depart from their traditional roles, moving instead in a more influential and expansive direction. To help readers explore the possibilities, contributions from innovative thinkers and leaders in technical communication propose ways to redefine the field's identity and purposes and to expand the parameters of its work. The chapters included here all point toward new directions for greater growth and influence of the field. Contributors depart from traditional ideas and solutions and discuss new and in some cases radical points, provoking further thought and discussion. Its exploration of fresh territory uncovers new research topics and directions, and provides an examination of both internal, industry-academia relationships and external relationships between technical communicators and other professionals. In its entirety, this collection represents an inclusive vision for the future, targeting such wide-ranging issues as creating effective professional organizations, disseminating research to diverse audiences, transitioning to more influential job roles, exerting leadership in usability, and creating hybrid identities and collaborative programs between industry and academic to support them. The diverse voices from industry and academia will inspire readers to think differently about the discipline's identity and direction, and to build on the ideas they find herein to effect change within their own spheres. As required reading for academics and professionals in technical communication, this collection is a critical step in reshaping and reinvigorating the technical communication field to ensure its survival and growth in the 21st century.

Digital Literacy for Technical Communication helps technical communicators make better sense of technology’s impact on their work, so they can identify new ways to adapt, adjust, and evolve, fulfilling their own professional potential. This collection is comprised of three sections, each designed to explore answers to these questions: How has technical communication work changed in response to the current (digital) writing environment? What is important, foundational knowledge in our field that all technical communicators need to learn? How can we revise past theories or develop new ones to better understand how technology has transformed our work? Bringing together highly-regarded specialists in digital literacy, this anthology will serve as an indispensible resource for scholars, students, and practitioners. It illuminates technology’s impact on their work and prepares them to respond to the constant changes and challenges in the new digital universe.

This collection offers a broad examination of technical communication as a discipline and a profession, and provides insights on its future directions. Intended for students, scholars, and practitioners in technical communication and education.

Thirty years ago, one writer complained that 'to admire technology is all out of fashion'. Today excited claims are made for the impact that these technologies are having on social, political and economic life. But how are we to assess these claims? This book critically interrogates many of the prevailing ideas offers a fresh perspective on this new`digital age'. Reshaping Communications: · Provides an alternative and more grounded account of the complex interplay between new technology and information structures and changes in society · Illuminates the fundamental continuities as well as changes in socioeconomic and political processes · Draws on an interdisciplinary perspective and

"This book works to provide practical knowledge based on a sound theoretical foundation for allowing people to engage in a meaningful dialogue as they make decisions with respect to designing that communication"--Provided by publisher.

This practical volume provides a thorough introduction to conducting and critically reading research in technical communication, complete with exemplars of research articles for study. Offering a solid grounding in the research underpinnings of the technical communication field, this resource has been developed for use in master’s level and upper-division undergraduate research methods courses in technical and professional communication.

Practical, research-based overview of careers in technical communication featuring narratives from working professionals in a range of careers and international contexts Technical communication is a diverse, growing, and rapidly changing field, and an up-to-date guide to careers will be useful for students and junior professionals in the US and Europe Competing books on technical communication careers are outdated and do not include non-US contexts; this book contains current research and practitioner narratives that most closely examine careers as they operate today