Case Study Critique: “The Composing Process of an Engineer”

Reference

Selzer, J. (2004). The Composing Process of an Engineer. In J. Johnson-Eilola & S.A. Selber (Eds.), Central Works in Technical Communication (pp. 317-324). Oxford: Oxford UP. (original article published in 1983).

Summary

Selzer's article "The Composing Process of an Engineer" was originally published in College Composition and Communication in 1983. Selzer observes that much emphasis is placed on studying "writers' composing process," but little of this study is focused on engineers or scientists (318). He designs a case study that follows one engineer-writer, Kenneth E. Nelson, as he composes. Selzer collected and examined all written materials such as brainstorming notes, drafts, revision notes, and final products. He then asks Nelson to respond in detail via tape recorder to a set of author generated questions after each writing session. Selzer also observes Nelson during his writing sessions and interviews Nelson about his observations.

Selzer finds that Nelson is mostly conventional in his process, but he does spend most of his time inventing and less time drafting and revising. Nelson's process is mostly linear rather than recursive. His invention process is detailed as he performs an audience analysis, sometimes does research at Northwestern University Library, consults with his colleagues, is active in communal and personal brainstorming, and borrows materials and ideas from past projects. Nelson always drafts a detailed outline before he begins writing, and, although he may revise the outline, once he begins writing he never changes the outline. Selzer describes Nelson's drafting process as "smooth and efficient" and he spends less than 20% of his time drafting (321). He has a utilitarian focus and thus uses shorter sentences and paragraphs, avoids complicated grammar, and avoids technical language (his audience is outside the company). Finally, Selzer notes that little revision occurs; Nelson mostly focuses on correcting surface level errors.

This study leads Selzer to conclude that, although the study is too limited in scope to make any absolute claims about the nature of engineer writing, technical writing teachers may want to assess planning documents as well as products as invention is an important part of Nelson's process. He finds that "it may be appropriate to describe the writing process of engineers as more linear than recursive" (323). And, technical writing instructors may want to consider incorporating more group brainstorming.

Critique

Selzer's study was well planned, the data was descriptive, and the detail in reporting the data was exemplary. He uses content analysis to report the number of words per sentence and percentage of time spent on each task effectively when describing Nelson's process. Because of the limited scope of the study, the results cannot be generalized for engineer writing. Selzer may have had more opportunity for generalizing information had he studied more than one engineer writer at more than one company. He could have drawn parallels between data and experience to discuss engineer writing on a more extended scale. Furthermore, his conclusions are very specific to technical writing instruction, but if his finding held up to scrutiny (or even the suggestions already provided) this information is beneficial to introductory writing courses as well since he is focused on discussing how different processes work (and this is not necessarily a phenomenon of a field but could be writer specific). This case needs to be retested to see if Nelson's experience is replicated in other engineer or technical writing situations.

Survey Critique: “Visual Communication in the Workplace: A Survey of Practice”

Reference

Brumberger, E. (2007). "Visual Communication in the Workplace: A Survey of Practice." Technical Communication Quarterly. Vol. 16 (4). pp. 369-395.

Summary

Brumberger's purpose for this article is to report the findings of an online survey that inquires as to the degree of importance visual communication has for professional writing practitioners in the workplace. To collect this data, Brumberger developed an online survey that asked three types of questions: "typical workplace tasks, the extent and type of visual communication work, and the acquisition of visual communication skills" (373). The survey was sent to the techwr-l listserve. Brumberger calculated that 200 of the 5000 subscribers were most active on the listserve; thus, she used 200 as her sample size. She received 140 surveys, giving the project a 70% return rate. In her findings, Brumberger found that indeed practitioners are actively using visual communication skills in various forms. She found that a majority of participants worked with print documents, but 43% reported working primarily with electronic documents.  (377-378). 78% of the participants said they designed documents (which Brumberger classifies as visual communication) and even when their visual communication specialists respondents still do visual communication tasks. On average, respondents spend one to one and half hours working on visual communication tasks. When asked about decision making responsibilities, 72% of participant reported working on visual design for new projects, but major decisions about company standards and templates were most likely decisions of the managers and visual communication specialists (379-381). Brumberger's study also found that most respondents learned visual communication skills on the job, followed by on-the-job training. Only 2% received formal education and 2% reported learning at seminars and workshops (383-384). Finally, 72% of participant report that visual communication skills are beneficial to their work; however, 75% claimed that visual communication skills would not be beneficial to receiving promotion at their workplace (384-385). Despite the lack of promotion potential, 94% of respondents felt that professional writing curricula should emphasize visual communication. Based on this data, Brumberger emphasizes that visual communication should be a priority and "primary area of study" in the curricula. Furthermore, instruction needs to include theory and practice and give particular attention to "rhetorical decision making regarding the design and layout of print documents" (388). However, she emphasizes that print documentation is still the central focus of professional writing and still needs to "take precedence" in programs' curriculum (388-389).

Critique

The findings of this study are certainly relevant and applicable to the field. There are, however, a few problems with the methodology and reporting of this study. Although Brumberger uses a convenience sample (and admits the limitations of such sample), the sample is problematic. First, although only 200 participants actively post to the listserve does not mean that they were the majority of respondents to this survey. Brumberger emphasizes that she understands the limitations of the survey, but follows this with the assumption that "they reflect a very well-seasoned body of practitioners in traditional technical writing positions" (375). Thus, she treats this sampling as if it were representative of a larger population without having to take into account margin of error or confidence interval measurements. 

The design of the survey was clear and concise for the participants, making sure to define terms when necessary and is accessible to the sample group. Brumberger also emphasizes that she used cross-tabulation analysis as well as regression analysis, t-test, and chi-square tests to "determine the statistical significance of data" (373). Based on the careful evaluation of her work, there is no reason to believe that the analysis of the survey data is flawed. However, the execution of the report is difficult to decipher. At times, Brumberger contradicts herself in reporting findings. This is partly a result of survey questions that ask participants to "check all that apply" which makes it difficult to analyze the percentages that Brumberger uses to describe the data. Furthermore, because she is looking for trends while allowing for variations in circumstance, the data seems disorganized. For instance, when discussing the findings of visual communication skills acquisition, she has two illustrations (a bar graph and pie chart) showing the locations where participant reported learning their visual communication skills. However, they are not differentiated between participants who have been formally educated in professional and technical writing and those who have not. Thus, the illustrations seem inaccurate as she is generalizing the trends for the whole population. These situations make it difficult to understand the data presented.

To Brumberger's credit, she does acknowledge the limitations of the study and provides potential areas of focus for future studies to give more accurate insight into the state of visual communication in the workplace and professional/technical writing academic programs. Thus, the audience can see this report as a starting point for research rather than the conclusion of the research.

Directed Study of Statement Tag Distribution in a Technical Communication Database

To Thesis or Not to Thesis?:

That is the Question (or the Hypothesis)

A Directed Study of Statement Tag Distribution in a Technical Communication Database

Introduction

Mary Sue MacNealy (1998) states “recently the academic community has begun to move toward interdisciplinary studies. This movement has been particularly strong in the writing discipline” (p. 5). Emerging from various disciplines such as literary study and social science, technical communication and composition have adopted different methodologies for how research is conducted and the ways in which it is reported. After reading multiple articles in technical communication publications, I noticed a trend in the way research statements were included. Often, when technical communication scholars reported their research findings, their studies included both a thesis and a research question or hypothesis. This directed study, using the materials provided in the English 5363 Article Database, is an inquiry into the following question: how often will research reports/articles be identified as having both a thesis and hypothesis or a thesis and a research question? This report details my findings.

Methodology

To answer this question, I used a sample of technical communication and composition research articles compiled in the “5363 Article Library” in a group database housed in Zotero. These articles were compiled and tagged by Dr. Cargile Cook and Dr. Rickly’s English 5363 “Research Methods in Technical Communication” graduate students during fall 2010. All students were required to select a journal issue from a technical communication or composition journal, submit article analyses, and tag articles in Zotero using Cargile Cook and Rickly’s “Research Article Coding/Tagging Schema” (2010). There were 19 total students who contributed to the database and all of the articles tagged were cross-checked by at least two class members.

This directed study into how statement tags were distributed was performed on 10 October 2010. On this date, there were 134 articles in the English 5363 database. I eliminated all articles without tags (these were articles included in the database, but not part of the database class study). I did this by transferring all database articles into a new Zotero folder and reviewing all article records for tags. If there were no class documented tags, I deleted the entry from my study folder.

The total sample size of articles with tags was 84. Since my goal was to see overlaps in the data, I sorted articles based on the “Research Article Coding/Tagging Schema” which listed the following statement tags: statement>hypothesis, statement>thesis, statement>question, statement>other, and statement>not reported. The results of each search were copied into an Excel spreadsheet field under the appropriate tag label. When I reviewed my initial results, I noticed that only 70 articles were tagged: 14 articles were missing. I searched all articles and found that these 14 articles were missing statement tags. Thus, I included a final category not found in the tagging schema, but important to the analysis of the database. I put the 14 articles with missing statement tags into a “no statement tag” category. Once the results of all searches were entered into the excel file, I looked for articles that appeared in different statement tag fields (which I sorted alphabetically).

Once all data was compiled in the Excel spreadsheet, I was able to calculate the total number of articles per tag designation and look for trends in the distribution of these tags.

Results

The results show that the most commonly used statement tags used in the English 5363 database articles are thesis statements and research questions as detailed in Figure 1.

As demonstrated in Figure 2, of the 84 articles only 8 articles had more than one statement tag. Thus, it does not appear that having multiple tags, or statements, is a norm amongst the authors in this database. Furthermore, in all 8 articles with more than one tag, the statement tag included statement>question and statement>thesis as seen in Figure 3. This correlation implies that authors using both a thesis and a question, see the question as leading to a thesis. Blakeslee and Spilka (2004) use Charney’s assertion that “researchers sometimes approach their work with particular questions in mind: They assume that the projects will take shape during field work or when they finally analyze data” (p. 77). This observation suggests that researchers in our field may use a research question as a means of developing a thesis. As a research report is being written, the thesis is acknowledged, perhaps as an influence of the humanities, in the beginning of a report as well as the research question that guided the information. It is important to note, however, that although there was a relationship between research questions and theses, the combination of the two tags is only observed in 10% of the database articles.

Discussion

This study cannot generalize the overall practice of the field because of limitations to the study. One limitation is that many articles in the sample were not coded with a statement tag, although all categories in the tagging schema were supposed to be used when tagging/coding an article according to the directions provided by the professors of English 5363. It is also not clear why some participants chose not to include a statement tag when one of the options on the tagging schema was statement>not reported. We must take into consideration that 14 of the articles (or 16% of the total sample) were not given a statement tag and thus we must question if those 14 articles were correctly read and analyzed. Clearly, leaving 16% of the articles untagged for the research statement could skew the findings of this study.

Another limitation to this study is the varying competency of tagging amongst the participants of the database project. Although all tagging was to be cross-checked by at least 2 other members of the project, there were problems with consistency in tagging likely due to the level of instruction and experience of participants in tagging articles throughout the project. Six of the participants were onsite PhD students who had double the class time as the remaining thirteen online students, thus giving them more instruction and access to instructor and peer assistance than online students. However, it should be noted, that groups of three were designed to cross-check each other’s articles, and these groups each included one onsite student to two online students. These groupings may have alleviated the potential for error, but this cannot be guaranteed.

We must also consider sample size as a limitation of this study. 84 articles that were not randomly selected and represented only a two year period of writing literature (and, of course, we could not cover all issues of all technical communication and composition journals in this two year period) gives only a small representation of the scholarship in the field. Thus, a generalization of how authors in technical communication and composition state the purpose of their research in their reporting cannot be made until a larger sample is retested at a later time.

Finally, the technological hiccups with Zotero could also have affected results. Zotero, tended to drop tags making it necessary to re-enter tags throughout the project. There is no guarantee that the final results were not affected by this glitch, nor can we be certain that tags were re-added to the database accurately.

Despite the limitations above, we can see interesting trends within the database that are important to retest with different samples. The data suggests that in my sample of technical communication and composition research publications, the authors combine a thesis with a research question occasionally, but it does not seem to be a wide spread practice. However, since multiple tags are isolated to these two statements, we must question the implications of this finding. We may explain the use of both research statements as a way of marrying the humanities with the social sciences: conforming to “theory” and “empiricism.” This interdisciplinary focus to our research certainly implies a break (or stretching) of our literary roots. Looking at how technical communication and composition take this interdisciplinary approach as a field can give us insight as to how we evolve in defining our mission and scholarship.

The lack of multiple statement tagging also implies a sort of resistance. The first part of my research question, “how often will a thesis be combined with a hypothesis?” found that there were no correlations between a thesis statement and a hypothesis in the database. This may speak to the level of science/experimental research infiltrating the discipline. The number of hypotheses in the statement tags was lower than the thesis, question, and no statement tag designations. This brings in many questions as to the nature of the research being seen in our field. If we are more empirical now than we have been in the past, are we focusing more on qualitative than quantitative? If so, what does this say about the nature or movement of the field? This may also be a sign of weariness on the part of scholars about merging theory with experimentation or quantitative inquiry. Or, in other words, the field wants to stretch beyond its literary roots—but not too much.

Conclusion

This study could not make a definitive claim about how writers in writing studies research use research statements. However, this study does show the necessity of repeating the research with new data sets. This question in particular can provide insight into how research reporting reflects the values of the field and how we as a discipline, consciously or unconsciously, define ourselves in our research reporting choices.

References

Blakeslee, A. M., & Spilka, R. (2004). The state of research in technical communication. Technical communication quarterly, 13(1), 73–92.

Cargile Cook, K., & Rickly, R. (2010). Research Article Coding/Tagging Schema. Retrieved from https://moodle.english.ttu.edu/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=1264

MacNealy, M. S. (1998). Strategies for Empirical Research in Writing. Boston: Longman.

5371 Journal Analysis

**Note: the formatting, pictures, etc. did not come through as well, but if you would like to see a better version, I am happy to share.

Crunching the Numbers: How Does JTWC Measure Up Against Its Purpose Statement?

The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (JTWC) was founded in 1971 by Jay R. Gould from Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute (1). JTWC is published by Baywood Publishing Company, Inc. which publishes numerous academic journals and book series, including the Baywood Book Series on Technical Communication. In its nearly forty year history, JTWC has maintained a commitment to "publish a thoroughly solid journal that performs as the needed bridge between academia and the world of practitioners ("Journal of Technical Writing and Communication"). This balance is greatly needed not only to inform practitioners and academics of new research and theories in the field, but also to get perspectives from industry about the work academics need to prepare technical communication students for. In an attempt to measure how well JTWC is accomplishing its purpose statement goals, this paper analyzes trends in tone, topics, and authorship of JTWC articles (not including editorials or book reviews) within a five year span, looking at volume 35, issues three and four (2005) through volume 40 issue one and two (2010).

JTWC has been edited by Charles H. Sides of Fitchburg State University throughout the years of this journal analysis. Sides has kept the tone of the journal focused on innovation in the field balanced with humanistic values of the faculty whom contribute to the field. In "From the Editors Desk" (or Editor's notes), Sides appeals to the need for critical inquiry into how professional communication responds to such disasters as Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and space shuttle catastrophes in their work (Sides, "From," 36.2). In the fourth issue of the journal in 2008, Sides discusses how Peter Senge's analysis of "successful" business being done in this new century would need to include "'learning organizations engaged in 'knowledge work'" and asks the field to consider how our discipline can apply such a view to its own studies and teaching (Sides, "From," 38.4). Sides also extends challenges to our teaching of students. For instance, in the second issues in 2009, Sides states that "convincing our students that their conduct in public space should be representative of their personal and professional values as well as representative of a worthwhile life remains a fundamental principle of higher education. And it should be at the core of all we do" (Sides, "From," 39.2). And, in Sides latest editorial, he considers how the economic downturn impacts the professionalization of the field. By taking an informal survey of ATTW Members' professional development funding opportunities, he found that across the board, faculty felt that they were not given enough funding and this was particularly dominate in the liberal arts. Although skeptical, Sides encourages faculty in the field to protect the funding needed in positions that require scholarship for advancement. In each of Sides commentaries, we get a look at the major events affecting the work technical communicators do both in the academy and in the private/public sphere. However, there does

seem to be a slight bias in the way faculty concerns are mostly addressed as the audience of the

JTWC Most Commonly Used Subject Tags
Subject Tags	Total
Communication of Technical Information	47
Independent artists, writers, and performers	34
Technical Writing	30
Education	13
Communication	11
Authorship	10
Research	10

journal within the editorials.

JTWC's goal, as noted above, is to bridge discussion of technical communication between academics and practitioners. It is important than to consider the trends in topics being discussed in our journal sample. In order to measure the most commonly written about topics, I used author generated subject tags for the articles and tabulated how many times each appeared throughout the five year span I was

working with. Of the 509 tags used in the journal, the most commonly used tags were: Communication of Technical Information; Independent artists, writers, and performers; Technical writing; Education; Communication; Authorship; and Research. These results seem to indicate that JTWC is trying to represent the needs of all stakeholders (academics and practitioners alike). Although the subject tags Communication of technical information and Technical writing are not surprising to find in this journal, the second most used tag (Independent artists, writers, and performers) is of interest. Independent artist, writers, and performers most clearly indicate that the work done in the academy has applications in other organizations and situations. Furthermore, the emphasis on research demonstrates the importance of invention in the field of technical communication and the need for continued invention on different fronts.

In addition to studying the total number of tags in this five year period, we can narrow down results further to see how JTWC has responded to current events in the field and the world. For instance, in 2005 the appearance of tags associated with mobile communication systems and wireless telecommunication systems rose. This implies that in 2005, the focus of technical communication through cell phone messaging devices may have been an area of concern in the field perhaps as a result of the growing popularity of the Blackberry (or similar devices). In 2007, the field took note of how technical communication related to space exploration after investigations into the Columbia shuttle explosion in 2003. In 2008, more tags were seen in workplace environment than in previous volumes and in 2009 information services and consumer goods were being examined more closely. By looking at these trends by year, we can also trace how technical communication responds to societal events and trends (even if it takes journals a couple of years to catch up) that relate to concerns beyond the classroom.

Following the theme of cooperation between academia and practitioners, it is appropriate to test how often authors from outside the academy publish in JTWC. To analyze this information, I listed all authors signed to an article and noted their institutional affiliation. I broke down affiliations into four categories: 4-Year Public Universities, United States; 4-year Private Universities, United States; International Universities; and Industry (profit and non-profit). Although a majority of the authors are affiliated with four year public universities in the United States, there are practitioners who have authored articles in the journal as well (and, as will be discussed below, practitioners often co-author articles with faculty). Industry practitioners make up 11% of the total authors signed to the JTWC article samples showing that, although limited, practitioners are engaging in dialogue with scholars in technical communication.

Furthermore, technical communication places great importance on collaboration to invent documents. Thus, I wondered how often articles are co-authored in JTWC. I isolated articles written by one author from article written in collaboration. Of the ninety-six articles published in the twenty issues of JTWC that I analyzed, only 25% percent of articles were written in collaboration. This may not seem like much, but upon further investigation, it is found that half of the total number of co-authored articles collaborate with authors from profit or non-profit organizations. Again, this is promising for the field as it is evidence that industry and the academy can actively research the needs of the discipline.

The final demographic analysis I conducted was the male to female ratio in authored texts. In questioning how "thoroughly solid" a journal is, the study of gender distribution in authorship is an important gauge of how the journal, and the field at large, respond to articles written by women (in term of acceptance). In JTWC, male authored articles outnumber female's by 19%. However, in co-authored articles females appeared in 52% of articles, whereas males made up 43% of co-authored texts (the remaining percentage represents unidentified gender or those that could not be verified). A couple trends can be seen in this data. First, women still seem to be underrepresented in the literature of JTWC. This assumption does need to be verified in yet a larger sample of data, but it is an important case to confirm. Furthermore, the data suggests that women are either better, more comfortable, or have a better chance being published if they collaborate with other writers to publish in JTWC. Again, this assumption needs to be held up to further scrutiny and may even be an item to look across journals to find overall trends in the field.

Going back to JTWC's purpose statement, it is clear from the study that the editors of the journal are mostly on target with their goal. Although still marginalized, it is clear from the topic matter and the authorship that practitioners are being considered in the make-up of the journal. As evidenced in the data, JTWC seeks not only to bridge the gap between academic and industry professionals, but academic and "real-world" scenarios where technical communication can inform our understanding of the rhetorical and practical elements inherent in our day to day operations. Overall, there are clearly areas where JTWC, and indeed the field, need to continue strengthening (such as the number of practitioners published in the journal or the gender distribution of authorship). However, when considering how well the journal is achieving its purpose, we can observe that attempts are being made be more field inclusive.

Works Cited

"Journal of Technical Writing and Communication." Baywood Publishing Company, Inc. 2009. Web. 5 Oct. 2010.

Sides, Charles H. "From the Editor's Desk." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 36.2 (2006): 119. EBSCOHost Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 2 Oct. 2010.

Sides, Charles H. "From the Editor's Desk." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 38.4 (2008): 299. EBSCOHost Communication & Mass Media Complete Web. 2 Oct. 2010.

Sides, Charles H. "From the Editor's Desk." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 39.2 (2009): 121-122. EBSCOHost Communication & Mass Media Complete Web. 2 Oct. 2010.

Sides, Charles H. "From the Editor's Desk." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 40.1 (2010): 1-2. EBSCOHost Communication & Mass Media Complete Web. 2 Oct. 2010.

Argument Theory--Thomas Goodnight

I am starting to see these different theories as merging into each other to create options for the arguer/audience/evaluator/social constructivist, etc. I was particularly interested with Thomas Goodnight’s distinction of spheres: personal, technical, and public. This very clearly, to me, relates to rhetorical argumentation in that we will construct arguments based on the situation (the rhetorical situation perhapsHow has the changing spheres (broadening or constricting) problematized argumentation? I am very interested in social argumentation especially where questions of class, race, gender (basically “otherness”) comes into play. I believe that identifying audience is more problematic than it has been before. For instance, one hundred years ago, political speeches were made to very distinct audience—whoever could be gathered at a specific place in time. However, with radio and television, spaces for debate and argument increased, thus creating a more (to use Perelman—who I love by the way) universal audience. Now, if we discuss the use of youtube, web sites, camera phones, etc, debates, speeches, etc can be analyzed by an audience and space and time constrictions are somewhat less a factor (there are of course access issues, etc). Speeches/arguments made behind closed doors to a specific audience can be easily recorded and transmitted to “public” spaces, thus creating an even larger universal audience. How does this affect argumentation both in terms of construction and evaluation?
Any ideas? (for anyone)

"Inventing the Election: Civic Participation and Presidential Candidates' Websites"

Dadas, Caroline E. “Inventing the Election: Civic Participation and Presidential Candidates’ Websites.” Computers and Compositions. 25.4 (2008): 416-431.

Dadas looks at the extent to which websites from the 2008 presidential election helped to engage voters in civic discourse. She examines each website by the level of participation each allows its users. She breaks these levels down into three categories: Robust, Moderate, and Superficial. Dadas examines three websites from April 15, 2007 to January 6, 2008: Barack Obama’s presidential campaign website, John McCain’s presidential campaign website, and Mitt Romney’s campaign website. Her findings are as follows. Barack Obama’s website was robust in that it allowed users to be “creator, planners, producers, and designers” (424). Participants could create their own webpages from the site, plan events, and connect to social networking tools, thus giving them agency within the campaign. John McCain’s site was evaluated as moderate. Users of the site were given opportunity to take surveys and post questions/responses to the campaign thus giving the campaign feedback from constituents; however, the site did not provide users with the same control over the technology as Obama’s site did. Mitt Romney’s website was evaluated as superficial. User’s did not have the opportunity to create or personalize the site to meet their needs; rather “the Romney website seems more focused on maintaining a carefully crafted image” (428). This analysis provides a leading discussion not only to how digital rhetoric and electronic media can create agency in civic discourse, but Dadas also concludes that having students use such a schema prepares them to begin engaging in civic discourse.

Originally, I worried about the objectivity of this analysis; however, Dadas does a nice job of defining the criteria for which she would evaluate the website. This article inspires me to think about and look for other ways that we could engage people in public discourse using these new tools. Many people have claimed that one of the reasons Obama won the presidency was because of his ability to use the web, social networking, etc., to build a support base from younger generations. By using the web, a new demographic was reached and inspired. How might we use technology to bring more people back into the realm of civic discourse to discuss important issues in our society?