Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies

by J. Blake Scott

Overview

The first book to focus on the intersection of cultural studies and technical communication, Critical Power Tools draws on various traditions of cultural studies to develop new or expanded theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical approaches to technical communication. Offered as a sourcebook for the field, the book is organized into three parts. The first section, emphasizing theory building, reconceptualizes key concepts or practices, such as usability, through a cultural studies lens. The second section illustrates alternative research methods through several case studies. The third section offers critical and productive pedagogical approaches, including specific assignments, applicable to both undergraduate and graduate courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900791467762
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	06/01/2007
Series:	SUNY series, Studies in Scientific and Technical Communication Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

J. Blake Scott is Associate Professor of English at the University of Central Florida, the author of Risky Rhetoric: AIDS and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing, and coauthor (with Melody Bowdon) of Service Learning in Technical and Professional Communication.

Bernadette Longo is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota and the author of Spurious Coin: A History of Science, Management, and Technical Writing, also published by SUNY Press.

Katherine V. Wills is Assistant Professor of English at Indiana University–Purdue University at Columbus and coeditor (with Marc Bousquet) of the eBook The Politics of Information: Electronic Mediation of Social Change.

Table of Contents

Foreword   Alan Nadel     ix
Introduction: Why Cultural Studies? Expanding Technical Communication's Critical Toolbox   J. Blake Scott   Bernadette Longo   Katherine V. Wills     1
Theory
The Technical Communicator as Author: Meaning, Power, Authority   Jennifer Daryl Slack   David James Miller   Jeffrey Doak     25
Extreme Usability and Technical Communication   Bradley Dilger     47
The Phantom Machine: The Invisible Ideology of Email (A Cultural Critique)   Myra G. Moses   Steven B. Katz     71
Research
An Approach for Applying Cultural Study Theory to Technical Writing Research   Bernadette Longo     111
The Rhetorical Work of Institutions   Elizabeth C. Britt     133
The Study of Writing in the Social Factory: Methodology and Rhetorical Agency   Jeffrey T. Grabill     151
Living Documents: Liability versus the Need to Archive, or, Why (Sometimes) History Should Be Expunged   Beverly Sauer     171
Pedagogy
Writing Workplace Cultures-Technically Speaking   Jim Henry     199
Rhetoric as Productive Technology: Cultural Studies in/as Technical Communication Methodology   Michael J. Salvo     219
Extending Service-Learning's CriticalReflection and Action: Contributions of Cultural Studies   J. Blake Scott     241
Designing Students: Teaching Technical Writing with Cultural Studies Approaches   Katharine V. Wills     259
Afterword   Diana George     271
Contributors     275
Index     279