1. Nickels Shirk, Henrietta (1997): Contributions to Botany, the Female Science, by Two Eighteenth-Century Women Technical Communicators, Technical Communication Quarterly, 6:3, 293-312.
2. Lippincott, Gail. ?Something in Motion and Something to Eat Attract the Crowd: Cooking with Science at the 1893 World?s Fair.? Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 33.2 (2003): 141-164.
3. Kimball, Miles A. (2006). London Through Rose-Colored Graphics: Visual Rhetoric and Information Graphic Design in Charles Booth?s Maps of London Poverty.? Journal of Technical Writing & Communication. 36(4), 353-381.
4. Brasseur, Lee (2005): Florence Nightingale?s Visual Rhetoric in the Rose Diagrams, Technical Communication Quarterly, 14:2, 161-182
5. Tebeaux, Elizabeth (2011). Technical Writing and the Development Of The English Paragraph 1473-1700, Journal of Technical Writing And Communication, Vol. 41(3) 219-253, 2011.
What does this work suggest as a/the focus of professional writing?
1) According to Nickels Shirk, a focus of professional and technical communication should be the reclamation of historical figures who made significant contributions to the field. Teachers and practitioners in professional and technical communication trace the long lines of ?traditions? (this case the botanical tradition) that have shaped the field as it exists today.
2) In sticking with the historical lens, we see Lippincott also turn to previous examples of technical writing (the Model Kitchens of Chicago?s 1893 World Fair) to learn how to better our own intercultural, international, and intergenerational audiences today. There is an implicit belief here that, more than just historicizing the field, we can actually transfer knowledge of public demonstrations to contemporary, multimedia contexts.
3) Kimball?s important work on Charles Booth?s maps indicate that a focus of professional and technical writing should be on the visual component of communication, and the power that can coincide with them. Visuals are not just merely another way to represent information ? they are sociocultural heuristics that can enact change.
4) Brasseur, much like the authors above, sees importance in re-thinking and re-analyzing historical contributors, particularly women, to the field of technical writing.It also suggests that multimodal arguments are effective political tools.
5) Tebeaux?s article can be read as an ?advocacy? piece, in support of the idea that our current models of composing stem just as much, if not more, from middle-class technical writing practices than they do from upper-class, ?cultured? literary practices. As such, Tebeaux believes that a focus of professional and technical communication should be gaining an accurate understanding of how you field influenced society historically.
What does this article attempt to reconfigure, complicate, question, or change?
1) This article does not attempt to reconfigure or complicate anything specifically; again, Nickels Shirk is engaging in a reclamation project. What Nickels Shirk if changing, and even challenging, is the commonly held belief that technical writing innovations were done solely by men, particularly those of the Royal Society and then later on those involved in industrialization, the Golden Age of professional and technical communication, if you will. Nickels Shirk makes us aware of the botanical tradition and the meaningful ways these botanical manuals impacted technical writing (i.e., weaving of narrative with scientific inquiry).
2) Lippincott attempts to question or at least rethink several things: first, the way we as communicators reveal ?threatening new knowledge and technology? (p.141) to skeptical, very public audiences; second, the influence women had on scientific and technical communication in the late nineteenth century; an third, the way we historically look at effective communication as being solely text-based, rather than multimodal.
3) Essentially Kimball, who is not the first, is questioning the notion of transparency in information graphics. In contrast to the typical view that information graphics should be objective tools of measurement and representation, Kimball, using Booth?s maps, shows how visual representations are not tools of measurement, but rather tools of rhetoric. Further, Kimball complicates the idea that teachers of information graphics in tech comm are more ?aware? of the rhetorical nature of images than are practitioners. Instead, Kimball posits that people, the audience, desire and are convinced by clear simplicity, not complexity, in graphical representations.
4) Brasseur is challenging the traditional way of reading Florence Nightingale?s impact. That is, most people look at the second diagram she drew and study that, because it was understood to be the ?most dramatic?; however, Brasseur reads Nightingale?s diagrammatic work as a progression, which shows a much more complex way of rhetorical thinking.
5) At its heart, this article by Tebeaux challenges our traditional way of understanding the paragraph, as it was put forth by Alexander Bain in the nineteenth century. By finding and analyzing technical writing texts from the centuries preceding Bain, Tebeaux makes the argument that, contrary to belief, the essential components of the modern ?paragraph? actually predated Bain by up to four centuries. Tebeaux: ?The paragraph is clearly indigenous to English composition, much more so that modern composition theory has acknowledged? (219).
Which methodology does the piece use to arrive at these conclusions? What counts as evidence? Is this piece purely theoretical? Qualitative (e.g., case study, ethnography)? Something else?
1) Nickels Shirk briefly analyzes the texts of each of the authors, Blackwell?s A Curious Herbal and Wakefield?s An Introduction to Botany, and as such this piece is purely theoretical, almost historiographic in approach.
2) Lippincott?s conclusions are all drawn from historical documents outlining the increasingly terse conversations Richards and Palmer had with one another. Her arguments are predicated on historical context and letters.
3) Straight theory and historical/archival research.
4) Straight theory and historical/archival research.
5) Historiography and theory.
Which stakeholders are represented?
1)
- Marginalized groups in professional and technical communication
- Twentieth-century ecological and environmental movements (e.g., ecofeminism)
2)
- Female technical communicators, historically-speaking
- Intercultural and intergenerational communication in technical writing
- Multimodal presentations of new technology
3)
- Social policy representatives
- Graphic designers
- The subjects being represented in infographics
4)
- Graphic designers
- Historiographers
- Feminine ethos
- Statisticians
5)
- Technical writing historians
- Composition instructors
(How) D/does this work connect other course readings? concepts?
1) Quite frankly, its difficult to connect anything we?ve read so far to the feminine botanical tradition. That being said, there can be parallels drawn, historically speaking, between the topics Nickels Shirk addresses (e.g., the need to develop an ethos; the topic matter that was chosen for them by men to keep them passive) and Longo?s description of the oppressive Royal Society regiment of men who saw ?pure science? as being separate from the feminine experience and ethos (Margaret Cavendish FTW!).
2) Of course, Lippincott?s work connects closely with Nickels Shirk?s in that both articles recover lost historical meaning to not only paint a more accurate, full picture of the past but so that we can also inform our current practices. Both articles seek to empower female technical writers, and, although Nickels Shirk is more explicit, attempt try create a distinctly feminine ethos in technical writing.
3) Kimball?s work loosely connects to Cargile Cook?s work outlining the six literacies: basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical. With visuals being under the basic literacy category, it is important that visuals are taught alongside social literacy, to see how visual representations and public policy can have immediate political effects on the other.
4) Brasseur?s work connects closely to two other readings read this week in significant ways: first, Nightingale?s rose diagrams parallel closely with with Booth?s maps of London in the sense that both served as major rhetorical forces for political/policy change/reform. Second, Brasseur?s work acts as an advocate against the overly-feminized, over-simplified rhetorical reading of Nightingale, much of the same way Nickels Shirk recovers women?s botanical writing.
5) I think a connection can be made here to Bernadette?s Longo?s Spurious Coin in that Tebeaux is tracing the history of technical writing and convincing people of the profound influence technical writers, in very unassuming settings, influence the creation of knowledge, practice, and power.
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