Barton, B. F., & Barton, M. S. (1993). Ideology and the map: Toward a postmodern visual design practice. In Central Works in Technical Communication, Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola (pp. 232-253).
Blakeslee, The Tech Comm Research Landscape
Blythe, Grabill, and Riley, Action Research and Wicked Environmental Problems
Buehl, Toward an Ethical Rhetoric of the Digital Scientific Image: Learning From the Era When Science Met Photoshop
Cargile Cook, Layered Literacies
Clark, C. (2014). Turn your syllabus into an infographic. nspired2.
Connors, R. J. (1982). The rise of technical writing instruction in America. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 12(4), 329-352.
Dobrin, D. (1983). What’s technical about technical writing? In Central Works in Technical Communication, Ed. Johndon Johnson-Eilola, pp. 107-124.
Dombrowski, Paul. (1992). Challenger and the Social Contingency of Meaning: Two Lessons for the Technical Communication Classroom. Technical Communication Quarterly, 1(3), pp. 73-86.
Earle, Samuel. (1911). The Theory and Practice of Technical Writing.
Ehrlich E., & Murphy, D. (1964). The art of technical writing. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company
Graham, S. S. (2009). Agency and the rhetoric of medicine: Biomedical brain scans and the ontology of fibromyalgia. Technical Communication Quarterly 18(4), 376-404.
Herndl, C. G. (1993) Teaching discourse and reproducing culture: A critique of research and pedagogy in professional and non-academic writing. College Composition and Communication, 44(3), 349-363.
Herndl, C. G., & Nahrwold, C. A. (2000). Research as social practice: A case study of research in technical and professional communication. Written Communication, 17(2), 258-296.
Hoover, The Impact of NSF and NIH Websites on Researcher Ethics
Kapp, R. O. (1948) The presentation of technical information. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Katz, S. (1992). The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust. College English 54(3), 255-275.
Katz, S. (1993). Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Hitler’s Program, and the Ideological Problem of Praxis, Power, and Professional Discourse. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7(1), 37-62.
Knievel, Humanistic Profile for Technical Communication
Kolodziejski, L. R. (2014). Harms of hedging in scientific discourse: Andrew Wakefield and the origins of the autism vaccine controversy. Technical Communication Quarterly 23(3), 165-183.
Kynell, T. C. (2000). Writing in a milieu of utility: The move to technical communication in American engineering programs 1850-1950. 2nd edition. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Kynell and Tebeaux, ATTW
Lippincott, G. (1997). Experimenting at home: Writing for the nineteenth-century domestic workplace. Technical Communication Quarterly 6(4), 365-381.
Malone, Patrick. “LANL officials downplayed dangers even after leak.” Sante Fe New Mexican.
Miller, C. R. (1979). A humanistic rationale for technical writing. College English, 40(6), 600-617.
Moore, K. R. (2017). The technical communicator as participant, facilitator, and designer in public engagement projects. Technical Communication, 64(3), 237-253.
Morain, M. & Swarts, J. YouTutorial: A Framework for Assessing Instructional Online Videos. Technical Communication Quarterly 21(1), 6-24.
Moses, M. G. & Katz, S. B. (2006). The phantom machine: The invisible ideology of email (a cultural critique). In Critical Power Tools, Eds. J. B. Scott, B. Longo, & K. V. Wills. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (pp. 71-105).
Northcut and Brumberger, Resisting the Lure of Technology-Driven Design
Quesenbery, W. (N.d.). Civic design: Democracy is a design problem. Retrieved from: Civicdesigning.org.
Richards, D. P. (2019). An ethic of constraint: Citizens, sea level rise, and the limits of agency. JBTC 33(3), 292-337.
Rickard, T.A. (1908). A Guide to Technical Writing.
Rude, C. (2009). Mapping the research questions in technical communication. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 23(2), 174-215.
Rutter, R. (1991). History, rhetoric, and humanism: Toward a more comprehensive definition of technical communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 21(2), 133-53.
Scott, The Practice of Usability: Teaching User Engagement through Service Learning
Selfe, R. J. & Selfe, C. L. (2013). What are the boundaries, artifacts, and identities of technical communication? In Solving Problems in Technical Communication, Eds. J.
Slack, J.D., Miller, D.J., & Doak, J. (1993). The technical communicator as author: Meaning, power, authority. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 7(1), 12-36.
Schmidt, The New Media Writer as Cartographer
Sullivan, P. A. & Porter, J. E. (1993). Remapping curricular geography: Professional writing in/and English. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7(4): 389-422.
Van Ittersum, D. (2014). Craft and narrative in DIY instructions. Technical Communication Quarterly 23(3), 227-246.
Wilson, Tech Comm and Late Capitalism
Wilson, G., & Wolford, R. (2017). The technical communicator as (post-postmodern) discourse worker. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 31(1), 3-29.
Wilson and Herndl, Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Winsor, Dorothy. (1990). The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions about the Challenger. JBTC, 4(2), pp. 1-20.
Wolfe, J. (2009). How technical communication textbooks fail engineering students. Technical Communication Quarterly, 18(4), 351-375.
Zoetewey, M., & Staggers, J. (2004). Teaching the Air Midwest Case: A stakeholder approach to deliberative technical rhetoric. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 47(4), 233-243.
Zoetewey and Sullivan, Improved Communication via Wireless?
Further Reading
Below you will find some brief bibliographies organized by broad subject areas in the field of professional writing. These bibliographies are not exhaustive but are meant to get you started on researching an area of your choice.
- Histories
- Definition(s) of the Field
- Visual Rhetoric/Information Design
- Sociopolitical
- Risk Communication/Environmental Rhetoric
- Intercultural Communication
- Pedagogy, Programs, and Assessment
- Industry-Academic Relationships/Organizational Discourse
- Rhetoric of Science
- Medical Rhetoric/Disability Studies
- Civic Engagement
- New/Digital/Social Media
- Corporate Policy
- Gaming
- Instructions
- UX/Usability
- Information and Content Management
Histories
Dombrowski, P., (Ed.) (1994). Humanistic aspects of technical communication. Amityville, NY: Baywood.
Earle, S. C. (1911). The theory and practice of technical writing. New York: MacMillan.
Ehrlich E., & Murphy, D. (1964). The art of technical writing. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse. In R. Young (Ed.), Untying the text: A poststructuralist reader (48-78). Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Kynell, T. C. (2000). Writing in a milieu of utility: The move to technical communication in American engineering programs 1850-1950. 2nd edition. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Kynell, T., & Tebeaux, E. (2009). The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing: The emergence of a professional identity. Technical Communication Quarterly, 18(2), 107-141.
Lippincott, G. (1997). Experimenting at home: Writing for the nineteenth-century domestic workplace. Technical Communication Quarterly 6(4), 365-381.
Longo, B. (2000). Spurious coin: A history of science, management, and technical writing. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Tebeaux, E. (1997). The emergence of a tradition: Technical writing in the English renaissance, 1475-1640. Routledge.
*Tebeaux, E. (2014). The flowering of a tradition: Technical writing in English, 1641-1700. Routledge.
Rickard, T.A. (1908). A guide to technical writing. San Francisco: Mining and Scientific Press.
Kapp, R. O. (1948). The presentation of technical information. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Sullivan, P. (2012). After the Great War: Utility, Humanities, and Tracings From a Technical Writing Class in the 1920s. JBTC 26(2), 202-228.
Watt, The Composition of Technical Papers (1917)
Definitions of the Field
Dobrin, D. (1983). What’s technical about technical writing? In Central Works in Technical Communication, Ed. Johndon Johnson-Eilola, pp. 107-124.
Allen, J. (1990). The Case Against Defining Technical Writing.
Savage, G. (1996). Redefining the Responsibilities of Teachers and the Social Position of the Technical Communicator. TCQ, 5(3), 309-327.
Blakeslee, A. (2009). The Technical Communication Research Landscape. JBTC 23(2), 129-173.
Knievel, M. (2006). Technology Artifacts, Instrumentalism, and the Humanist Manifestos Toward an Integrated Humanistic Profile for Technical Communication. JBTC, 20(1), 65-86.
Visual Rhetoric/Information Design
Propen, A .D. (2012). Locating Visual-Material Rhetorics. Parlor Press.
Markel, M. and Wilson, K. (1996). Design and Document Quality: Effects of Emphasizing Design Principles in the Technical Communication Course. TCQ, 5(3), 271-294.
Whittemore, S. (2015). Rhetorical Memory: A Study of Technical Communication and Information Design. Chicago UP.
Williams, M. F. (2012). Reimagining NASA: A Cultural and Visual Analysis of the U.S. Space Program. JBTC 26(3), 368-89.
KImball, M., Kostelnick, C. (2015). Visible Numbers: Essays on the History of Statistical Graphics. Routledge.
Teston, C. Moving From Artifact to Action: A Grounded Investigation of Visual Displays of Evidence during Medical Deliberations. TCQ, 21, 187-209.
Rawlins, J.& Wilson, G. (2014). Agency and Interactive Data Displays: Internet Graphics as Co-Created Rhetorical Spaces. TCQ, 23, 303-323.
Tufte, E. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
Abers, M. & Mazur, M. (2003). Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication. Routledge.
Buehl, Toward an Ethical Rhetoric of the Digital Scientific Image: Learning From the Era When Science Met Photoshop
A Unified Theory of Information Design
Propen, A. (2007). Visual communication and the map: How maps as visual objects convey meaning in specific contexts. Technical Communication Quarterly, 16(2), 233-254.
Visualizing Technical Information: A Cultural Critique
Designing Texts: Teaching Visual Communication
How the Brain Processes Multimodal Technical Instructions
Editing: The Design of Rhetoric
Sociopolitical
Deadly Documents, Mark Ward Sr. (2014). (eBrary access through ProQuest)
Katz, S. (1993). Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Hitler’s Program, and the Ideological Problem of Praxis, Power, and Professional Discourse. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7(1), 37-62.
Wilson, Tech Comm and Late Capitalism
Herndl, Legacy of Critique and Promise of Practice (Spec. Iss. Intro.)
Stalinist Genetics
Risk Communication/Environmental Communication
Lindeman, Subjectivized Knowledge and Grassroots Advocacy.
Dombrowski, P. The two shuttle accident reports: Context and culture in technical communication. JTWC, 36(3), 231-252.
Booz Allen Hamilton. (2008). Tinker, T., & G. Galloway. How do you effectively communicate flood risks?: Looking to the future. White paper.
Exploding Steamboats, R. John Brockmann (20xx)
Malone, Patrick. “LANL officials downplayed dangers even after leak.” Sante Fe New Mexican.
Intercultural Communication
Communication Race
Cross-Cultural Communication
International Online Environments
Pedagogy, Programs, and Assessment
Teaching Intercultural Rhetoric
The New Normal
Assessment
Hurley and Kimme Hea, Preparing Students with Social Media
Northcut and Brumberger, Resisting the Lure of Technology-Driven Design
Scott, The Practice of Usability: Teaching User Engagement through Service Learning
Smith Taylor, I Really Don’t Know
Cargile Cook, Layered Literacies
Spinuzzi, Pseudotransactionality
Clark, C. (2014). Turn your syllabus into an infographic. nspired2.
Morain, M. & Swarts, J. YouTutorial: A Framework for Assessing Instructional Online Videos. Technical Communication Quarterly 21(1), 6-24.
Bacabac, ePortfolios in PW
Herndl, Teaching Discourse and Reproducing Culture.
Markel and Wilson Doc Des in Classroom
Wolfe, J. (2009). How technical communication textbooks fail engineering students. Technical Communication Quarterly, 18(4), 351-375.
Zoetewey, M., & Staggers, J. (2004). Teaching the Air Midwest Case: A stakeholder approach to deliberative technical rhetoric. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 47(4), 233-243.
Zemliansky, PW and Engineering Programs
Industry-Academy Relationships/Organizational Discourse
All Edge
*Bridgeford, T., & St. Amant, K. (2015). Academy-industry relationships and partnerships: Perspectives for technical communicators. Routledge.
Same
Rice-Bailey, Identity, Value, and Power.
Collaborative Writing in Industry
Geisler, C. (2001). Textual objects: Accounting for the role of texts in the everyday life of complex organizations. Written Communication, 18(3), 296-325.
Wilson and Herndl, Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Winsor, D. (2001). Learning to do knowledge work in systems of distributed cognition. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15(5), 5-28.
Rhetoric of Science
Communicating Science
Buehl, Toward an Ethical Rhetoric of the Digital Scientific Image: Learning From the Era When Science Met Photoshop
Kolodziejski, L. R. (2014). Harms of hedging in scientific discourse: Andrew Wakefield and the origins of the autism vaccine controversy. Technical Communication Quarterly 23(3), 165-183.
Rhetoric and Incommensurability
Hoover, The Impact of NSF and NIH Websites on Researcher Ethics
Science from Sight to Insight: How Scientists Illustrate Meaning
The Shaping of Science with Rhetoric
Sins Against Science
Walker, K., & Walsh, L. (2012). “No one yet knows what the ultimate consequences may be”: How Rachel Carson transformed scientific uncertainty into a site for public participation in Silent Spring. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 26(1), 3-34.
Special Issue, 2005, TCQ
Williams, Visual Analysis of NASA
Medical Rhetoric/Disability Studies
Fountain Flesh; Eberhard
*Rhetorical Accessability, Lisa Meloncon, (201x).
Bellwoar, Everyday Matters Health
Bounding Biomedicine
Graham, S. S. (2009). Agency and the rhetoric of medicine: Biomedical brain scans and the ontology of fibromyalgia. Technical Communication Quarterly 18(4), 376-404.
The Politics of Pain Medicine
Willerton, Health Info Online
Teston, Visual Med Displays
Civic Engagement
Planning as Persuasive Storytelling
Civic Engagement, TCQ
The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship
New/Digital/Social Media
Designing Web-Based Applications
Together with Technology
Schmidt, The New Media Writer as Cartographer
Word Processing for Technical Writers
Hurley and Kimme Hea, Preparing Students with Social Media
Digital Literacy for Technical Communication
Cargile Cook, Layered Literacies
Weber. Constrained Agency.
Zoetewey and Sullivan, Improved Communication via Wireless?
Willerton, Health Info Online
Corporate Policy
Markel Rhetoric of Misdirection
Weber. Constrained Agency.
Gaming
Mason, Video Games
Beale, M., McKittrick, M., & Richards, D. (2016).
Instructions
Morain, M. & Swarts, J. YouTutorial: A Framework for Assessing Instructional Online Videos. Technical Communication Quarterly 21(1), 6-24.
Van Ittersum, D. (2014). Craft and narrative in DIY instructions. Technical Communication Quarterly 23(3), 227-246.
Usability/UX
Alexander, Usability of Print and Online
Bellwoar, Everyday Matters Health
Hoover, The Impact of NSF and NIH Websites on Researcher Ethics
Scott, The Practice of Usability: Teaching User Engagement through Service Learning
User-Centered Technology
Kitalong et al. Beyond the Screen
Rawlins and Wilson, Agency and Interactive Data Displays.
Walton, Trust and Credibility
Rhetorically Rethinking Usability
Information and Content Management
McCarthy et al. Content Management
