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Purpose: This article investigates why workplace lactation law, guidance, and policy may fail to support women. It examines the epistemological and ethical bases of technical communication governing Virginia K--12 teachers and considers complex material conditions and opportunities for social justice intervention. Method: I employed a qualitative critical discourse analysis of three Virginia codes governing workplace lactation and one state human resources guidance document, examining their interaction with the Federal Labor Standards Act and 10 local school district policies. I drew on Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) social justice scholarship, disability studies, and apparent feminism scholarship to interpret my findings. Results: Documents governing workplace lactation are based on an ableist mindset that marginalizes women's bodies. They prioritize an ethic of expediency, draw on medical knowledge while ignoring women's knowledge and material conditions, and perpetuate systemic inequities. Conclusion: To promote social justice, technical communicators should continue questioning the epistemological and ethical bases of laws, policies, and guidance since documents informed by knowledge and ideologies that devalue the people they purport to protect will fail in implementation. Local policymakers need not wait for institutional changes but can look for opportunities to reimagine design approaches and intervene to create supportive, inclusive workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The communication of technical information is often susceptible to cognitive biases. Technical communicators need to understand cognitive biases and know how to tackle them accordingly. This article devises a framework of principles that provides technical communicators an operable affordance and a vocabulary to approach cognitive biases and to communicate empathetically. Method: I review a vast body of literature in technical communication with a focus on problems caused by cognitive biases. This work reveals significant problems in information visualization that can provide for a nuanced discussion on cognitive biases in technical communication. Using these problems as a guide, I draw upon cognitive theories in how people use information, the prospect theory about how people make decisions, and the self-determination theory about how such decisions are influenced by the social context. I then assemble a framework of principles that illuminates the workings of cognitive biases. I extrapolate sample questions that technical communicators can use to examine cognitive biases in information visualization and technical communication. Results: The framework of principles explains how cognitive biases affect technical communication. These principles are useful for gaining a deeper understanding of users from a cognitive bias perspective and optimizing for empathetic communication. Conclusion: Technical communicators and users are prone to cognitive biases. The framework of principles, cognitive biases, and sample questions presented in this article provide technical communicators a new lens to examine their work and improve user experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article presents a UX study conducted during a roundtable collaborative event with Indigenous interpreters and translators. The work highlights the value of Indigenous testimonios as a UX method for gathering narratives that trace a user's experience through a collective voice. Testimonios also trace users' social and cultural contexts while prompting participants to exercise their agency and promote social change. Method: This UX study engages Indigenous testimonios as a primary method. Mapping testimonios allows researchers to explore a participant's narrative arc that begins with a personal experience that links a collective struggle resulting from a system of oppression and ends with a call for social change. Results: Using testimonios as a UX method yielded data that traced individual and collective pain points that defined the critical issues with which Indigenous interpreters and translators grapple and emphasized their civic engagement, amplifying their agency through a method situated in their contexts. This work also highlights dialogue and desahogo, or emotional relief, as key elements of testimonios shared in a collective setting. This study shows that Indigenous interpreters and translators, as technical communicators, are foremost community activists. Conclusion: A testimonio method prompts participants to reflect on issues at a deeper level through narratives and dialogue. It also engages the unique differences of participants while revealing general similarities. Testimonios can ultimately help design content, products, and processes that better align with the unique contexts of Indigenous individuals and other underrepresented groups who express their needs in a collective manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Technical communication (TC) is an emerging topic which has received attention in both the field of language studies and among the technical profession in the last few decades. In this article, a scientometric review of academic publications to explore the intellectual landscape and evolutionary characteristics of TC research worldwide between 2001 and 2020 is conducted. Methods: Visualization software was employed to analyze co-citation and co-word networks from 2,183 articles published in Web of Science and Scopus databases from 2001 to 2020. Results: The findings indicate that TC research has increased in recent years and has been done in the English language departments and technology departments in recent years. Then, five clusters form the intellectual structure of TC research: translation training, methodologies in TC, composition studies, rhetorical action, and the industry's needs. Finally, the findings indicated there were paradigm shifts in the field of TC. Further, the evolution analysis has shown that the current trends of TC research is now focused on TC pedagogy, a global TC, human-computer interaction, and language learning and training. Conclusion: This review provides reliable information for academics and practitioners to identify the knowledge base, the evolutionary process, and the emerging trends in the TC field from visualized maps. This review can serve as a prelude for future TC research and can provide a guide for the TC skills required among professionals in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Twitter is a promising technical communication platform for companies, but a thorough understanding of how it works best is lacking. This study analyzes characteristics of IT companies' technical communication tweets and relates them to users' online engagement (likes, retweets, replies). Three message characteristics were included: content, message elements, and communication strategies. Method: We collected technical communication tweets posted by four IT companies in two weeks (N = 1,604). We developed a content categorization and also coded the tweets for message elements, communication strategies, and online engagement. Message elements and communication strategies were compared with those used in the companies' corporate and marketing communication tweets. Negative binomial regression analyses were used to map relationships between message characteristics and online engagement. Results: Ten content types were distinguished, illustrating the versatile nature of technical communication on Twitter. Hyperlinks were the most prominent message element; two types of elements were less prevalent: elements enhancing attractiveness (photos, videos, emojis) and elements connecting to a broader Twitter discourse (hashtags, mentions). Communication strategies did not include community-building tweets; evoking action was most prominent. Several links were found between message characteristics and online engagement: Providing user instructions or updates and feedback opportunities, including photos or videos, and providing one-way information promoted online engagement. Conclusion: Although Twitter might work differently for technical communication than for other domains, it seems fruitful to add more attractive message elements and explore community-building strategies within technical communication. However, there is also reason to relativize the importance of online engagement indicators for technical communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Recently, interest in usability has grown in the technical communication (TC) field, but we lack a current cohesive literature review that reflects this new growth. This article provides an integrative literature review on usability, its goals, and approaches to accomplish those goals in relation to TC's commitment to social justice and empowerment. Methods: I conducted an integrative literature review on usability to synthesize and characterize TC's growing commitment to social justice and empowerment. I searched scholarly publications and trade literature that included books and book chapters on usability. Adopting grounded theory and content analysis as research techniques to systematically evaluate data corpus, I read and classified selected publications to approach the research questions and iteratively analyzed the data to identify themes within each research question. Results: Surveying the definitions and descriptions of usability in the literature corpus shows that there is no consensus definition of usability. Findings suggest that the goal of usability can be classified as: a) pragmatic or functional goals, b) user experience goals, and c) sociocultural goals. Given the recent cultural and social justice turns in TC, my findings reveal a number of social justice-oriented design approaches for usability. Conclusions: Usability should not be viewed solely as a means of achieving pragmatic and/or user experience goals. Practitioners also need to consider usability from sociocultural orientations to accomplish its sociocultural goals. From interconnected global perspectives, the review implies the need for adopting more viable and culturally sustaining design approaches for successfully accommodating cultural differences and complexities for promoting social justice and user empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Contemporary non-profit organizations must reach a variety of audiences in order to sustain themselves and must compel these audiences to take action on behalf of a specific cause. At the same time, past research has indicated that nonprofit professionals often lack the necessary training and expertise to leverage digital technologies for effective communication. This research study explores how technical communicators can assist non-profits by helping them develop effective content strategies. Method: This report of research findings is based on an ongoing Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, which included a series of focus groups with representatives of thirteen different organizations as well as interventions with several other organizations. The goal has been to learn about and help improve non-profit content strategy in the community of Greenville, North Carolina. Results: We found that while non-profits do rely on a variety of media to fulfill their goals, they prefer pre-digital media. Our participants also defined audiences in a very loose manner, used content in a non-targeted way, and favored existing organizational processes over content strategy best practices. Conclusions: Ultimately, we provide several ways technical communicators can assist non-profits through low-cost or free consulting and the development of educational materials. We hope that fellow professionals will engage in this necessary work because non-profits in the United States form an important "third sector" of the economy that provides essential services to countless individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Students enroll in college to gain expertise for the workplace. Students are trained in academia to avoid plagiarism by citing sources and refraining from copying others' written works. However, in workplace writing and technical communication, common workplace practices reuse, repurpose, and remix content of works authored by others. Unfortunately, this causes a significant disconnect between what students learn and how this learning applies in the workplace. The following questions guided the study: 1. How do the latest editions of widely used technical communication textbooks in the United States teach students about plagiarism, collaboration/authorship, copyright, and ethics? 2. How do the approaches used in textbooks align with workplace practices? Method: In the first phase of the analysis, each textbook was searched to locate any depictions of plagiarism, collaboration/authorship, copyright, and ethics as they relate to the workplace. Then a qualitative content analysis was conducted using a rating scale developed incorporating suggestions researchers made on how to best teach plagiarism and copyright infringement avoidance. Results: Each of the eight texts was rated on each criterion with a possible total of 30 points. Most texts scored 10 or less, one scored 12, and two of the texts scored 15 or above. The extent to which introductory textbooks address each of the criteria was generally abysmal. The texts largely did not address common types of workplace writing and how copyright and plagiarism apply in those situations. Conclusion: The majority of widely used introductory technical communication textbooks do not thoroughly and clearly explain plagiarism, collaboration/authorship, copyright, and ethics in workplace writing. Additionally, these textbooks do not present context-specific scenarios to which students can apply this information. However, several of the texts do provide examples of workplace activities that contradict academic views of authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this article, we (re)consider the moments of creativity and beauty in the work of technical communication and how those moments can be better incorporated into, emphasized, explored, and engaged with in classroom instruction or other training. Method: We performed a literature review of texts published in the last 25 years, identified by searching for the keywords "creativity" and "beauty" in technical communication journals, to understand how these concepts have been theorized and included in the field recently. We then extended this prior literature to consider how beauty and creativity might be incorporated into technical communication teaching/training. The suggestions offered are grounded in experiences, observations, and student feedback from our own classrooms and training, and/or from other classroom studies and additional literature from the field. Results: We identified creative approaches that help students and practitioners think more intentionally about audience, purpose, and visual elements in technical communication. These approaches reinforce (rather than distract from) established principles of technical communication. We offer practical solutions for instructors and trainers who are intrigued by more creative techniques but may, for various reasons, consider artistic elements inappropriate or unworkable in their classrooms. Conclusion: Fostering an appreciation for creative and beautiful communication in the classroom helps develop more effective technical communicators. Especially considering that the ways audiences encounter and interact with information have been changing rapidly, technical communicators must be able to think and create both visually and spatially, as well as connect with users on a human level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The maturity of technical communication merits a comprehensive, longitudinal analysis of the content published in its leading journals and the scholars who produce this research. Although reflexive research is common in the sciences and social sciences, few studies have analyzed the body of research in technical communication. Clarity on content and authorship patterns can help position the field for future relevance and sustainability. Method: We conducted a quantitative content analysis on 672 articles published in five leading technical communication journals from 1996-2017. Articles were coded on nine content variables related to primary topic, primary audience, and authorship. We subsequently conducted a correspondence analysis on the variables to identify how specific content areas associated with the journals. Results: Content and authorship patterns were near identical to the patterns found in the field 30 years prior. The journals published content primarily focused on rhetoric, genre, pedagogy, and diversity. In contrast, field-defining topics--usability/UX, comprehension, design, and editing and style--appeared in the sample less than expected. A majority of research was single-authored and written by female first authors; further, a majority of the first authors had academic affiliations in the United States. Conclusion: Scholars must consider if these content and authorship patterns are the products of deliberate choices and, if so, if this is the field's inevitable trajectory for the next 30 years. We argue that certain topics are being overproduced while other topics that established the field are being underproduced and, in some cases, being assumed by other disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to address the changing identity of the technical communication (TC) field based on how it's defined, what hard and soft skills are needed, what courses are beneficial, and how to best prepare students for the evolving workplace. Method: We interviewed 15 technical communicators in three different categories (academic program directors, practitioners, and recent graduates) and analyzed the interviews to determine if technical communicators have similar perspectives about the field. Results: Findings showed inconsistencies among the definition of TC, the required skills for students entering the workplace, the field's outlook, the value of professional development, the courses, and requirements of academic programs in TC. Conclusion: The hybrid perspectives on these important questions challenge the framework for how we have traditionally considered these questions. This study provides additional context into how the academic field sees TC, how practitioners see it, and whether or not students are prepared for the workforce after graduation based on the coursework they have completed and the skills they have gained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: As digital media continue to proliferate into every aspect of our lives, sound is playing an ever-increasing role in the conveyance of information. Because digital messages via the Internet, cell phones, smart devices, and personal devices are typically shorter and more direct than traditional text-based communication, digital communication will necessarily improve via other, less textual cues. Visually, we already see this through the use of digital cues, such as emojis and graphical displays (e.g., GPS charts). But digital communication, in the future, will gain much from the expanded use of sound. As yet, no analytical framework for classifying sound in technical communication has been established. Method: The author revisits some historical uses of sound in technical communication before proposing a model for analyzing current and future sounds. Results: Tools that encompass signaling, linguistics, paralinguistics, extralinguistics, and rhetoric can be used to analyze complex sonic combinations and to generate new sounds for technical communication. Conclusions: A first model is proposed along with recommendations for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: As the field of Technical Communication adapts to changing conditions, new ways of describing the field are vital. This article discusses important characteristics of hypertext theory, developed over the last 70+ years, as a theoretical foundation that informs and defines the core competencies and practices of the field of technical communication. Method: This article initially reviews the significant literature on hypertext theory as well as recent selections, which help situate or define technical communication in the 21st century. From this literature, we developed a framework to examine correlations between characteristics of hypertext theory and compared those to skills, processes, and products in technical communication. Results: Hypertext is a foundational theory which informs the processes and practices of contemporary technical communication, and in particular, core competencies in developing content, design, structure, and in the processes of information development and user experience design. Given technological evolutions, technical communicators continue to work with content informed by hypertextual theories and practices, to create multi-pathed, user-driven, dynamic experiences. Conclusions: Characteristics of hypertext theory have become essential parts of the core competencies required in the daily work of technical communicators. Furthermore, they can be used to describe our daily work as well as to help us frame professional development, certification programs, and identify as a field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to illustrate how processes of translation, technical communication, and design converge in the development and dissemination of multilingual content at a non-profit organization in the US. Method: As part of a larger project, the researchers observed and recorded (through video footage and field notes) translation activities taking place in a Language Services office during the course of two years. To visualize translation activities, the researchers used screencast recordings that captured how translators coordinated digital resources (e.g., digital translation tools, online dictionaries) to successfully translate information. Finally, the researchers conducted 12 artifact-based interviews with translators at the research site. Results: Results show that translation, technical communication, and design activities are enacted iteratively and recursively by participants at this research site. Translators at this site must work across diverse design processes (UX design, information design, visual and document design) that often get subsumed into the translation process. Although employees within this organization do not consider themselves designers or technical communicators, the work that takes place within this office requires expertise across these areas of study and practice. Conclusion: Designing and creating multilingual content often requires the intellectual contributions of individuals who can move across translation, technical communication, and design activities simultaneously. As the field of technical communication (particularly in the US) continues to acknowledge the value of global, multilingual content, it's important that we highlight the expertise and added value of the multilingual communicators who make this work possible and accessible to users across cultures and languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Technical communication research should link the academy to industry and sustain both with a foundation for solving problems and identifying new areas of inquiry. However, the publication needs and motivations of academics and practitioners have resulted in content alignment issues so divergent that it oftentimes appears that both parties are from different planets. Method: We empirically analyzed the content within 1,048 published articles over a 20-year period within core professional and academic forums. We coded the articles for variables related to topic and audience. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and correspondence analysis. Results: Our field's core content forums have evolved little over the last 27 years. Results also indicated distinct differences in article topics and audience that reflect the varying interests of academics and practitioners. Intercom and Technical Communication Quarterly emerged as the most defined forums. Conclusion: The incongruity within professional and academic articles further suggests that we are a fragmented discipline. We recommend that our current content forums adopt structured abstracts and implications statements to unify our research and that researchers seek alternative audiences for their scholarship. We also call on practitioners to strengthen their involvement in research, either by contributing to scholarship or by volunteering their organizations as research sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article describes a study conducted among technical communication managers. As one part of a special issue reporting on the entire study, this particular article focuses on the participants' responses to questions about education and training of technical communicators, including credentialing, skills and competencies, the gap between school and work, professional development, and the pattern of technical communication careers in terms of professional growth. Method: This study used a modified Delphi method. To gather data, we used two sets of survey questions and two structured interviews. Results: Participants valued basic technical writing skills and traditional credentialing (such as college degrees in TPC) over technical degrees or certifications. Yet they also advised that academic programs push students to develop strategic thinking and other professional skills and confidence. Conclusion: Practitioners will need both basic skills and strategic skills to advance in their careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article provides a snapshot of how industry leaders currently conceptualize our identities and relationships, as well as some of the challenges we continue to face as a profession. Method: This study used a modified Delphi method. To gather data, we used two sets of survey questions and two structured interviews. Results: Technical communicators are functioning as agile, adaptable, and multispecialists in a broad range of organizational functions. They have become increasingly visible and valuable assets throughout a project lifecycle, and in many cases are able to define their own roles, which include team leadership and management responsibilities. Conclusion: Technical communicators continue to serve in core functional responsibilities in a wide range of industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article introduces a special issue assessing the attitudes, ideas, and practices of technical communication managers representing several prominent companies on the Society for Technical Communication's Advisory Council in 2013-2014. Method: The research team used a modified Delphi method to assess the opinions of this group of experts over several rounds. This article describes and justifies the methodological approach of the entire study. Results: The results are described in three individual articles following this introduction in the special issue, taking up the topics respectively of Identities and Relationships, Products and Processes, and Training and Education. Conclusion: Technical communication should pay more attention to the perspective of publications managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the current state of technical communication in Finland, with a look into the future of the field as practitioners see it. This article is part of a larger study investigating technical communication through activity theory. Method: The study utilizes autoethnographic interview data to explore and analyze some of the issues technical communicators are currently facing, and how these issues affect their expectations for the future. The literature of the field is used to further illustrate the points made. Results: User-centeredness is widely recognized as one of the main quality factors in technical communication, but the current work processes of the field do not allow technical communicators access to users or user data. The interviewees are not satisfied with their current work conditions and fear for the future of the field. Conclusion: It is discovered that while we are currently facing serious problems, there is still a need for user advocates in the product development process. A new model for technical communication is needed in order for the field to survive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To demonstrate that the professionalization of our field is a long-term project that has included achievements as well as setbacks and delays Methods: Archival research and analysis. Results: Many of the professionalization issues that we are discussing and pursuing today find their genesis--or at least have antecedents--in the work of the founders of the profession in the 1950s. Conclusions: Our appraisal of our professionalization gains must be tempered by a certain amount of realism and an awareness of the history of the professionalism movement in technical communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article examines specific manifestations of the generalizations identified by literature in pedagogy in a Chinese university. Method: Five open questions were asked of the university's five technical communication instructors in a 90-minute focus-group interview session to identify the important areas in pedagogy as conditioned by Chinese culture. The 300 students were surveyed to reveal their understanding of technical communication as it existed in China. Features as conditioned by Chinese culture and as manifested in the 300 students were also identified through my teaching and observing their performance in class. Results: The five instructors taught the same lessons and the same course content determined by the university. They focused on teaching professional terms and phrases. They administered examinations throughout a semester to help students memorize the terms. The 300 students generally thought that technical communication was about science and technology. The general audience of technical communication, for them, was basically their country, and the purpose was to serve their country and society. In class, these students often studied through collaboration in groups; they memorized almost everything from their professor; and they preferred a broad thinking style to tackling broad issues. Conclusions: Technical communication pedagogy is governed by Confucianism and the test-oriented Chinese society. In class, students were motivated by the collectivism Chinese culture stresses. Students' rote learning approach was influenced by their traditional way of learning, and the broad thinking style was a textual mechanism for students to complete assignments while upholding patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To present a significant historical document in the decades-long movement to professionalize technical communication Method: Historical analysis and textual editing Results: Light's 1961 article applied then-current definitions of a profession to technical writing and suggested that technical writers could become professionals only through formal education and training. Conclusions: On the 50th anniversary of its publication, Light's article illustrates the tenor of discussions about professionalization in the early years of our profession and invites comparison with current professionalization discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]