2:1: Positioning Technical Communication Between the Sciences and Humanities
Up one levelShould technical communication be viewed primarily as scientific study, or is it better suited to the humanities? This debate, argued actively over the past twenty years, is still under way. This issue adds several new perspectives to recent discussion in the field.
- Ten Strategies for Consilience Among the Disciplines
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Connie Missimer
Can we achieve a true convergence among fields, with science and the humanities working in tandem to produce knowledge? This paper attempts eight rhetorical and two political strategies in a "gedanken experiment" to assess which among them might meet with greatest success in achieving that congruence. Some of the strategies will be adaptations of prominent writers, including theorists in Technical Communication. The question whether science and the humanities should, in fact, operate from the same attitudes and assumptions will be addressed in a final section. - Communication, Cognition, and Community
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David C. Smith
There is a vast assortment of schools of thought concerning how it is possible to communicate. How are we able to convey concepts successfully and accurately from one source to another? - Applying Audience Invoked Models to Instructional Design Methods
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Kelly A. Cleman
The field of instructional design can incorporate successfully many of the ideas about audience analysis and motivation prevalent in rhetorical theory. Of particular interest is how to incorporate audience invoked viewpoints from the rhetorical theory discourse community into the instructional design discourse community.