|
|
SiteMap
-
Information about the Orange Journal, its policies, submission guidelines, and
editorial board.
-
Full-text articles from past issues of the Orange Journal.
-
If the field of technical communication is no longer solely concerned with technical writing, then the field needs a term to describe what it is that we do. 'Design,' with variants such as 'document design' and 'information design' have emerged in recent years as a more inclusive term for the aspects of tech comm which complement writing and editing. This issue discusses several topics surrounding information design in technical communication.
-
Tim Greenzweig
Usability engineering has taken a functional approach to technical communication and information design. However, the need for further discourse concerning the impact of aesthetics on the usability of information design can begin by developing a mature understanding of the compositional structure of visual information. This article looks at the ways in which visual composition contributes to a user's aesthetic experience and why such an experience is important when designing infromation structures.
-
Andrew Hinkelman
Much discussion in web usability in recent years has revolved around designing web sites which are intended to be easily accessible by even the least technologically advanced user. This attempt to attract the highest number of visitors is especially appropriate for promoting and selling goods and services. The inexperienced user unaccustomed to reading text displayed on monitors and unable to efficiently download multimedia files should not be alienated by highly detailed or stylized web writing or a lack of bandwidth. Yet, there are more-advanced users on the web that designers should consider when appropriate.
-
Amy Kerr
One of the most important aspects of information design is the planning process. Unfortunately, the planning process is one of the first items to get cut when schedules are tight. Projects that have skipped this step often suffer from problems that are difficult to fix once the site has been developed. For example, sites that have not been planned in advance often contain information that was added randomly and inconsistently, related topics don't link to one another, and readers have a frustrating experience navigating the site.
-
Tim Dereg
Streaming media is a method for delivering multimedia content, where video, audio, graphics, and animation can all play simultaneous roles in the presentation. This article gives a brief overview of streaming media technologies.
-
Should 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.
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
Many critics have argued that changes in any profession's material circumstances have implications for its theories and methodologies. This issue will examine what the Web, portable computing, and other emerging technologies might imply for future technical communication theory.
-
Jeanette Fisher
This paper is an attempt to explore how reader-response criticism and the overall approach to using rhetoric in technical communication may be impacted by the large amount of technical documentation moving to the Web. The discussion focuses on three main areas: moving from the "reader" to the "user" in online documentation; the value of plain language style in this medium; and how Web delivery seems to be bridging the gap between user interface (UI) text and help documentation.
-
Sandy Bartell
Audience analysis has figured prominently in Technical Communications curricula for many years because much of technical communication has to do with instructing and persuading people from specific discourse communities to do tasks. In order to get them to do these specialized tasks, we must be intimately familiar with their real and anticipated needs, expectations, and limitations. Many different models of the author/audience relationship have been proposed to aid in this analysis. These models have worked well (depending on what school of thought one subscribed to) when the main delivery system consisted of print media. However, the popularization of second-generation Web browsers in 1993 introduced a delivery medium that did not fit neatly into any previous theoretical framework.
-
For decades, technical communication theorists have grappled with the problem that readers don't all approach writings from the same perspective. In the 1970s, Reader-Response theory came to visibility and importance within theory in our field. This issue grapples with how to extend Reader-Response methodologies into contemporary and emerging challenges.
-
Melissa Wolfe
Individual characteristics such as attitudes, beliefs, previous knowledge, and experiences all play a part in how we process knowledge. It is relevant in composition processes as well.
-
Alyssa Robinson
Clear communication can exist without social constructionist theory, but understanding how the social construction of meaning affects discourse and text comprehension gives writers another tool with which to enhance that communication.
-
M. Bryant
Technical communication strives to convey information in ways to best help the reader, whether a jet-engine mechanic with manual in hand, a physicist reading a peer-reviewed article, or the new owner of the latest computer or coffeepot. Ideally, it presents information that people will read, understand, and find interesting. Technical communication could also draw from another field, journalism, which uses story structure and writing styles that readers everywhere are familiar with. And journalism is adept at adapting to an array of audiences.
-
Many technical communicators hear in the workplace that 'form' and 'content' are discrete elements. Subject matter experts often consider themselves providers of content, relegating technical communicators to mere addition of form or style to the substance. This issue rethinks that dichotomy, examining alternative theories which may explain our work better.
-
Lily Sun
One of the most frequent questions technical communicators encounter is what style they should write in. Unfortunately it is not an easy question. The answer to this question should come from careful theoretical studies and deliberate analysis of the audience and many other factors, such as social environment. This paper analyze theories, which guide the style in technical communication, from three angles: reader analysis, interpretive communities and whether technical communication is plain, instructional, or rhetorical.
-
Jerrod A. Larson
Technical communication is a form of education. As technical communicators we do not merely ask a reader (or viewer, user, or whoever) to elicit a certain response naively after interacting with something we produce, we strive for audience cognition. Through our documents we attempt to make our audience understand the design and operational philosophy of a computer program or machine (or whatever else), so that they can apply one instruction to another situation.
-
Dane K.T. Fukumoto
Information graphics have traditionally upheld the role as a constructor of clarity in visual communication; where interpretation experiments explicitly create obstacles in the exchanges of highly sensitive, impermeable data. Through clarity and a propensity towards objectivity, information graphics have advanced the institutional, empirical virtues of design for function and economy.
-
John W. Michael
Will the generation of readers that grow in the age of the Internet respond to text differently than earlier generations? They may seek instead, an active role in both the text and the options they have in the online world. How can text support this role? What kinds of rhetorical reading strategies brought fourth by technical communication could support new adaptations to text that allow the reader to actively engage in both content and navigation online to capture a richer, more rewarding experience?
-
Christian deMaagd
In this essay, I will use the work of several theorists to discuss, first, what the term 'interpretive community' entails; second, what the term means for the field of technical communication; and finally, I will extend empirical responses to humanitistic TC theory to include two coercions which technical communication can combat.
-
The status of technical communication as a profession has been a subject in debate in recent decades. This issue discusses how to address professional/practitioner dichotomies within the field of technical communication, how to increase our status within organizations and how should could and should imagine ourselves as a professional community.
-
Brianne Connolly
Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive communities has been highly regarded for the past two decades. This paper deals with the idea of multiple interpretive communities as they relate to technical communicators. Technical communicators have a duty to use rhetorical devices and embedded structural cues to help readers identify the correct interpretive framework.
-
Lisa Clare MacQueen
If we work at a large company or bureaucracy, the majority of us will play the role of cog no matter which rung of the ladder of hierarchy we happen to be standing on.
-
Susan Hubbard
The knowledge of theory is something that I have at my disposal to use in helping me anticipate the needs of my audience in regards to context and meaning. Understanding theory assists me in creating roles that readers enjoy assuming.
-
Jill Campbell
According to the technical writing textbook used in the Introductory to Technical Writing class I teach, there are two purposes and at least five audiences of technical documents. Yet students are taught only one style of writing to satisfy all writing situations: the plain style. This essay examines the history and current state of plain style's role in technical writing. It further discusses plain style's relation to rhetorical and instrumental approaches to technical communication, and finally offers writing teachers a new approach to plain style and instrumental language in technical writing.
-
Gail Gilliland
Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive communities has been highly regarded for the past two decades. This paper deals with the idea of multiple interpretive communities as they relate to technical communicators. Technical communicators have a duty to use rhetorical devices and embedded structural cues to help readers identify the correct interpretive framework.
-
The status of technical communication as a profession has been a subject in debate in recent decades. This issue discusses how to address professional/practitioner dichotomies within the field of technical communication, how to increase our status within organizations and how should could and should imagine ourselves as a professional community.
-
Peter Emonds-Banfield
In the information age it is widely understood that there is now too much information. Some of this newly created information will most certainly be valuable, but despite marked improvement in search tools, finding the valuable information is a slow panhandle. Perhaps in light of this situation, the W3C under the direction of Berners-Lee has begun to build the foundation for the next phase of the web. This phase, called the Semantic Web, will make information stored with this technology much more processible by machines.
-
Alexander Thayer
Defining the field of technical communication is a potentially impossible task. In some respects, the process of defining this profession is similar to Sisyphus' eternally futile task: Just as one theory is proposed within the technical communication discourse community, another article is published and the previous theory suddenly collapses. Unlike Sisyphus, however, the members of the discourse community should be able to successfully create a definition of the field based upon the best ideas from previous theories and writings.
-
Jana Jones
As technical communication teachers, we have the power to influence the status of our field and foster an understanding of good communication skills. We also face the struggle of imparting writing and speaking fundamentals as well as promoting advanced skills such as variation and innovation.
-
Alicia McBride
Many articles from recent decades begin with the assumption that technical communicators do not have much power to make ethical decisions about their work. We need to start with a basic understanding of the relationships that technical communicators build with that audience in their work and identify ways in which those relationships might have ethical implication.
-
Looking at present practices in technical and professional communication should inform both present and future 'best practices.' But we don't always examine every element of the present properly. This issue examines four aspects of present practice often underestimated.
-
Mindi McDowell, Stephanie Trunzo, Kristin Vincent
Research has shown that one of the best ways for courses in the humanities and social sciences to develop students' analytical skills is through class discussion. However, our own experiences have shown that some distance-learning courses in these fields do not provide the sense of community necessary for effective discussion. This is important because the number of courses taught at a distance is growing exponentially each year.
-
Jeanie Comstock
Although technical communication documents cannot possibly be tailored to exactly match the interest, reading level and many-faceted influences of a reader, they can I believe, take measures to engage the reader to believe that the information he or she is receiving from the document is valuable to their experience in some way.
-
Walter H. Boelter
One important aspect of technical writing is the production and use of procedures. Though technical writing serves a variety of purposes, teaching, informing, persuading, and even questioning, one of its primary and most common purposes is the 'how-to' function of providing procedures. There is a great deal of information available on writing procedures, the vast majority of it focusing on software documentation and product documentation.
-
Anthony Torrence
The future of Technical Communication is something that we are all, as either practitioners, academics or students, keenly interested in. What is the future of our chosen discipline? What exactly is it that a practitioner in the field does today? This paper will explain that through examining one sub-discipline of Technical Communication, Usability, we may see an example of the beginnings of a pattern of professional development.
-
You'd think that technology would be an obvious part of technical communication. But there's more to consider than you'd think.
-
Tami Kays
Technical communicators can gain knowledge and expertise in web technology including developing intranet sites, usability engineering, and knowledge management.
-
Toni Davis
We seem to be constantly chasing the latest and greatest technology, eternally one step behind. Our continual struggle to establish the field of technical communication yet assert dominance over new technological domains seem to be in direct conflict with each other. How can we possibly establish our dominance over a moving target? Instead of trying to peer into future, perhaps we need to look toward the past.
-
Benford A. Bennett
As computers become more complex and pervasive in modern society, humans also become more dependent on the systems and services supporting the computer. The ability to efficiently deal with problems when there is a break in the technical system will be more critical as society heads down this technological path.
-
Technical communication's relationship to electronic publishing differs a bit from that of other fields, such as computer science or literature. The articles in this issue begin to articulate some of the implications of electronic publishing for our field.
-
Tami Kays
Corporate intranet sites can be very powerful tools for employees. Unfortunately, many corporate intranet sites have not been successful. Often, intranets fail because they do not contain information that is useful to employees or they are too difficult or impossible to use. This paper describes a methodology that can be used when creating an intranet. The proposed methodology describes possible stages of an intranet project in a large company and the roles and contributions a technical communicator could provide.
-
Jeanie Comstock
Online publishing technologies is an ever-changing, morphing animal that cannot necessarily be predicted, but perhaps we can work to harness it. As publishing technologies change, so too will the style in which the readability of those documents change as they are shaped and designed to meet new formulas and needs. Likewise, as the readability and accessibility of documents change, so too must the interaction and intervention of the technical communicator change to ensure readable, articulate, navigable documentation, as well as preserve an author-reader relationship and also to preserve the role of the technical communicator.
-
Christian deMaagd
Perhaps unfortunately, the field of tech comm has few, if any, well-known examples of what happens to those who don’t pay attention to copyright issues. One of the most interesting areas in which to explore the perils of copyright violation is in the world of American hip-hop music. I will explore the similarities between the copyright issues faced by hip-hop artists, and those faced by technical communicators.
-
Discussions about the significance of technologies to communication within the workplace.
-
J.R. Cook
Gives a brief overview about how RFID tags work and examines the threat RFID tags pose to consumers and privacy in general.
-
Ryan Kennedy
Examines the application of the World Wide Web in class education and research and the ways in which the Internet has enabled cheating and given educators ways to fight plagiarism.
-
Jessi Knox
Argues that employees' misunderstanding of email in the workplace has in part stemmed from employers not being direct about the need to monitor it. By being clear and direct, employers can possibly reduce misuse and ultimately the need for such intrusive email monitoring.
-
Andrew Pratt
This paper is a multidimensional exploration of email overload, incorporating a mixture of studies and opinions presented by various experts.
-
Discussions of the significance of technologies to communication within the workplace.
-
Joe Danielson
In a broad sense that the weblog can be beneficial to the business world as a whole. More specifically, however, it provides technical communicators with unprecedented opportunites at innovation and leadership.
-
Jacque Henson
Argues that technical communicators need to evaluate our dependence on electricity so that we are prepared for the possibility of a future without traditional sources of electricity. In order to evaluate our energy dependence, we need to consider the sustainability of new technologies before introducing them to our society.
-
Kyley Dutton
Examines the ways in which electronic communication has affected interaction of coworkers in the workplace and the responsibility of technical communicators to ensure positive interactions with coworkers.
-
A small collection of articles about topics too-seldom discussed in our field, but which deserve closer examination.
-
Tim Hicks
If a single course is to be an effective representation of the discipline it should hope to include rhetoric, critical thinking, formalism, service learning, and civic rhetoric to, depending on how effectively so much can be managed within a semester.
-
Amy Striker
Explores some possible approaches to understanding typeface “personality,” including empirical research and scholarly discussion, in the hopes of generating more discussion about how we can understand and use typeface personality when creating organizational identity packages.
-
Quinn Warnick
This article traces the ongoing debate surrounding instrumental discourse in technical communication scholarship and identifies steps that scholars should take to increase the efficacy of this debate.
-
Defining the field of technical communication, and clarifying its relationship to other disciplines is more difficult than one might imagine.
-
Sara Smith
If knowledge management is an appropriate framework for technical communication, how should technical communicators define their roles in knowledge management systems? Perhaps more importantly, how do technical communicators want others in their organizations to perceive them?
-
Amanda Metz Bemer
There is a certain need to define the field of technical communication: a definition that we as practicioners and scholars can adapt for different audiences in order to create a clear image. The reasons to create a definition are stronger than the reasoning behind letting our field remain perpetually undefined.
-
Miranda White
Traces the experiences of a new entrant in the field of technical communication, and examines the competitive and cooperative nature of that field.
-
An issue focusing on the issues of diversity within the fields of technical and scientific communication.
-
Sarah Brown
Women can be either encouraged or discouraged to take on the role of engineer through communication. Encouraging women to take on the role of engineer is imperative because of the lack of women currently in engineering.
-
Lisa Heitzman
Argues that it is crucial that technical writing courses raise the awareness of the implications of intercultural communication, and specifically, how to include the translator as the target audience.
-
Brenda Daisy
Our rejection of language as a system necessitates the rejection of pedagogical methods that seek to cultivate “linguistic competence” or seek to develop “intercultural competence” on top of the “regular” work of technical communication instruction.
-
|
