Call for Papers: Rhetoric and Technical Communication
Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association
33rd Annual Conference

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2011
Conference Date: February 8-11, 2012

Conference Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Michael J. Albers
East Carolina University
Spring 2009

Paul Dombrowski
University of Central Florida
Spring 2009

Rhetoric and ethics are related, Aristotle noted long ago. Our rhetorical choices reflect our values and our purposes. Especially in our activities to engage the public in complex technical issues, appropriate and effective rhetorical choices are vitally important.

David E. Hailey, Jr 
Utah State University
Spring 2009

Instructors designing online courses may want to look into Adobe’s newest suite for tools that will help them create interactive course content. Below I discuss my experiences with this new version as I designed online courses. In general, I found that the new suite works well, but it may also provide users with challenges.

Meg Morgan, ATTW Teaching Committee
UNC Charlotte
Fall 2009

David Beard
University of Minnesota Duluth
Fall 2009

Those of us who work primarily in the United States may not be familiar with the study and teaching of writing in the institutional and scholarly traditions north of the border within the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing (CASDW).  Its May 2009 meeting in Ottawa, Canada, at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences provided several insights about the perspectives that this group represents. 

Hillary Hart
STC President
Spring 2011

As someone who was skeptical for many years about certification for technical communicators, I want to explain why I now believe academics can get behind this program. First of all, there are several things the program is NOT:

Steven Jong
STC Certification Committee Chair
Spring 2011

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is implementing a performance-based certification program for technical communicators. The goal is to grant the first certifications later this year. STC believes certification will provide value to practitioners, clients, and the Society itself.

Certification will be open to all practitioners, not just STC members. An independent certification commission will oversee the program.

Paul Dombrowski
University of Central Florida
Spring 2011

Sandy Dorley
Conestoga College
Spring 2011

Many of us teach what has become known as the service course in technical writing.  Usually offered as a second-level writing course (after the obligatory essay/academic writing course in most colleges and universities), it contains students from many different disciplines. Often, their writing process is hit-and-miss at best.