Swarts – Recycled Writing: Assembling Actor Networks from Reusable Content

Swarts, Jason.  “Recycled Writing: Assembling Actor Networks from Reusable Content.” JBTC (2010): 127-163. Abstract: Drawing on a study of writers reusing content from one document to another, this study examines the rhetorical purpose of reuse. Writing reuse is predominantly studied through the literature on single sourcing and enacted via technologies built on single-sourcing models. Such theoretical models and derivative technologies... Read More

Lyon – Why Do the Rulers Listen to the Wild Theories of Speech-Makers?

Arabella Lyon – Why Do the Rulers Listen to the Wild Theories of Speech-Makers?” Or Wuuwei, Shi, and Methods of Comparative Rhetoric Lyon recognizes early on in this piece the challenge of comparative rhetoric:  “To read, interpret, and analyze outside of one’s home language and cultural traditions is a problem of ethics, cognition, and identity, more than simply one of method” (177). The problem of translation is central to this piece... Read More

CCR760 – Miller, Rutter, Sullivan, Lay, Slack et. al.

Readings from Johnson-Eilola and Selber’s Central Works in Technical Communication Miller, C.  (1979, 2004).  A humanistic rationale for technical communication.  47-54. Rutter, R. (1991, 2004). History, rhetoric, & humanism:  Toward a more comprehensive definition of technical communication.  20-34. Sullivan, D.L. (1990, 2004).  Political-ethical implications of defining technical communication as a practice. 211-219. Lay,... Read More

CCR691 – Network – Ch. 6 – for Comment

Spinuzzi, Clay. Network:  Theorizing Knowledge Work in Communications. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. Chapter Six:  Is Our Network Learning? Summary: In this chapter S. discusses how the nature of work has changed fundamentally in the age of informational capitalism.  By referring to workers as “deskilled” (Haraway), “dividuals” (Deleuze), “reskilled” (Castells), and “lifelong learners” (Zuboff and Maxmin), S. points out that the... Read More