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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Transfer And The Commodification Of Practice., Kenneth Andrew Smith Dec 2014

Transfer And The Commodification Of Practice., Kenneth Andrew Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation engages in a close reading of the research in composition on transfer, a concept that refers to how the practices learned in one situation influence what a person can do in a future situation. In the studies that have appeared over the last two decades, the results have indicated that not much transfers between writing courses and future contexts, whether they be disciplinary courses or professional workplaces. Yet, despite the increasing prominence of transfer research, little time has been spent discussing the uses and limitations of the concept. To better understand its growing popularity among researchers, I examine …


The State Of The Anti-Union Address: A Rhetorical Critique Of Select Service Worker Training Methods, Richard Ries Jan 2014

The State Of The Anti-Union Address: A Rhetorical Critique Of Select Service Worker Training Methods, Richard Ries

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an interdisciplinary master's level thesis that explores links among technical writing, training manuals, surveillance, and anti-union rhetoric used with service workers in select American chains and franchises. Brief histories are provided, including those of technical writing, the rise of unions in America, and how technical writing became inextricably linked with labor. A major shift occurred in the 20th century when workers began interacting less with products and more with the public. The research focuses on training manuals, techniques, and rehearsed dialogues of McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Panera, and Publix, though similar organizations are referenced. Service worker language, …


Arrangement Of Google Search Results And Imperial Ideology: Searching For Benghazi, Libya, Jacob Stewart Jan 2014

Arrangement Of Google Search Results And Imperial Ideology: Searching For Benghazi, Libya, Jacob Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project responds to an ongoing discussion in scholarship that identifies and analyzes the ideological functions of computer interfaces. In 1994, Cynthia Selfe and Richard Selfe claimed that interfaces are maps of cultural information and are therefore ideological (485). For Selfe and Selfe and other scholars, these interfaces carried a colonial ideology that resulted in Western dominance over other cultures. Since this early scholarship, our perspectives on interface have shifted with changing technology; interfaces can no longer be treated as having persistent and predictable characteristics like texts. I argue that interfaces are interactions among dynamic information that is constantly being …


Composing The Classroom, Constructing Hybridity: Writing Technology In(To) First-Year Composition Course Design, Christopher Friend Jan 2014

Composing The Classroom, Constructing Hybridity: Writing Technology In(To) First-Year Composition Course Design, Christopher Friend

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Online education has received excessive attention in recent decades as its characteristics and potential have undergone intense debate and scrutiny. Similar debate and scrutiny surround the content of first-year composition (FYC) courses. As we continue to define what composition studies entails, we redefine what we study in FYC. Yet discussions of blended delivery mode---using both online and on-ground teaching methods---get lost amid these debates. This dissertation addresses the dearth of research on blended online writing instruction by asserting the essential nature of connections between the content and the delivery of FYC courses. Through case studies of two experienced instructors teaching …


Kaleidoscopic Community History: Theories Of Databased Rhetorical History-Making, Amy Larner Giroux Jan 2014

Kaleidoscopic Community History: Theories Of Databased Rhetorical History-Making, Amy Larner Giroux

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To accurately describe the past, historians strive to learn the cultural ideologies of the time and place they study so their interpretations are situated in the context of that period and not in the present. This exploration of historical context becomes critical when researching marginalized groups, as evidence of their rhetorics and cultural logics are usually submerged within those of the dominant society. This project focuses on how factors, such as rhetor/audience perspective, influence cross-cultural historical interpretation, and how a community history database can be designed to illuminate and affect these factors. Theories of contact zones and rhetorical listening were …


Tractors And Genres: Knowledge-Making And Identity Formation In An Agricultural Community, Marcy Galbreath Jan 2014

Tractors And Genres: Knowledge-Making And Identity Formation In An Agricultural Community, Marcy Galbreath

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the history of a small Florida agricultural community over the course of the twentieth century from a rhetorical perspective in order to understand the technological and communicative transitions that governed the development of American agricultural production. By examining archival and oral histories, this research will add to our understandings of how written and oral communications temper the relationships and social situations of an agricultural community, including the knowledge-making and technological adaptation resulting from communications within the community and with outside institutions and entities. Agricultural villages are not isolated entities, but rather sites of multiple rhetorical situations, and …


Let Me Tell You About Homestuck: The Online Production Of Place, Jennifer Short Jan 2014

Let Me Tell You About Homestuck: The Online Production Of Place, Jennifer Short

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the potential for the online production of place, specifically as it applies to the host site for the Homestuck web comic, MS Paint Adventures, and its attendant fandom. The proliferation of digital environments such as video games, web sites, and chat rooms has led to numerous opportunities for the study of online spaces and the numerous practices that take place within them. The lack of physical location in online spaces can, however, make it difficult to conceptualize of a web site as real, a problem that has often led researchers to develop new theories of space that …