Technical and Professional Writing Commons^™

Creating A Standard Operating Procedures Manual: The Ualr Graduate School Experience, Shannon Marie Clowney

Theses and Dissertations

In the summer of 2009 I was given the task to create a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) manual for the Graduate School at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. This was a unique work assignment because SOPs are typically created for scientific, medical, or military organizations. Therefore there was not a reliable template I could find to use as a model for this document. The purpose of this thesis is to help fill that gap. It offers other technical writers a set of steps to follow when given the task of writing an SOP for an organization within higher …

Simulations For Financial Literacy, Angela Hamilton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Financially literate consumers are empowered with the knowledge and skills necessary to make sound financial decisions that ensure their long-term economic well-being. Within the context of the range of cognitive, psychological, and social factors that influence consumer behavior, simulations enhance financial literacy by developing consumers’ mental models for decision-making. Technical communicators leverage plain language and visual language techniques to communicate complex financial concepts in ways that consumers can relate to and understand. Simulations for financial education and decision support illustrate abstract financial concepts, provide a means of safe experimentation, and allow consumers to make informed choices based on a longitudinal …

The Gender Gap In Technical Communication: How Women Challenge The Predominant Objectivist Paradigm, Nathan Bower

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women are currently underrepresented in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how this underrepresentation translates to a gender gap in the field of technical communication and how this gap causes women to challenge the predominant objectivist paradigm in the field. Through an investigation of peer-reviewed journal articles, periodicals, critical theory, and articles published in online magazines such as Slate, I identify the gendered nature of modern technology and discuss to what extent a shift in the predominant paradigm has occurred in the professional arena. In looking at several theoretical approaches …

Technology Implementation In K-12 Schools: A Research Study Of Perceptions And Practice, Kaitlin Martinez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, even though 97% of classrooms have at least one instructional computer available, only 40% of teachers in public schools (including elementary and secondary) report using computers in the classroom often. My project aims to illustrate the barriers that are keeping K-12 teachers from integrating technology in their classrooms, such as the lack of availability for training, teacher’s lack of knowledge or schooling, or a lack of IT support. It also discusses possible solutions to the problem, such as teacher training and better resources. By assessing the Level of Technology Integration, or LoTi, …

Lac 1a Instructor Resource Guide: Uni I Am Writing, David Grant, Debra Dimond Young

Faculty Work

Writing is an important aspect of any college experience. It goes beyond mere examinations of knowledge and is part of the very learning process itself. We are proud to have so much collective experience and so many talents across our campus that can help students in all years tackle a ubiquitous task that is at once complex, daunting, and seemingly self-­‐evident. This guide is meant to supplement, support, and enhance the talents and experience of our staff. We recognize that teaching writing is a collaborative endeavor. You may be teaching writing for the first semester as a Graduate Assistant, as …

Low-Stakes, Reflective Writing: Moving Students Into Their Professional Fields, Joyce Neff, Garrett J. Mcauliffe, Carl Whithaus, Nial P. Quinlan

English Faculty Publications

This study examines low-stakes, written commentaries from a graduate counseling course to better understand the role writing plays in the transition from being a student to becoming a professional practitioner. The cross disciplinary research team used methods from Grounded Theory to analyze 60 commentaries and found that: (1) low-stakes, reflective writing revealed changes in self-awareness from Situational Self-Knowledge to Pattern Self-Knowledge (Weinstein & Alschuler, 1985); (2) low-stakes writing provided evidence of students connecting personally to learning and then connecting learning to professional practice; and (3) low-stakes writing encouraged the instructor to make mid-course adjustments to his teaching methods. This study …

Gender Bias In The Technical Disciplines, Jessica Lynn Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how women are affected by gender bias in the workplace. Despite the increasing numbers of women in the workforce, women are still under-represented and under-valued in workplaces, which, in part, is due to their gender stereotype. This study demonstrates how gender bias in the workplace has been proven to limit women in their careers and potential in their occupational roles. The media’s negative depiction of women in their gender stereotype reinforces and perpetuates this image as a cultural norm in society. Women both conform and are judged and evaluated according to their weak and submissive gender stereotype. …

A Technical Writer's Guide To Search Engine Optimization, James Arrowood

Theses and Dissertations

Search engine optimization is a process that requires extensive technical writing skills. Technical writers are well poised to fill the role of search engine optimizer due to a strong background in rhetorical analysis of web text, audience analysis, document indexing, and copywriting. The search engine optimization techniques discussed in this thesis demonstrate the writing processes involved in search engine optimization and serves as a guide to technical writers that may one day find themselves in a search engine optimization role.

Becoming A Professional Indexer, Robyn Dewall

Theses and Dissertations

Indexing is an important, yet behind-the-scenes, rhetorical activity that provides readers with quick access to information. The format and creation of the index, since its inception, continues to evolve with the transforming format and mode of information. Although professional freelance indexers come from all walks of life, the journey to become such always progresses through the same three stages--gaining an introduction to the profession, followed by learning an indexing methodology, until finally, gaining enough confidence in their abilities, they can announce to the world that they are open for business. After becoming a professional, indexers use the skill of textual …

Faculty Perceptions About Attributes And Barriers Impacting The Diffusion Of Online Education In Two Saudi Universities, Mohammed Mfarij Alhawiti

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recognizing that faculty are an essential part of the success of any distance education program, this study sought to examine faculty perceptions of attributes and barriers impacting diffusion of online education at two Saudi universities: Taif University and Tabuk University. More specifically, the study intended to (a) give an overview of faculty members’ current stage in the innovation-decision process in regards to online education, (b) examine faculty perceptions about attributes (motivating factors) and barriers (inhibiting factors) impacting diffusion of online education, (c) investigate the relationship between faculty members’ selected personal characteristics (including age, years of teaching, DE experience, gender, academic …

A Study Of The Grant Writing Policies And Practices Of Municipalities In Polk County Florida Having A Population Less Than 25,000, Michael Scott Carter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify the grant writing policies and practices of the fifteen municipalities in Polk County, Florida having a population less than 25,000, compare these findings qualitatively, and to present the data in a form usable by any city in Polk County so each city can make any needed adjustments to their grant writing strategy that will increase their success of grant funding. This study is needed now because smaller cities are continuing to feel the effects of the recession, a slumping housing market, and a reduction of real estate property values which means lower …

Connecting Visual Design And Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions The United States, Latin America And Spain, Suzanne Mcdonough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis discusses whether culture can be used to predict visual design preferences in documentation and whether cultures with similar attributes demonstrate similar visual design preferences. The visual design of a document is an important element in effective communication to an audience. If the audience is outside the United States, it is important to understand the attributes of that culture to create documents that are most effective for the audience. Cultural theorist Geert Hofstede describes cultural attributes in terms of six cultural dimensions: individualism versus collectivism, high versus low power distance, high versus low uncertainty avoidance, masculinity versus femininity, long-term …

Afterword, Clancy Ratliff

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

E-Portfolios And Digital Identities Using E-Portfolios To Examine Issues In Technical Communication, Jane E. Moody

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technical writing teachers have always struggled with understanding how to best deal with pedagogical issues including rapidly changing technology, audience construction, and transposing an academic ethos into a professional one. The expanding online world complicates these issues by increasing the pace of digital change, making the potential audience both more diffuse and more remote, and creating a more complex online rhetorical situation. E-portfolios provide a vivid way to examine this complex technological situation, and in this study, the author examines four cases of students creating online portfolios in a technical communication classroom. The author looks at both their e-portfolio process …

The Best Job In The World: Documentary Editor, Beth Luey

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Graduates of the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents deserve congratulations, not only because they have learned a great deal but also because being a documentary editor is the best job in the world. I can speak of this with some authority. Although I am a 1981 graduate of the Institute, I officially became a documentary editor only after retiring from university teaching, which was my second career. My first was as a university press and textbook editor. Those were all good jobs, but documentary editing is the best. Here is why.

Editing Harriet Beecher Stowe’S Uncle Tom’S Cabin And The Fluid Text Of Race, Wesley Raabe

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

I suspect that many scholars begin to edit a work by accident: I begin with the anecdote of how I became an accidental editor of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in academic year 2002. I had read not a single work by Harriet Beecher Stowe when I was admitted to the Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia. During my first semester, I was often at Alderman Library’s Special Collections floor to subject a copy of Delariviér Manley’s Memoirs of Europe (1710) to bibliographical analysis. I was reading Stowe’s work in another course, was already in Alderman for the Manley work, and …

Documentary Editing: Journal Of The Association For Documentary Editing, Volume 32: 2011

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Articles

• Editing Sophia Peabody Hawthorne’s Travel Writing and the Conundrum of Copies, Patricia Dunlavy Valenti
• On Editing Late-Nineteenth-Century Author Interviews, Gary Scharnhorst
• “A Broad, Generous Stream of Love and Bounty”: The Concord Sewing Circle and the Holley School for Freedmen, Mary Lamb Shelden
• What’s in a Name? Cultural Onomastics and Other Scary Things about the Lincolns and Their Contemporaries, James M. Cornelius
• Issues and Challenges of Moving and Maintaining The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Ryan P. Semmes and John F. Marszalek
• The Best Job in the World: Documentary Editor, Beth Luey
• Preserving the Alliance: The Artful Diplomacy of Benjamin …

Willa Cather’S Many-Colored Medusa Of Art: Review Of Youth And The Bright Medusa Willa Cather. Historical Essay And Explanatory Notes By Mark J. Madigan. Textual Essay And Editing By Frederick M. Link, Charles W. Mignon, Judith Boss, And Kari A. Ronning., Nancee Reeves

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

The latest edition to the Willa Cather Scholarly Edition series, Youth and the Bright Medusa, is a monument to Cather’s own standards of excellence. The thick paper stock is warm and creamy—the kind of paper that feels smooth and comforting to fingers well used to thumbing the cheap texts that are so common today. The type is large and dark, and the wide margins showcase the text while filling the consummate note-taker’s heart with joy. As the series general editors, Susan J. Rosowski and Guy J. Reynolds, point out in the preface, “[g]iven Cather’s explicitly stated intentions for her works, …

Contributors

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Contributors to Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing, Volume 32: 2011

In Memoriam-Jo Ann Boydston (1924–2011), Larry A. Hickman

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Jo Ann Boydston enjoyed a distinguished career as general editor of the Collected Works of John Dewey and director of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Born in Poteau, Oklahoma, of Choctaw Indian heritage, she graduated summa cum laude from Oklahoma State University in 1944. She received an M.A. from Oklahoma State in 1947, a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1950, and honorary doctorates from Indiana University (1994) and Southern Illinois University (2004).