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United States Certificate Programs In Technical Communication : A Feminist-Sophistic Investigation, Jim Nugent

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Technical communication certificates are offered by many colleges and universities as an alternative to a full undergraduate or graduate degree in the field. Despite certificates’ increasing popularity in recent years, however, surprisingly little commentary exists about them within the scholarly literature. In this work, I describe a survey of certificate and baccalaureate programs that I performed in 2008 in order to develop basic, descriptive data on programs’ age, size, and graduation rates; departmental location; curricular requirements; online offerings; and instructor status and qualifications. In performing this research, I apply recent insights from neosophistic rhetorical theory and feminist critiques of science …

Not Your Mother's Latinas : Film Representations For A New Millennium, Jeannie Ann Patrick

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This dissertation seeks to contribute to film, feminist and Latino/a studies by exploring the construction and ideological implications of representations of Latinas in four recent, popular U.S. films: Girlfight (Kusama 2000), Maid in Manhattan (Wang 2002), Real Women Have Curves (Cardoso 2002) and Spanglish (Brooks 2004). These films were released following a time of tremendous growth in the population and the political and economic strength of the Latina/o community as well as a rise in popularity and visibility in the 1990s of entertainers like Selena and actresses such as Jennifer Lopez and Salma Hayek. Drawing on the critical concepts of …

From Textbooks To Safety Briefings: Helping Technical Writers Negotiate Complex Rhetorical Situations, Brian Blackburne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I analyze the organizational and political constraints that technical writers encounter when dealing with complex rhetorical situations, particularly within risk-management discourse. I ground my research in case studies of safety briefings that airlines provide to their passengers because these important documents have long been regarded as ineffective, yet they ve gone largely unchanged in the last 20 years. Airlines are required to produce these safety briefings, which must satisfy multiple audiences, such as corporate executives, federal safety inspectors, flight attendants, and passengers. Because space and time are limited when presenting safety information to passengers, the technical writers …

Reviewing The Author-Function In The Age Of Wikipedia, Amit Ray, Erhardt Graeff

Articles

In "Reviewing the Author-Function in the Age of Wikipedia," Amit Ray and Erhardt Graeff examine how wiki technology challenges traditional concepts of authorship and authority in knowledge production. The authors build on poststructuralist theory, particularly Roland Barthes's "Death of the Author" and Michel Foucault's concept of the "author-function," to analyze how wikis destabilize individual authorship in favor of collaborative, community-driven content creation.

The essay argues that wikis represent a fundamental shift from the Romantic notion of the solitary author-genius to what they term the "wiki writing process"—a dynamic system where traditional roles of reader, writer, and editor blur into a …

Can Patriotism Be Carved In Stone?: A Critical Analysis Of Mt. Rushmore's Orientation Films, Teresa Bergman

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

This essay examines the three orientation films that have been shown at the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial since 1965, and analyzes how these films interpret the memorial as a patriotic symbol. Although the site was originally conceived to celebrate U.S. imperialism, each film moves away from that interpretation. This analysis tracks how these films’ interpretations of this patriotic icon have evolved to suit contemporary political exigencies rather than a fixed definition of Mt. Rushmore. I draw on memory studies, rhetoric, historical theory, and documentary film theory to examine the changing representations of nationalism and patriotism in these films.

Yearbooks As A Genre: A Case Study, Melissa Caudill

All Theses

ABSTRACT
In the United States, high school and college yearbooks are extraordinarily well known as a genre, yet they are largely unstudied. Yearbooks preserve images, stories, and facts from each year for one specific group of people, linked by age and geographic community. Yearbook production is a significant commercial enterprise, yet it involves novice writers, editors, and designers. Blending elements of craft, tradition, business, and media, yearbooks as a distinctive genre bear closer rhetorical study and application of professional communication theories.
This historical case study of production practices for a particular college yearbook positions yearbooks rhetorically as texts and sites …

James Slevin And The Identifying Practices Of Composition., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Charles Brockden Brown's Place Within The Gothic And The Influence Of Early America's Social Issues On Brown's Writing, Shirley Ann Regis

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this thesis is to show that Charles Brockden Brown was influenced by the American Revolution and the incidents that come after it. It is suggested that Brown created a gothic fiction that was intended to be a critique on the American Revolution by using murder narrratives present during the time to create his characters. Gothic fiction consists of many elements such as setting arechetypal characters, terror, emotion, psychological turmoil and language use.

The Habermas/Foucault Debate: Implications For Rhetoric And Composition, Fiona Jane Harris-Ramsby

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis sheds light on (1) the extent to which composition has fallen short in its efforts to examine Habermasian discourse in the public sphere/politicized classroom; and (2) whether, through a careful and explicit exploration of the Habermas/Foucault debate and the competing concepts of discourse contained therein, we might make use of those concepts in the politicized classroom to inform student writing in the public sphere.

'Time In A Bottle': Temporal Discontinuities In Narratives Of Diaspora, Emily Churilla

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The concepts of home have been, and continue to be, the foundation of much of the contention surrounding all sides of discourse regarding diaspora and immigration - through both viewing the home as threatened and defiled as well as redefining the imagined reality of home. It is the impasse of working around and against the frame of Western temporality and space from within the trope of home that this paper will explore; specifically how narratives of diasporic subjectivity disrupt and threaten normalized constructs of origin and time, history, and identity. Because to only consider the question of "home" leaves a …

Threatening Bodies Resisting Containment: Enemy Combatants, War Protestors And Same-Sex Couples, Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The U.S.-launched "War on Terror" has been a major driving force in political discourses during the last few years, including presidential discourse. Since September 11, 2001, presidential rhetoric has systematically entangled international efforts, such as "the War on Terror" and the War in Iraq, with domestic issues, such as same-sex marriages and civil unions. In so doing, international and domestic threats have been effectively merged into one, and in the process, specific bodies have been constructed as "terrorist" agents in need of strict containment (for example, enemy combatant bodies, war protestor bodies, and the bodies of same-sex couples). This paper …

Postmodern Feminism, Hypertext, And The Rhetoric Of Cooking Websites, Heather Eaton Mcgrane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the ways cookbooks and their rhetorical dimensions have been re-imagined using hypertext and Web technology. Using the tenets of postmodern feminist rhetoric and Web design theory, the study considers how commercial cooking hypertexts construct users' identities. Although hypertext is a potentially empowering technology, democratizing rhetoric and knowledge making practices, commercial hypertext often circumscribes agency formation and prohibits participation. Participatory, constructive hypertexts are difficult to design and costly to maintain. Of the three sites studied, Epicurious.com, BettyCrocker.com, and FoodNetwork.com, only Epicurious.com encourages meaningful communication between users and between users and designers. In many ways, Epicurious.com conceives of its …

Blessing And Sending The Church Into The World For The Sake Of The World, Using Congregational Blessings As A Missional Enterprise, Michael Harbour

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project equipped the elders to function as a community of men called and authorized by God to bless and send his people into the world for the sake of the world. They were equipped through seven sessions of theological reflection on Scripture and reflection on narratives of those who have offered pastoral blessings. The sessions also included an examination of templates and the opportunity to practice writing and speaking blessings. The elders have been speaking a shepherd’s blessing as the last liturgical act of the Sunday assembly. In this project, missional and textual focus was given to the …

Evolving Outcomes Of The Outcomes Statement, Judith Miriam Holiday

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis rhetorically analyzes the Outcomes Statement (OS) developed by "The Outcomes Collective" (a group of writing program administrators) for First-Year Composition. The OS was designed to create curricular consensus with regard to First-Year Composition both within and across postsecondary institutions. Though postmodern undertones permeate the OS, it can be interpreted from a purely modernist perspective. The thesis includes a chapter with suggestions on revising the OS to control this ambiguity.

Bubbling Vs. Writing: Bridging The Gap Between Fourth Grade Writing Standards And Composition Theory, Pamela Lynn Dobbins

Theses Digitization Project

Currently, fourth grade writing curricula in California public schools are dictated by California State English Language Arts standards, which are measured by the California Achievement Test. In this thesis, I explore the relationship between state standards and what compositionists identify as "meaningful" writing and learning.

Reading Chinese Fortune Cookie: The Making Of Chinese American Rhetoric, Luming Mao

All USU Press Publications

LuMing Mao offers an important discussion of the rhetoric of Chinese American speakers, which has wide implications for the teaching of writing in English and for our understanding of cross-cultural influences in discourse. Recent scholarship tends to explain such influences as contributing to language hybridity—an advance over the traditional "deficit model." But Mao suggests that the "hybridity" approach is perhaps too arid or sanitized, missing rich nuances of mutual exchange, resistance, or even subversion. Through his concept of "togetherness in difference, Mao suggests that speakers of hybrid discourse may not be attempting the standard (and failing), but instead may be …

Reading Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, Karen E. Ramirez

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

Helen Hunt Jackson was one of America’s most renowned and prolific female writers of the 1870s and 1880s, best known during her lifetime (1830-1885) and into the early twentieth century for her poetry, domestic essays, travel sketches, and moralistic novels. However, as Jackson herself predicted, her most enduring legacy is her writing advocating American Indian rights (Higginson, “Helen” 151). Most significantly, her 1884 novel Ramona protests American Indian displacement in southern California and, more broadly, criticizes Anglo-American conquest through land acquisition. A bestseller when it appeared, Ramona has never gone out of print; has been translated into many languages; was …

The Outcomes Book: Debate And Consensus After The Wpa Outcomes Statement, Susanmarie Harrington, Keith Rhodes, Ruth Fischer, Rita Malenczyk

All USU Press Publications

The WPA Outcomes Statement represents a working consensus among composition scholars about what college students should learn and do in a composition program. But as a single-page document, the statement cannot convey the kind of reflective process that a writing program must undertake to address the learning outcomes described. The Outcomes Book relates the fuller process by exploring the matrix of concerns that surrounded the developing statement itself, and by presenting the experience of many who have since employed it in their own settings. For departments, programs, and individuals, this collection levers the Outcomes Statement in all its simplicity and …

Genre Across The Curriculum, Anne Herrington, Charles Moran

All USU Press Publications

American first-year college writing courses operate without a powerful context: they are designed to teach academic writing, but what kind of academic writing? Which of the many particular discourses, and, within those discourses, which recurring social situations? Lacking a clear context to refer to, textbook authors inevitably privilege form. Genre across the Curriculum will function as a "good" textbook, one not for the student, but for the teacher, and one with an eye on the context of writing. Here you will find models of practice, descriptions written by teachers who have integrated the teaching of genre into their pedagogy in …

A Metaphoric Cluster Analysis Of The Rhetoric Of Digital Technology, Michael Eugene Marse, Nicholas Negroponte

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis seeks to identify and explain some technology in order to more fully understand modern communication. This study makes use of metaphoric cluster analysis to examine the technological rhetoric of Nicholas Negroponte.

Living Waters: An Invitation To Contemplative Spirituality For The Quail Springs Church Of Christ, Wyatt E. Fenno

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project addressed an acknowledged need for ministry action to promote and facilitate communal spiritual formation in the present and future life of the Quail Springs Church of Christ. The focus of the project was to present a model of contemplative spirituality determined to be accessible to the ministry context at Quail Springs. In addressing the problem of community fragmentation at Quail Springs, this model was offered as a means of grace to deepen faith and strengthen relationships in church life at Quail Springs. A pilot group of six women and six men served as the working group for this …

But Who Is Any Longer Interested In The Possible?: Kathy Acker In Hell Failing Fuck You, Jake Kennedy

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

In 'But who is any longer interested in the possible?': Kathy Acker in Hell Failing Fuck You I explore and celebrate Acker's use of a tropics of failure (plagiarism, pain, terror, gender-play, bad jokes, dumbness) as an inimitable strategy for achieving counter-cultural art and community. The prose style and scholarly apparatus of my article reflect not only my position as a poet/academic but also attempt to model an ethical, non-authoritative, Acker-informed critical language.

Innovative Approaches To Teaching Technical Communication, Tracy Bridgeford, Karla Saari Kitalong, Richard Selfe

All USU Press Publications

Innovative Approaches to Teaching Technical Communica- tion offers a variety of activities, projects, and approaches to energize pedagogy in technical communication and to provide a constructive critique of current practice. A practical collection, the approaches recommended here are readily adaptable to a range of technological and institutional contexts, as well as being theoretically grounded and pedagogically sound. Throughout the collection, its editors and contributors demonstrate the importance of critically engaging students through creative and innovative pedagogies. Programs in technical writing, technical communication, and/or professional communication have recently grown in enrollment as the demand among employers for formally prepared technical writers …

Process This: Undergraduate Writing In Composition Studies, Nancy C. Dejoy

All USU Press Publications

In Process This, Nancy DeJoy argues that even recent revisions to composition studies, cultural studies, service learning, and social process movements--continue to repress the subjects and methodologies that should be central, especially at the level of classroom practice. Designed to move student discourses beyond the classroom, these approaches nonetheless continue to position composition students (and teachers) as mere consumers of the discipline. This means that the subjects, methodologies, and theory/practice relationships that define the field are often absent in composition classrooms. Arguing that the world inside and outside of the academy cannot be any different if the profession stays the …

Genre In First Year Composition: The Missing Link To Transferability?, Sandra Patricia Halsey

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis suggests the incorporation of "Genre Theory" into First Year Composition (FYC) at California State University (CSUSB) as a means of alleviating the lack of transfer of what is learned in FYC to other university writing. In examing the feasibility of that incorporation, it takes into consideration the demands made on the FYC course across universities and specifically at CSUSB.

Illusions Of Idle Prattle: Disney, Voice And The Little Mermaid, Veronica Diaz-Cox

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis examines the social and economic impact of Disney's gender roles, and the recurring motif of singing in both Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and Walt Disney's film adaptation.

Review Of Burger With The Works, Please! A Webjournal For Students Of The Humanities, Alexandra Ganser

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

The Knowledge And Skills Of Freshman Writers, Aram Paul Sarkisian

Theses Digitization Project

This research identifies what proficient writers know and do by the end of their freshman year in college and raises the kind of questions that improve the articulation of English instruction.

Lawson Fusao Inada, Shawn Holliday

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

On February 19, 1942, approximately ten weeks after Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt approved Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of all people of Japanese descent from vulnerable areas of the United States’ west coast. Meant as a security measure to protect the dams, power plants, harbors, railroads, and airports from spies who would attempt to compromise America’s vulnerable infrastructure, this order eventually led to the complete removal of all Japanese from Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington, relocating 120,000 people by mid-1942 (Only What xi-xii). Such actions …

Rogerian Rhetoric As Negotiation: Does Its Dependence On Game Theory Pose Ethical Problems?, Stacy Fussell Thorne

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In the war game Diplomacy, players win by gaining control of Europe. In order to win, however, players must successfully negotiate with other players, make alliances with them, and sometimes gain the support of their ally's military resources, their armies or fleets. In the rules of the game, Diplomacy is described as

a game of negotiations, alliances, promises kept, and promises broken. In order to survive, a player needs help from others. In order to win the game, a player must eventually stand alone. Knowing whom to trust, when to trust them, what to promise, and when …