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Selected Works

Brian Larson

2017

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Use What You Choose: Applying Computational Methods To Genre Studies In Technical Communication, Brian N. Larson, William Hart-Davidon, Kenneth C. Walker, Douglas M. Walls, Ryan Omizo Oct 2017

Use What You Choose: Applying Computational Methods To Genre Studies In Technical Communication, Brian N. Larson, William Hart-Davidon, Kenneth C. Walker, Douglas M. Walls, Ryan Omizo

Brian Larson

This paper reports on the results of an intensive application development workshop held in the summer of 2015 during which a group of thirteen researchers came together to explore the use of machine-learning algorithms in technical communication. To do this we analyzed Amazon.com consumer electronic product customer reviews to reevaluate a central concept in North American Genre Theory: stable genre structures arise from recurring social actions. We discovered evidence of genre hybridity in the signals of instructional genres embedded into customer reviews. Our paper discusses the creation of a prototype web application, "Use What You Choose" (UWYC), which sorts the …

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Gender As A Variable In Writing Studies: Ethics And Methodology, Brian Larson Feb 2017

Gender As A Variable In Writing Studies: Ethics And Methodology, Brian Larson

Brian Larson


This presentation uses results of a study where participants identified their own genders to illustrate ethical and methodological problems. It makes normative claims about gender as a variable in studies of written communication, including composition studies, technical and computer-mediated communication, and natural language processing.
 
Theories of gender and communication include early gender-difference/dominance views, social role theory, standpoint theory, and queer theory. Nevertheless, empirical researchers often use gender as a variable without explaining how they ascribe it to participants or what they intend it to mean. For example, Tebeaux and Allen performed studies in technical communication with gender as a …

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