design principles were contingent on audience, situation, and rhetoric

One partici-pant who created a category for CRAP labeled it “A handy, oversimplified,arhetorial [sic], and now overused set of principles that involve only logos andthat do not address the affective elements of design at all

Second, I would havelittle control over who agreed to participate. The possibility for spam is alwayspresent with online media.

First, in a face-to-facecard sorting exercise, the researcher often observes the participant as he or shesorts the cards and uses the talk-aloud protocol to gather further informationabout participants’ thinking during the exercise.

The primary advantage of this online approach was quick and efficient accessto participants

Many of these texts explicitly use the termsprinciples of design,designprinciples,orgraphic design principlesto describe their collection of principles.

Mark Monmonier’s How to Lie with Maps (1991)

ou have been asked to evaluate a subordinate for possible promotion

manipulation of pictorial illustrations and the distortion of graphics areunethical.

When Professor Dragga’s article was originally published in Technical Communication (1st Q 96), numerous typographical and substantive errors he identified in page proof were inadvertently not corrected. We regret the error.

I examined and classified a total of 3,267 explanations, identifying nine categories

consequence

Technical Communication, Third Quarter 1996

The writer’s only job was composing words. Graphic artists did the illustrations, and compositors and editors designed the pages. Today, more and more often, the technical writer is a technical communicator, choosing the typography and graphics as well as the words

national survey of technical communicators and technical communication teachers regarding their perspectives on the ethics of various document design scenarios

I considered the explanations important because I wanted to know not only what people would do in a given situation, but why

ability to design information gives the technical communicator a new rhetorical power and imposes new ethical obligations on using that power.

Different citation styles, like MLA and especially APA, have different requirements,so it's important to follow these closely

Venn diagrams use circles or arcs to show how one thing intersects or overlaps withsomething else. They are also used to show relationships, commonalities anddifferences.

Flowcharts include visual illustrations and arrows to show how a process unfolds over time

tone and style of the type reinforces the message of your content

Use bold and italic for special purposes, such as to emphasize heading or wordsused in special senses

Maps are visual illustrations of a physical space

Tables are visual displays of data and enable readers to compare information and quickly view findings

This document, however, tells the audience - even before they begin reading thetext - that this is some sort of letter produced by someone at Purdue University.

we now have the capability to present information and persuade using textand visuals together in word processing programs, slide presentations, and dynamicposters, we must be able to wield textual and visual messages effectively.

Writers are now called upon to communicate with wider audiences incontexts beyond the walls of the classroom - on the Web, in student-producedmagazines and ezines, and in service learning project

Each team will be working on a different set of issues and deliverables for their client

Fair use was created as astatutory guideline for effectuating the balance required to enable constitutionalgoals in the intellectual property clause, including support of education, a publicdomain, and free speech

This distinctive feature of the U.S. approach to copyright pro-tection correlates directly with the need for access to information as a basis for sup-porting democratic dialogue

In the workplace, they often develop documents that lead or guidethrough instruction and documentation; they produce structures such as reportforms for medical, insurance, and governmental treatment of the public that im-pact the way we interpret information that could affect our quality of life; and, asresearchers, they develop work that analyzes and critiques the impact of any num-ber of forms of communication,

We analyzesocietally affected communications and critique their sources, effects, and potentialmeanings for our students, for workplace technical communicators, or for society atlarge.

So, as an enabler of speech, the First Amendment supports access to informa-tion; a general, content-neutral restriction on access could be less stringently inhib-ited. But where content-based speech is concerned, the First Amendment is strictlyenforced; attempts to restrict content-based speech are strictly scrutinized

Thus, on the one hand, the copyright’s structurefunctions as a general restriction on publishing and disseminating another’sworks⎯a content-neutral restriction. On the other hand, quoting another’s work asa basis for criticism, or outright copying of another’s work as a means for parody(by its nature, a content-based commentary), is allowable as a means to supportspeech as a basis of democratic interaction

Constitution’s intellectual property provision clearly statesthat a copyright term must be limited

The Framers of theConstitution created a structure in the intellectual property provision that prioritizesthe advancement of learning and knowledge creation over its secondary, supportivepurpose: to benefit the author. To provide a benefit to the author merely creates anincentive for authors to expend energy to create new work. Note that U.S. copyrightdiffers greatly from that of moral rights, which is the adopted structure in Europeanlaw, based on the concept that creators have an absolute right to benefit from theirwork and that their right comes from a special moral requirement.

Technical communicators will also have an interest in understandingthe capacity for legal use of others’ materials in their processes of developingworkplace communications

The authors introduce an alternative posi-tion, one in which the technical communicator is a contributorto meaning-making, enabling the technical communicator toassume the status of an author

It isimportant to hold students accountable for unethical anddishonest actions in the classroom, but also to allow roomwithin policies for the gray areas that exist between copy-ing and theft.

. It is only byincreasing dialog among instructors and industry profes-sionals who rely on such composing models that we canbetter understand the need to move beyond the seeminglyuniversal rule of “do not steal” to more context-contingentunderstandings of the concept of plagiarism

In support of these classroom activities and textbook revi-sions, academic units that offer technical communicationclasses should consider reviewing existing plagiarism pol-icies or drafting new policies that explicitly address theconflicts between academic and workplace contexts.

The second assumption that I’d like to address that appearsoften in technical communication textbooks is the sugges-tion that using the Internet for writing has a causal rela-tionship to plagiarism

For instance, as advised in the fifthedition ofTechnical writing: Process and productby Ger-son and Gerson (2006), “Donotplagiarize.Plagiarismisthe appropriation (theft!) of some other person’s words andideas without giving proper credit”

Our field has wrestledwith the concept of the “author” and its implications forestablishing our status as professionals in industry

As technical communicators find themselves workingacross international contexts, they recognize that under-standings of what constitutes originality and ownership oftexts is culturally dependent

Turnitin.com and other “pla-giarism detection technologies” has created a culture offear among student writers who understand that such tech-nologies may be used for policing their writing practices.

Instructors and uni-versity administrators tell them that they must follow pla-giarism policies or risk earning failing grades or beingexpelled from the university.

Instructors of technical communication are uniquely positioned to engagestudents with concrete problems in local workplaces and community settings.

2010 Gulf oil spill are noteworthy in thisregard: that is, because they are so complex in their causes and effects, theycannot necessarily be “solved” in any simple sense of the term

we are reinforcing practical wisdom that ideally translates intoprudent social action

“If we hope to instill in our students a sense of responsibilityto be active citizens and advocates for social change,” she suggests, “we mustshow them that their civic engagement can be applied beyond the classroom”

The structure of this article is as follows. First, I briefly review scholarshipthat has theorized the concept of wicked problems in social theory anddesign studies; second, I show how I applied a wicked problems frameworkin a technical writing course I taught during Fall 2010; and finally, I offer somesuggestions for developing this approach and applying it toward other topicsand social issues.

hemorrhaging of oil into the Gulf ofMexico can be traced to faulty technologies

the deathsof 11 rig workers; millions of gallons of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico;an untold amount of toxic chemicals being used to disperse the oil

Environmental catastrophes like the 2010 Gulf oil spill are noteworthy in thisregard: that is, because they are so complex in their causes and effects, theycannot necessarily be “solved” in any simple sense of the term.

Training programs provide people with new or improved skills, making them more employable and their organizations and products more efficient and safe.

Communicating by using technology, such as web pages, help files, or social media sites.