Comments on: Reshaping the Technical Writer for the Scientific Field

By: Jillian Swisher

Jillian Swisher — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:47:34 +0000

Eric, I absolutely agree with the concluding argument of your post: “Through adding the proper classes (and this deserves more lengthy unpacking discussing the possible program structure changes) students may have the opportunity to achieve the balance Charney advocates for and then understand the value of quantitative studies and how such studies can help inform ethnographic or qualitative studies and support claims drawn out of more personal data.”

Just out of curiosity, I searched through WVU’s course catalog to find any courses that would possibly familiarize us (graduate students straddling the line between the sciences and the humanities) to quantitative and other “science-y” research methods to which we feel we won’t be exposed within the English Department. To my surprise, I found TONS of courses that could potentially bridge this gap for us more so than literature or creative writing courses. These courses include (some of them are clearly more relevant to our discussion than others) Research and Theory of Mass Communication, Research and Theory of Organizational Communication, Research and Theory of Language, Computer Mediated Communication, Communication Ethics, Research and Theory of Intercultural Communication, Health Communication, Survey of Human Communication Theory, Graduate Research Methods in Communication, Qualitative Research Methods, and Communication Research Design. They are all offered by the Department of Communication Studies. This leads me to wonder about an issue we discussed at length in 601 last year: should technical/professional writing programs be housed within English or Communication Studies (or another) department? Which department would afford professional/technical communication students the proper balance between the humanities and the sciences? I think it’s quite an interesting debate, one that we clearly keep coming back to.

By: AshleighP

AshleighP — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:16:53 +0000

Eric, I understand your uneasiness. Maybe a survey course would be useful to help ease some of our concerns. I wouldn’t want to privilege science writing over other kinds (as we’ve seen, technical communication is not limited to writing about science), but a broad “Scientific and Technical Communication” class might work. Specialized courses could be helpful, too – “Health Communication,” for example.

Unfortunately, I think we just don’t have the resources for these kinds of courses, yet. We’re a pretty small department, which has its advantages (close relationships with faculty and each other, for example).

By: ewardell

ewardell — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 17:52:54 +0000

Rachel, I believe my comment is in response to the Charney article which thoroughly highlights issues with the use of qualitative data and discusses the distrust of quantitative data by English Departments out of a belief that objective data inherently holds no objectivity. I thought Charney summed this up nicely when she said “Our over-reliance on qualitative studies and repeated disparagement of objective methods is creating a serious imbalance in studies of technical and professional writing—and the same may be true in composition studies as a whole” (296). I included this quote in my last paragraph above.

By: Rachel Henderson

Rachel Henderson — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 17:24:18 +0000

I found your observation in the beginning that “Our willingness in English departments to analyze and interrogate quantitative practices in other disciplines on the basis that they lack fundamental objectivity creates tensions and places qualitative and ethnographic research in a privileged place” interesting given that this week’s readings took ample opportunity, I thought, to argue that quantitative studies were in fact placed “in a privileged place.” I appreciate your perspective, swinging the lens around and having us examine how those of us in English departments tend to hold in high regard qualitative studies. It was a thought I had not had, myself, after reading our weekly articles.