{"title":"Wicked Problems in Risk Assessment: Mapping Yellow Fever and Constructing Risk as an Embodied Experience","authors":"Candice A. Welhausen","doi":"10.1177/10506519231161617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519231161617","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the author theorizes the process that a World Health Organization work group used to update yellow fever risk maps published in the Yellow Book, a handbook created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for international travelers, from a “wicked problems” perspective. She argues that using this model highlights the complexity of nonexperts’ risk assessment practices in this context and that the work group's decision to create vaccination maps demonstrates an increased awareness of the embodied decision-making practices that nonexperts perform, aligning with and contributing to the growing emphasis on creating user-centered risk information that can be seen in some risk communication.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46416790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Latina Leadership: Language and Literacy Education Across Communities by L. Gonzales & M. H. Kells (Eds.)","authors":"Marlene Galván","doi":"10.1177/10506519231164128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519231164128","url":null,"abstract":"Latina Leadership: Language and Literacy Education Across Communities, edited by Laura Gonzales and Michelle Hall Kells, begins by reminding readers of the stark fact that as of 2016, only 5% of all full-time faculty in U.S. higher education were Latinx. This scarcity of representation in the academy is particularly lacking among Latina leaders whose presence has “long been at the forefront of justice-driven efforts, particularly in relation to education and community engagement” (p. 2). While the term Latina implies a single identity, as the book’s editors and contributors acknowledge, “the ambiguous label Latina often erase[s] Latinas’ histories and the multiplicity of experiences embedded under a single label” (p. 1). The richness and diversity of these experiences are reflected in the structure, content, and style of the book, a beautifully written and unique tribute to the work and contributions of Latinas in the academy. Latina Leadership seeks to “break down the false binary between K-12 and college-level literacy education and foreground the stories and testimonios of Latina leaders navigating the complex and often hostile territory of the US academy and doing the work of language and literacy education across communities” (p. 8). These goals, according to Gonzales and Kells, allow the book to be a creative space for an “intentionally polyvocal” collection of experiences, stories, and expertise (p. 11). The book is organized into three parts, each of which explores a different aspect of mentorship and leadership. Book Review","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43262570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"User Perceptions of Actionability in Data Dashboards","authors":"M. Sorapure","doi":"10.1177/10506519231161611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519231161611","url":null,"abstract":"This article reports on a multiphase study designed to understand how nonexpert users interact with COVID-19 data dashboards, particularly in terms of the dashboards’ actionability, or ability to support decision making. Analysis of the videos and transcriptions of user interviews shows the variable relevance of proposed criteria for dashboard actionability and suggests additional criteria for users’ emotional responses to data and for the presentation of data at degrees of personal and local granularity. These findings advance an understanding of how nonexpert audiences interact with and derive value from complex visualized data.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42670822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Genre and Metagenre in Biomedical Research Writing","authors":"C. Wickman","doi":"10.1177/10506519221143113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221143113","url":null,"abstract":"The use of reporting guidelines is an established yet still-evolving practice in the field of biomedicine. These documents are often linked to common methodologies (e.g., randomized clinical trials); they include multiple textual artifacts (e.g., checklists, flow diagrams) and have a history that is coextensive with the emergence and ongoing development of evidence-based medicine (e.g., as an epistemological orientation to research and decision making). Drawing on the concept of metagenre, this article examines how practitioners use reporting guidelines to define and regulate the boundaries of biomedical research and writing activity. The analysis, focusing on one prominent set of guidelines, shows how practitioners use the genre–metagenre dynamic to promote strategic intervention while upholding traditional principles and standards for evidence-based research and communication.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45712385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Segmentation, Surveillance, and Automation: Practical and Ethical Considerations for Attracting, Sustaining, and Monetizing Audience Attention Online","authors":"R. Wold","doi":"10.1177/10506519221143107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221143107","url":null,"abstract":"Through a case study of a popular food and recipe blog (Pinchofyum.com), this article details how two content creators practicing an advertising-based business model built a loyal audience and profitable business. A content analysis of the income reports published by the site's creators found that their advertising-based business model incentivized them to (a) segment their audience, (b) surveil their audience, and (c) automate interactions with their audience. This incentive structure led the content creators to employ an inconsistent and often problematic persona of their intended audience as they aimed to scale their ability to build trust with a rapidly growing audience. These findings provide guidance for aspiring online entrepreneurs and technical communicators desiring to understand the implications of distributing their content on platforms funded through advertising.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42035378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: The Digital Role-Playing Game and Technical Communication: A History of Bethesda, BioWare, and CD Projekt Red by Reardon, Daniel, & Wright, David","authors":"Jacob Weston","doi":"10.1177/10506519221143132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221143132","url":null,"abstract":"Daniel Reardon and David Wright’s The Digital Role-Playing Game and Technical Communication explicitly works to “demystify ‘gaming’ so that we understand its broader cultural contexts” (p. xiii). The authors do so by situating the history of digital role-playing games (DRPGs) in a larger web of technological innovations over the past 50 years and analyzing social and capitalistic interrelations via social media and marketing. DRPGs, like Fallout and The Witcher series, are technological evolutions of role-playing games (RPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons. Throughout the book, the authors draw theories from a broad pool of sources, ranging from psychology, sociology, business, computer science, and game studies to rhetoric and technical communication. Maybe most notably, the authors make a unique argument for DRPGs as technical communication and demonstrate beneficial takeaways for both practitioners and researchers. Tracking the rise and fall of the video game giants Bethesda, BioWare, and CD Projekt Red over the course of eight chapters, the book provides a useful history of DRPGs. Chapter 1 begins that history by discussing struggles such as infrastructural limitations (comparatively low-power computers), technological diffusion (a lack of Americans with computer access), and generic adaptations (converting tabletop RPGs to a digital interface). The chapter illustrates this evolution of DRPGs from RPGs by explaining the features of the new genre that have descended from RPGs: “character creation, weapons and armor [customization] ... loot, and interesting nonplayer characters” (p. 6). This ancestral relationship caused many difficulties Book Review","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46809914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corpus Linguistics and Technical Editing: How Corpora Can Help Copy Editors Adopt a Rhetorical View of Prescriptive Usage Rules","authors":"Jordan Smith","doi":"10.1177/10506519221143125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221143125","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars have long argued that technical editing should be viewed as a rhetorical practice in which copy editors take “a situational approach to each individual task” (Buehler, 1980/2003, p. 458). Yet many editing pedagogies still treat some language-level editing tasks, like those that involve prescriptive usage rules, as mechanical rather than rhetorical. This article discusses how empirical data from corpora can help copy editors adopt a more rhetorical view of prescriptive usage rules and introduces corpus linguistics as a methodology that can contribute to technical editing pedagogy.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43429569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Introduction to Quasi-Experimental Research for Technical and Professional Communication Instructors","authors":"C. Lam, J. Wolfe","doi":"10.1177/10506519221143111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221143111","url":null,"abstract":"Classroom practices and approaches often rely on anecdotal evidence for implementation and effectiveness. Conducting small-scale, quasi-experimental studies can provide empirical evidence for the effectiveness of a classroom practice. In technical and professional communication, quasi-experiments tend to be underused compared to other research methods. This article introduces quasi-experimental research as a tool for instructors to use in their teaching approaches and practices by addressing two common fears that prevent them from conducting such research: the fear of doing it wrong and the fear of wasting time. The authors use case studies to explain key concepts, including the difference between quasi and true experiments, selection bias, and confounding factors, and discuss principles of quasi-experiments related to ethical considerations, data collection, and statistical analysis.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47287888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scrum in Classroom Collaborations: A Quasi-Experimental Study","authors":"Erin Friess","doi":"10.1177/10506519221121817","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221121817","url":null,"abstract":"Scrum is an increasingly important project management framework that has had limited study in technical communication (TC) and TC classrooms. While research has found student collaborations to be both frustrating and challenging, it has found Scrum to be a scaffolding framework that can improve student interactions and outcomes. Therefore, to determine whether Scrum affects the peer assessments of collaborative teams as well as project grades, this quasi-experimental classroom study compares the midproject and postproject peer assessments and grades of advanced TC students who used Scrum as a framework for collaboration against those students who did not use Scrum in their collaborations. The study found that students who used Scrum rated their team members significantly higher on some peer assessment measures and earned significantly higher grades than did those students who did not use Scrum. Additionally, students in the Scrum protocol reported satisfaction with their group experience broadly but did not report satisfaction with Scrum itself.","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47259301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communicating During COVID-19 and Other Acute-Event Scenarios: A Practical Approach.","authors":"Christian A Vukasovich, Marko N Kostic","doi":"10.1177/10506519221105493","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10506519221105493","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Successfully adapting to organizational changes during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis necessitated the effective deployment of technical communication texts delineating the expectations and structures for guiding behavior and interactions. A dearth of system-wide familiarity with changes in modalities has disrupted expectations and impacted engagement. During acute events, business and technical communicators will probably not be the initial source of transition messaging. Instead, this task will fall on managers, faculty, and other front-line communicators. The authors present pragmatic recommendations for adapting familiar discourses, semiotics, and mental scripts so that communicators can more effectively intervene during crises to ease organizational transitions and decrease uncertainty.</p>","PeriodicalId":46414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business and Technical Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9198560/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44881954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}