Foundations and Innovations in Technical and Professional Communication

Series Editor: Lisa Melonçon, Clemson University

Associate Editor: Sherena Huntsman, Boise State University

The Foundations and Innovations in Technical and Professional Communication series publishes work that is necessary as a base for the field of technical and professional communication (TPC), addresses areas of central importance within the field, and engages with innovative ideas and approaches to TPC. The series focuses on presenting the intersection of theory and application/practice within TPC and is intended to include both monographs and co-authored works, edited collections, digitally enhanced work, and innovative works that may not fit traditional formats (such as works that are longer than a journal article but shorter than a book).

Books in the Series

Rewriting Work

Edited by Lora Anderson

Because of its centrality to the professional identity of any communications-focused discipline, the workplace has for decades been a focus of practice and scholarship in technical and professional communication. The contributors to Rewriting Work examine workplace writing through the lenses of identity and changing communication practices, arguing that place can be viewed as a productive frame for understanding how technical and professional communication has changed over the last two decades. ... More

Text at Scale: Corpus Analysis in Technical Communication

By Stephen Carradini and Jason Swarts

Text at Scale presents corpus analysis as a methodological framework for exploring questions about genre development, technological mediation, writing practice, and teaching, among many other areas of inquiry central to technical and professional communication. ... More

Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication

Edited by Han Yu and Jonathan Buehl

Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication explores the multiple and sometimes conflicting uses of terms central to the discipline of technical and professional communication (TPC). Each keyword was selected through a multi-stage process that involved corpus analysis of journal publications and surveys of technical communication scholars, educators, and practitioners. ... More

Keywords in Design Thinking: A Lexical Primer for Technical Communicators & Designers

Edited by Jason C. K. Tham

At a time when design thinking is viewed by many as itself a contested term, Keywords in Design Thinking explores keywords and associated practices related to the use of this critical concept in technical and professional communication. The chapters in this edited collection offer definitions stable enough to allow readers to determine the value of design thinking and to apply and examine its usefulness in the design of technical and professional discourse. ... More

User Experience as Innovative Academic Practice

Edited by Kate Crane and Kelli Cargile Cook

Situating itself in the Technical and Professional Communication discipline, this edited collection provides case studies from various points of instruction and curricular design to illustrate how a user experience (UX) methodology provides invaluable insight into understanding and including student-users. Drawing on research on student-users as they developed student-user profiles, journey maps, diary entries, course reflections, and affinity diagramming, among other sources, the authors of the chapters in this book argue that UX design is not only a worthy practice, but also a necessary one. ... More

Assembling Critical Components: A Framework for Sustaining Technical and Professional Communication

Edited by Joanna Schreiber and Lisa Melonçon

How do you explain technical and professional communication? The field has long tried to answer this question, with limited success. Because the field is constantly evolving alongside social, technological, and communication changes, it remains difficult to explain. Assembling Critical Components presents TPC as a collective identity and provides a framework for situating critical components of the field. ... More

Effective Teaching of Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Application

Edited by Michael J. Klein

Drawn from quantitative and qualitative work of practitioners in the field, this edited collection provides an update to the Staples and Ornatowski's influential Foundations of Teaching Technical Communication (1997). The collection is organized around the broad themes of expanding pedagogy, shaping curriculum, incorporating technology, and engaging community. ... More

About the Publishers

The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. The site receives support from Colorado State University and from its editorial staff and editorial review board and its hundreds of members who, through their collaborative efforts, add to and update information on the site. For more information about the Clearinghouse, please see our site information page. University Press of Colorado is a nonprofit cooperative publishing enterprise supported by several Western universities. For more information, visit upcolorado.com.

About Our Publication Process

The Foundations and Innovations in Technical and Professional Communication series offers books in free digital editions and low-cost print editions. Books are offered through a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License. Copyright is held by the author(s) or editor(s) of the books. The publishers cover the costs of reviewing, designing, producing, and distributing the books. Any proceeds from sales of print books in the series are used to support the publication of subsequent books. Our goal is to make work available to the widest possible audience while maintaining the highest standards in scholarly publishing. We welcome contributions to the series and to the larger goal of supporting open-access scholarly publishing. If you have questions about the goals of the larger WAC Clearinghouse project, please contact Mike Palmquist at Mike.Palmquist@ColoState.edu.