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Bridging Industry and Academia

I continue to be really interested in bridging the gap that exists between professional communication, the academic discipline, and professional communication, the profession. To this end, I have been thinking about a couple different areas I would be interested in researching. At present, the one that I find most compelling is to create a book that acts as a companion to Purdue’s technical writing course textbooks and highlights key aspects of visual rhetoric for students in professional writing and technical writing courses. It could take the form of a coursepak to supplement the reading and examples in traditional textbooks for several sections of English 420 or 421. Perhaps, it could even reach larger-scale publication.

To do this, we could include student samples in English 420 and 421 courses and draw from the work of graduate students in these fields. I think the project could work nicely within the boundaries of this course, and I think it also has potential for long-term work in future 680Vs and from English 420 and 421 courses.

Submitted by Morgan S. on Thu, 2007-01-25 00:56.
Morgan S.'s blog

Templates and Resumes
Amylea's picture
Submitted by Amylea on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:46.

Morgan,
I'm totally down with this project. When students have difficulty desgining tech/professional writing documents (or any other kind of text) they tend to hit the Template or Wizard function on Word and hope for the best. While those are adequate, they don't teach students the principles behind their template-nes, and there's little hope of anyone creating any NEW design in the future if we all just keep hitting the "Professional" button in these programs.
I mean, can't we make white papers a little less...white?....without detracting from genre conventions and ethos?


I Too
nrivers's picture
Submitted by nrivers on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:44.

I like that you want to include student examples. Many of my 420 students seem unsure of their abilities (as if they have to be artists to produce visual appealing documents). Showing them how students just like them are able to translate a few basic design principles (and time and tenderness) into solid, visually effective documents could be persuasive. I think I sometimes get unappealling documents from students trying to play it safe.


Book
Ryan's picture
Submitted by Ryan on Thu, 2007-01-25 10:41.

Morgan, I love your idea for creating this book, because it's something that is desperately needed for 420 and 421 classes. Visual rhetoric plays into my professional writing classes from beginning to end, and students need to master some basics of visual rhetoric to produce professional grade documents and be prepared for the job market. The PW online book is especially in need of some visual design upgrades that can be referenced throughout the course. I hope this happens.