Information
Instructor: Michael J. Salvo, Assistant Professor
Office: 301B Heavilon Hall
Phone: 765-494-4425
Office Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:30-2:45pm
Wednesdays 4:30-5:30 (graduate students only)
Also available by appointment and email
Email: salvo@purdue.edu
Course website: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~salvo/306/

Texts
The Practice of Everyday Life. DeCerteau, Michel.  University of California Press. 2002. 0520236998

Community Action and Organizational Change. Brenton Faber.  Southern Illinois University Press. 0809324369

Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited.  (2^nd ed of Critical Theory of Technology)  Feenberg.  Oxford, 2002.

Writing Workplace Cultures. Jim Henry    Southern Illinois University Press 2000.  0809323206

User-Centered Technology.  Robert Johnson.  State University of New York Press Press, 1998. 0791439321

Central Works in Technical Communication Johnson-Eilola & Selber  Oxford University Press, 2004.  0195157052

Rhetoric and the Arts of Design. Kaufer and Butler. Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates, 1996.  0805821465

Aramis, or the Love of Technology. Latour, Bruno. Harvard University Press.   1996.  ASIN: 0674043227

Spurious Coin. Bernadette Longo.  State University of New York Press Press, 2000. 0791445569

Just Gaming. Lyotard & Thebaud  University of Minnesota Press, 1987. 0816612773

Rhetoric of Risk. Beverly Sauer.   Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates 2002.  0805836861

Opening Spaces. Sullivan and Porter.    Ablex, 1997.  156750308X  

Materials
Please be sure to make numerous backup copies of all your work on different media.
I strongly recommend purchasing a USB Drive (called “thumb” or “jump” drive – 16 mb should be fine).

Course Description
ENGL 680T: Professional Writing Theory takes both parts of the title, "Professional Writing" and "Theory" seriously, reading and examining both recent research in professional writing (PW) and critical and other theory that informs this work. PW has been loosely defined as "writing in nonacademic environments," a definition that leaves much room for discussion and debate. Students will explore the relationship between rhetoric, composition and PW, as well as the connections and dislocations between technical and scientific communication and PW. The class will address questions such as: What research is being done in PW? How does PW research differ from rhetorical research? What role does technology (and the philosophy of technology) play in PW research? What challenges face PW in the information age, and how can PW researchers meet these challenges? As a negative definition, then, PW is "not-composition," a rhetorical study of communication in workplaces and communities that is produced with a purpose, a rhetorical exigency, a rhetorical situation, that requires symbolic action. We will study both the sites of professional writing and the artifacts of non-academic writing. Along the way, we will investigate the articulations and fractures between academic and non-academic writing. Students will complete a review of a recent book in professional writing, a longer seminar paper, and will meet with undergraduate students in 306, the introduction to the professional writing major.