After completing his PhD at Texas Tech, Prof. Salvo spent three years at Northeastern University before joining the Rhetoric & Composition Program at Purdue. His research explores professional & technical writing and rhetoric, particularly ethical issues related to writing with digital technology in academic and nonacademic settings. He lead a group of usability researchers testing Purdue's Online Writing Lab.
Recent publications include:
2010
- "Cinders, Ash, and Commitment: Database Pathos in Six (Million) Parts " Chapter 3 in RAW: Reading and Writing New Media edited by Cheryl E. Ball and James Kalmbach
- "Information Design: From Authoring Text to Architecting Virtual Space" with Paula Rosinski Chapter 4 in Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice edited by Rachel Spilka
- "Working It Out: Community Engagement and Cross-Course Collaboration " with Jenny Bay, Mark Hannah, and Karen Kaiser-Lee in Programmatic Perspectives
- "The Children of Aramis" with Ehren Pflugfelder and Joshua Prenosil in Journal of technical Writing and Communication
- "Globalization Amid the Cornfields: Teaching Sustainable Practices in the American Midwest" in The Writing Instructor
2007
- "User-Centered Technology in Participatory Culture: Two Decades 'Beyond a Narrow Conception of Usability Testing' " with Robert R. Johnson and Meredith Zoetewey in IEEE-PCS
- "Participatory Assessment: Negotiating Engagement in a Technical Communication Program in Technical Communication with Jingfan Ren
- "A Case of Exhaustive Documentation: Re-centering System-oriented Organizations Around User Need" with Meredith Zoetewey and D. Kate Agena in Technical Communication
2006
- "The Distributed gesamptkunstwerk: Sound, Worlding, and New Media Culture" with Thomas Rickert in Computer and Composition journal's special issue Sound in/as Composition Space (winner of the Computers and Composition Journal's 2006 Ellen Nold Award)
- "And they had pro tools ... " with Thomas Rickert in Computers and Composition Online's issue on sound in new media (winner of the Kairos 2007 Best Webtext Award)
- "Rhetoric as Productive Technology: Cultural Studies in/as Technical Communication Methodology" Chapter 9 in Scott, Longo, Willis (Eds) Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies. SUNY Press
Prof. Salvo currently serves on the editorial board of Kairos, an online journal he co-founded with six other techno-rhetoricians and the TC Library of the e-server, an online repository of technical communication research.