This dissertation expands on scholarship that examines efforts at incorporating a social justice framework into pedagogy, specifically, the role of technical and professional communication (TPC) faculty in addressing discriminatory digital technologies within a social-justice-oriented tech ethics pedagogy. I observe that despite the thousands of computer technology students who graduate from their programs every year in the US with the latest training, there seems to be no change to the adverse tech culture that produces discriminatory and racist work environments and digital technologies. The implication is that computer technology programs may not be prioritizing a tech ethics pedagogy that supports addressing and redressing the issue of discriminatory digital technologies within a social justice framework. Therefore, this study sought to understand the values that undergraduate computer technology students learn to prioritize during their studies as it relates to digital technologies and the suitability of TPC faculty in addressing the issue of discriminatory digital technologies within their pedagogy, through surveys of UCF computer technology undergraduate students and TPC faculty within the US. I argue that due to the TPC field's longstanding and historical relationship with technology, wide-ranging knowledge of how communication flows, understanding of the power dynamics inherent in the use of language, technology, and science, and social justice focus within the last twenty years, TPC faculty are strongly positioned with knowledge, frameworks, and practices that can be used to address the discriminatory results of digital technologies in their pedagogy.

When a team works together on a collaborative grant proposal, each member will bring expertise and past experience in developing this complex text. Online collaborative tools can be used to support this effort, but it is important to understand how team members perceive the tools, the ways they can or should be used, and the impacts of using them. By adapting the Task-Technology Fit (TTF) model to this context, we can consider perceived task and technology characteristics, performance impacts, and utilization. Trends can be analyzed regarding the perceived fit of specific online collaborative tools to support collaboration, productivity, and quality of writing. Two online unstructured collaboration tools were used in this mixed-methods study. Perceptions collected from faculty who had used one of the tools in the past to develop a collaborative proposal provided insight into how research teams utilized available resources for this work, the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using similar tools, and what aspects would benefit from further advancement. It was found that use of the tools is generally perceived to impact collaboration and productivity, but there were mixed perceptions whether quality of writing is also impacted. Users felt the tools required different strategies based on communication channels but afforded greater access to information. Users also felt that using the tools required active productivity management but contributed to efficiency gains. Lastly, users felt that the quality of writing might be impacted due to simultaneous activities and time savings, but also that the specific expertise of the team members significantly impacted quality.

In this study, I conducted a content analysis to investigate engagement in online graduate technical communication programs. I wanted to evaluate this topic because online learning and engagement evolve, so it is fitting to evaluate how educational policies, learning methods, and technology have developed in technical communication education. The content analysis consisted of coding course material from three technical communication courses, mostly assignment descriptions, and instructions based on the language in the documents. I found strategies that develop skills 21st century technical communicators should have, such as discussions, service learning, and research papers.

A reoccurring topic in the TPC (technical/ professional communication) field has been the exclusion and marginalization of some audience members, especially those who are African American/ Black, Asian, Hispanic or Latino, LGBTQIA, and those with physical or mental disabilities. Throughout this thesis, I make connections between what has happened in the past and how it has contributed to the kairos of the TPC social justice turn. I explore the term "kairos" which is the timing and space in which something occurs and, depending on someone's delivery, they can create a persuasive and opportunist moment. The subject of including audiences into the designing and decision-making process has been defined by authors like Grabill and Simmons (1998), Jones, Moore, and Walton (Jones et al 2016; Walton et al 2019), Cecilia Shelton (2019), Agboka and Dorpenyo (2021), and many others. Jones, Moore, and Walton write about ways for technical communicators to be more inclusive, like when they write about understanding our positionality, privilege, and power (The 3Ps). They also lay out a framework to help address social issues (the 4Rs). Technical communicators are, as Melody Bowdon says, "public intellectuals," which means we must remain civically engaged and responsible for our work. The subject of social justice has evolved through social unrest and modern issues, like the Black Lives Matter movement, recorded evidence of violence against the African American/ Black community, Covid-19, LGBTQIA communities receiving poor health care, etc. The social justice turn is important now because it has become the time and space, or kairos, to discuss any issues that audiences may face when it comes to communications.

This study investigates the relationship between professional identity and professional status by exploring the quest for professionalization within technical communication. An established professional identity is crucial to an occupation's professionalization process, as it enables members of a given field to create a common sense of being and facilitates a recognizable personal and collective identity. Such recognition is vital to an occupation's rise to professional status, as it creates a distilled image of the ideal practitioner for outsiders and forms the basis upon which claims of expertise may be made. By constructing the meaning surrounding their profession, members are able to portray an image which designates their knowledge as a scarce expertise and their profession as the appropriate source for the services they provide. A lack of professional identity constitutes the primary factor hindering technical communication from realizing the professionalization process, as it prevents the formation of practitioners' common sense of being, promotes the absence of identifiability and precludes the possibility of recognition by larger society. Without an established professional identity, the field cannot formulate a culturally-relevant perception of its role, claim professional expertise or jurisdiction over their work, or achieve the social and cultural legitimacy necessary in order to increase its professional status. By implementing processes of occupational branding within the professional project, efforts involving the construction of collective professional identity will increase professional status by enabling a group's management of professional meaning, facilitating the creation of an occupational brand and assisting in value production.

This thesis examines how technical communicators can look to free, successful mobile games for mobile User Interface (UI) and User Assistance (UA) inspiration and design techniques. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an overview of major game studies theories and situate them within technical communication theory and practices. Technical communicators can leverage game studies theories to augment existing technical communication theories and practices. Specifically, I examine cognitive learning theory in game design, game usability, playability, and user-centered design, and how these theories relate to technical communication, rhetorical, mobile UI/UA, and general usability theories and methods. Additionally, I also note technical communicators can provide depth and fill in existing gaps in game design theory relating to language and textual presentation within games. I demonstrate this value by synthesizing and applying these methods to two successful free mobile games: Supercell's Clash of Clans and Blizzard Entertainment's Hearthstone. In a highly competitive and lucrative environment, top free mobile games provide effective user experiences to engage and retain users. Examining mobile game design provides a creative way for technical communicators to improve their own approaches for user engagement and mobile design.

Women's technical writing achievements often go unrecognized, both due to the invisibility of technical writing professionals in general, and a lack of famous technical communication role models in particular. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and present an early major work in the technical writing of Rear Admiral "Amazing" Grace Hopper, inventor of the compiler and an important figure in computer science history. Although Hopper is arguably best known for popularizing the idea of the "computer bug," her achievements in computer science extend from invention of the software compiler to tireless promotion of the programming language COBOL. Her work A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, written for the first digital computer in America, is analyzed here according to Mike Markel's eight criteria of excellent technical writing: honesty, clarity, accuracy, comprehensiveness, accessibility, conciseness, professional appearance, and correctness. I also cover other specific strengths of Grace's approach, including how she establishes sufficient context, highlights multiple uses for information, and provides numerous well-chosen examples for audience needs. However, I also discuss how modern research principles for improving technical writing, including task-orientation, attention to cognitive load, and minimalism, help explain the manual's shortcomings. I conclude my study with a discussion of Hopper's later work, "The Education of a Computer," to demonstrate her growth as a writer. The conclusion also highlights areas awaiting further research and cements my recommendation that study of Grace Hopper's work be incorporated into our historical understanding of the discipline. Hopper's technical writing deserves to be more widely understood and appreciated as a vital contribution to early software documentation.

The Internet and the World Wide Web have supplanted many paper-based information systems. People turn to the web to locate local services in the same way they find ecommerce sites such as Amazon. Churches of all sizes must develop effective and attractive websites to attract new members and inform existing members. These two groups form distinct audiences that must be correctly targeted by the website content. Other churches may visit to gather ideas for their programs; they are a third group of site visitors. Organization of hypertext on the web requires skills that are different than writing for print. Technical communicators possess those skills and can help others write better hypertext. This research examines eight churches that cross three categories: denomination, size, and location. The websites of the churches are analyzed from the standpoint of the reader and the technical communicator to determine their effectiveness in content, organization, and underlying structure of the webpages, and then consider if geography, size, or denomination account for the observed differences. Audience and message are lesser issues than organization of information and navigational guidance for the reader. No remarkable differences were observed based on size, geography, or denomination. The technical communicator can assist non-technical content producers in developing skills in organization and classification.

This thesis analyzes three American housekeeping books—Lydia Maria Child's The American Frugal Housewife, Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe's The American Woman's Home, and Helen Campbell Stuart's The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking—as historical examples of technical writing. The study follows current recommendations for historical research in the field, namely, to analyze technical writing texts in consideration of their historical context. This involves determining what constituted technical writing in the nineteenth century; considering the publishing context of the study; and applying this definition to analyze three housekeeping books as technical manuals. These texts exemplify technical writing based on their functional purpose, to help readers perform work. Additionally, they incorporate verbal and visual rhetorical strategies distinctive of technical writing. Since the majority of women in the nineteenth century worked in their homes, these books served as their workplace manuals.

The Technical World of Warcraft explores the various technical instruction elements of World of Warcraft, more specifically observing issues faced by players who take on content at the highest level. The thesis raises the problem of the in-game technical documentation being utterly ineffective for the aforementioned players, causing them to create their own technical documents. While observing the environment found exclusively within the game, research from Jennifer DeWinter and Ryan Moeller, Mark Chen, Sarah Bishop, and more, is used to analyze the game's instructional elements from a critical angle. Several job listings from other major game development companies are also used to bring forward the idea that Activision-Blizzard does not have technical communicators creating their own in-game technical instruction. By considering these factors, the study calls attention to an area within the gaming industry that technical communicators could provide a great benefit and create better support for those who do enjoy video games.