This study analyzes how spatial organization impacts science communication at the St. Petersburg Science Festival in Florida. Through map analysis, qualitative interviews, and a close reading of evaluation reports, the author determines that sponsorship, logistics, exhibitor ambience, and map usability and design are the factors most affecting the spatial performance of science. To mitigate their effects, technical communicators can identify these factors and provide the necessary revisions when considering how science is communicated to the public.

Complex socio-technical problems such as climate change and the opioid epidemic strain current conceptions of public problem solving. Practitioners, including technical communication researchers, need methods that address immediate needs while supporting sustained community and policy response. Drawing on new materialist theory, technical communication research methods, and participatory research design, I trace the 2015 outbreak of HIV in Scott County, Indiana, and the subsequent passage of syringe exchange legislation, to craft frameworks for collaborative research calibrated to the messiness of wicked problems. My study draws on analysis of publicly available documents related to the outbreak, and interviews with public health practitioners, and community activists in order to identify sensitizing metaphors, and map how different metaphors organize work. Mapping these differences, and the networks they create for policy-making, operational response and research makes visible the embedded work of technical communication. I hope my research will help scholars and practitioners work more closely and communicate more effectively with more interdisciplinary and diverse audiences, contributing to critical scholarship that builds better communities. <br>

<p>This dissertation details one of the first lines of inquiry into the rhetorical strategies used in scientific data analysis. The study primarily concerns the relationships between data work and knowledge making in the analysis of so-called “big data,” and how rhetoric and technical communication theories might inform those relationships. Hinging on five months embedded at a national science laboratory, this study uses ethnographic methods to detail the ways in which data analysis is neither purely data-driven and objective, nor purely situated in a local context or problem. Rather, data work requires both analytical processes and artful <i>techne</i> embedded in ongoing reflective praxis. As purely analytic, data work focuses on mathematical treatments, step by step procedures and rote formulas. As <i>techne</i>, data work requires interpretation. Rhetorical data analysis is not the opposite of data-driven work. Instead, rhetorical <i>techne</i> stands as the midpoint between the extremes of purely data-driven and purely context-driven analysis. Based on three cases that compare the practices of data novices, seasoned experts, and interdisciplinary teams, I argue that the ways in which scientists go about their data cleaning, collaboration, and analysis change based on their levels of expertise and the problem at hand. A number of principles that outline how data analysis is a form of rhetorical inscription are also defined, including the ways data dictionaries, model building and the construction of proxies intimately link scientific insights with language. The set of principles detailed in this dissertation are key areas that should be considered in both data science education and professional and technical writing curricula. Therefore, the project should be of particular interest to instructors and administrators in both Technical Writing and Data Science programs, as well as well as critical data studies scholars.</p>

With tightening university budgets, never before has the activity level of research grant proposal writing been more intense. With increased proposal numbers, including for the National Science Foundation's (NSF) prestigious CAREER award, has also come increased competition and decreased funding rates. This dissertation has searched for successful and unsuccessful characteristics from funded and unfunded CAREER proposals. The research focused on a study of two key subjects: 1) a corpus of 20 texts that included 12 funded proposals and 8 unfunded proposals from across NSF programs, and 2) an ethnographic analysis comprised from interviews with 14 NSF program officers (PO) from varying programs. Coding elements with the texts to uncover topical chains of content, rhetorical, and document design strategies revealed sound rhetorical moves and rhetorical mistakes. The study also illustrated evidence of adherence to or neglect of NSF-mandated writing/formatting conventions as connected to the likelihood of receiving funding. Moreover, the study revealed conventions that have developed for the genre that are not prescribed by NSF but that, nevertheless, seem to be expected. Through genre field analysis, the study's interviews with program officers (PO) revealed a system of genre-agents and player-agents that interact together in a highly rhetorical and social system. This system, comprised of locales in which a multitude of play scenarios can be enacted to exert influence, operates within fairly exact rules of play. Such rules may be published by NSF or simply be "understood," yet principal investigators (PI) are held accountable for them regardless. The ethnography created from interviews with POs revealed multiple genre field elements (e.g., genre- and player-agents, transformative locales, play scenarios, penalty conditions) as well as common mistakes and best practices. A complete mapping of the CAREER award proposal preparation, submission, and review process resulted from the study, which mapping has offered insightful strategies to expand PI (and other agents') influence on the funding process. The dissertation concluded by offering investigators a step-by-step process to identify and map the elements of the proposal genre field in which they operate.

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This paper examines the roles of technical communicators and writing center consultants in regards to their identities and the expertise that they bring to what they do. Both fields have struggled with a lack of understanding surrounding what their positions entail and more importantly how they perform in their roles. With this in mind, the goal of this paper is to analyze how the growth of each field and the variations of each position contribute to the issue of identity. Furthermore, as a result of the identity problem that faces each position, I suggest using the theory of liminality, communication theory, and genre theory to examine more closely how technical communicators and writing center consultants approach the work they do. Technical communicators and writing center consultants perform very similar roles in their respective fields. Both positions have the ability to contribute to various fields through the work that they do. Technical communicators have the ability to communicate in multiple areas without necessarily being subject matter experts in the areas they participate in. The same holds true for writing center consultants who may, in one day, assist students in multiple subjects without necessarily having specific disciplinary knowledge of each area addressed. Outsiders do not understand how technical communicators and writing consultants can communicate within an unfamiliar field, which creates a main area of controversy for both roles. Using the three theories mentioned above, I make an argument for just how it is possible for them to perform in this capacity. By focusing on how technical communicators and writing center consultants perform in their roles instead of on their writing, their identity and expertise becomes clear and confusion surrounding each field can be banished. Although technical communicators and writing consultants both face similar challenges, their responsibilities differ in ways that affect how these theories apply. Still, all three theories illuminate how rhetoric provides the basis for expertise in both technical communication and writing centers.

This thesis investigates the changes and challenges technology has created in the field of technical illustration. Technical illustration includes the fields of technical drawing as well as scientific and medical illustration. Previously, technical illustrators learned and used traditional illustration methods, without the aid of computers. However, technology has rapidly entered the field and has changed the education, work environment, skills, and role of the technical illustrator. I note both the benefits and disadvantages that current technical illustrators are facing in their work. I explore both sides of the digital media and traditional art debate while focusing on the technical illustrator's role, tools and methods used in the illustration process, education, idea-generation, and the future of technical illustration. By emphasizing the issues associated with the incorporation of digital media into traditional methods, I hope to bring awareness to the transformation of technical illustration and the future of this discipline.