Mullins in Academe

Begin with the End in Mind

2011-02-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

Among the speakers at the Arkansas Comprehensive Literacy Conference in October of 2007, was Dr. Sonya Whitaker. On the title page of her presentation slides, Dr. Whitaker, who currently is an educational consultant with a Chicago firm, lists herself as "Director of Literacy," in (or, possibly, for?) Schaumburg, IL.

Seasoned conference speakers know that it is important to make an immediate impact to grab the attention of the audience, and it is not uncommon to open with a relevant quote or story to engage the audience. In Whitaker's presentation, entitled The Culturally Responsive Teacher and Leader, she takes this approach. On her second slide, Whitaker quotes NASA Administrator, Michael Griffin, as saying:

“Every time we fly I know that we can loose a crew. That occupies a large portion of my thoughts.” [sic]

As reported throughout the world, Griffin spoke these words at the August 8, 2007 launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor. The Endeavor flight drew significant attention from the worldwide press as the first to carry a teacher-astronaut--then 55 year-old Barbara Morgan--since Christa McAuliffe perished along with the crew in the 1985 Challenger disaster. But the point here is not Griffin’s words, but Whitaker’s representation of them. If we take this slide at face value, Griffin apparently does not know how to spell “lose.” However, she is quoting Griffin’s spoken words here: the error is Whitaker's, not Griffin’s.

As one would expect, Griffin’s sobering words were widely reported by the global media at the time of Endeavor launch. An internet search reveals that the many reporters (or editors) who quoted Griffin's knew how to spell "lose." It is ironic that Whitaker, a “director of literacy,” made this mistake at a literacy-conference presentation.

To be fair, I suspect that Dr. Whitaker actually does know the difference between "loose" and "lose" and that this is merely a typographical error that she did not correct during her own editorial process. A closer look at Whitaker's slides reveals that the presentation date was October 16, 2007 and her copyright claim is 2006. It is likely that in her haste to update an older presentation with "current" material for the October 2007 conference, she simply overlooked the error.

Unfortunately for Whitaker, her mistake was immortalized in her presentation at the conference, which also is on the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Literacy website.

This error illustrates two very important points. First, even if your spelling and grammar are exceptional, it is important to proofread and edit. It is difficult to see our own mistakes. Use spelling and grammar checkers and other available proofreading and editing tools on your written work to circumvent these kinds of mistakes. It often is difficult for an author to separate intent from result; we read what we intended to write rather than what we actually wrote. Get proofreading help from someone else whenever possible. Also, it is easier to see mistakes when not actively engaged in the development side of the writing process. Proofread your work at least a day after it is finished to look for errors that were not apparent during the writing phase. Second, little mistakes can have a big impact. Spelling errors, particularly in an age where we have so many helper tools available to us, can make an author or the represented organization appear ignorant or unprofessional. An apparent spelling error at the beginning of a presentation by an educational consultant, at a literacy conference, is a great “teaching moment.” It is likely to become a topic of conversation. A corollary to this second point is that what we say lives “forever” on the internet.

My apologies to Dr. Whitaker for making an example of what likely is a typing error. However, considering her title, the venue of the error, and the significance of the quoted material, this is a perfect illustration of the need to proofread and edit. Whitaker used her opening quote to illustrate an important point in her presentation, "begin with the end in mind." She would have done well to heed her own advice.

Commonly Confused Words

2010-11-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

Partly due to the rich ethnic heritage of the language, there are many words in English that are confused with other words. We have words that sound the same but have different meanings such as fair, fare, and fair.

I recently attended the State Fair [event] of Texas, where the fare [cost] to ride the Ferris wheel seemed quite fair [just or reasonable], considering the stunning views of Dallas at night from the tallest Ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere.

In this sentence, all three are homonymns (same pronunciation but different meanings). Fare is also a homophone of the other two (same pronunciation, different meaning and spelling).

Adding to the confusion potential, English also has words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.

The beautiful sight of the Dallas skyline from the 212.5-foot tall Texas Star brought a tear [fluid secreted by the lacrimal gland] to my eye. I wanted take a picture of it, but found I had a tear [rip] in my bag and my camera was missing. After the twelve-minute ride, I went on a tear [colloquial: to become frantic, to do something maniacly] to find my missing camera, which was at the bottom of my bag all along.

Tear, tear, and tear are examples of homographs, words that have the same spelling but different meanings. The first instance also is a heteronymn of the other two (same spelling, different meanings and pronunciations).

We also have words that come from the same root but, nonetheless, have different spellings in English for different meanings (or in different contexts). English also has words that are from different roots but that have similar meanings. Another common problem is words that sound similar, but have different meanings. All of these add to the potential for confusion in understanding, writing, and speaking the English language.

I will look at some of these commonly-confused words in a series of posts, beginning here with the last category: words that sound similar, but have different meanings. Let's look first at accept and except.

Accept vs. Except

To accept (verb) is to welcome, receive willingly, bear, tolerate, hold as true, or agree with. [1]
To except (verb) is to exclude, to object, or to take exception to. [2]
Except as a verb is not used as often as the noun form, exception. [3]
Except also is a conjunction meaning “but not.” [4]
Except also can be a preposition meaning "other than." [5]

Usage Examples

The professor accepted the student’s alternative answer to the question. [1]
The university accepts 2000 new students each year. [1]
The student accepted his grade on the test. [2]
The professor excepted the lowest grade before calculating the average. This exception raised the class average by five points. [3]
Everyone except the Dean spoke at the meeting. This exception raised the class average by a few points. [4]
Except for the Dean, everyone spoke at the meeting. [5]

Next time
We will look at another troublesome pair: affect and effect.

Declaring My Big, Red "C"

2010-05-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

The title for this post refers to my response to Craig Newmark when I interjected myself into a conversation he and Tim O'Reilly were having on Twitter about needing transparency of lobbyists:

@craignewmark Tweeted that same story about lobbyists a half hour ago. Trying to figure out what to do about it. Registered Lobbyist badge?
@craignewmark @timoreilly yup, lobbyist story circulating well, which is good. I like idea that professional communicators should be marked.

Being a "professional communicator" myself, although not a lobbyist, this stream piqued my interest. The tweets that started this concerned a Washington Post story circulating on Facebook and Twitter about PR professionals and other "tech industry lobbyists" using social media to further the interests of the organizations they represent. According to the Post, the issue is that many of these "influence peddlers" are not declaring their affiliations, which results in "enormous influence... with few rules of engagement...."

Among others, the Post story highlights Paul (PJ) Rodriguez, "whose Twitter profile says he's a pop culture maven and cable blogger [who] tweets about "American Idol," Dora the Explorer and wonky tech policy issues, like broadband jurisdiction at the Federal Communications Commission." According to Cecilia Kang, author of the Post article, Rodriguez does not adequately declare on his Twitter profile his connections with those "wonky tech policies" as a PR professional representing NCTA, Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable.

The tweet that Kang cites as an example is this one, from April 12, from Rodriguez' "Pop culture maven" Twitter stream.

@pjrodriquez Former FCC Commish Michael Powell: The cable industry has never been regulated in a Title II common carrier fashion" http://bit.ly/b7sbZA

Rodriguez is a fairly prolific tweeter. No tweets since this one nor any in the several days before it were more than ancillarily connected to communications. This Twitter stream does, indeed, appear to be a personally-based stream largely about cultural and pop culture topics. Rodriguez' pjrodriquez pop culture Twitter stream has nearly 500 followers. He also has around 200 followers of his CableTechTalk stream, where he does talk about communications industry topics. It is reasonable that Rodriguez would compartmentalize his interests -- and equally reasonable that they would overlap from time to time.

Kang also cites Jonah Seiger as an example of blurred interests. Sieger is a managing partner in a PR firm that represents Google, Amazon, Facebook, Skype, and other client members of the Open Internet Coalition, an organization that supports net neutrality. In the Post article, Kang states that those connections are not clear, requiring a "casual observer" to "go through a couple more links to determine the organization's funding sources."

While it certainly is possible that the Open Internet Coalition web site has been re-architected since Kang's story was published this morning (or since she interviewed Seiger), I quickly found the list of supporters from a top-level link on their home page, Who We Are.

Key to the debate is a comment in the Post story by Mike McCurry. McCurry himself is not -- if you'll pardon the expression -- neutral. He founded an anti-net-neutrality advocacy group for big communications corporations. McCurry is also a former spokesperson for President Clinton. The reconstituted communications giant AT&T is a direct result of Clinton's 1993 Telecom Act, which allowed the re-merging of various Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) that had previously been split out of (the former, virtually monopolistic) AT&T in 1984. Not surprisingly, considering his backers, McCurry's Arts+Labs group not only is not in favor of net neutrality, but favors stricter anti-piracy enforcement. McCurry makes an astute observation though, as he is quoted by Kang:

"The Internet has become essential, and now people get known more in this world by who they are and how they express themselves."

McCurry is correct, of course. The internet is essential. Further, our interconnectedness provides an outlet in which contextually-relevant content and contextually-eloquent expression make anyone an author or an "expert." News, data, facts, author -- these all have new meanings in a multicultural, multivocal, hyperconnected world. The internet itself is the 800-pound gorilla.

While the warrant of the specific data that Kang used to support her story may be questionable, the argument for some level of transparency in social media -- and throughout the internet -- still holds. This brings us back to the earlier Twitter discussion. When Newmark suggested that "professional communicators should be marked," I asked:

@cherimullins Ah, shall we wear a big, red "C"? RT @craignewmark: @timoreilly I like idea that professional communicators should be marked.

Newmark responds, positing the need for transparency but admiting that he doesn't have an answer.

@craignewmark @cherimullins I dunno, need some kind of transparency operation, maybe need to distinguish socializing from work. not easy. @timoreilly
@craignewmark @cherimullins @jbminn: @timoreilly need transparency without being pain in the butt, I can't think of anything now.

And there is the problem. How do we implement and enforce an adequate level of transparency in a system that is inherently anonymous? Surely it is not necessary for me to declare every one of my associations in order to not mislead my readers. How do we identify the ethos of the author and qualify the integrity of the content in a system that is inherently egalitarian and open? Note the two superstars with whom I was conversing, Craig Newmark (Craig's List) and Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media). Like Craig Newmark, I leave the answers for another day.

Cheri Mullins -- Teacher, gardener, telecommunications writer, dog owner, content strategist, parent, information architect, flower lover, writer, runner, student, provocateur...

------------
Postscript
Tim O'Reilly also responded to my comment:

@timoreilly @cherimullins Not suggesting all "professional communicators" be badged. Only registered lobbyists - a unique category which needs rules

Yes, it was evident that the proposal was that only a certain subset of communicators needs to be identified. But, that raises another set of questions that I chose to not address here -- yet. Two that come to mind are: Which professions, interests, or activities spur the need for disclosure? and Who makes that decision?

Did Arizona "Ban Ethnic Studies"?

2010-05-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Controversial topics always bring out the rhetorical devices. Arizona House Bill 2281--Arizona's latest in a series of controversial actions related to immigration, race, and culture--has enjoyed more than its fair share of rhetorical spin. Because cultural and ethnic studies are a large part of my own research and teaching agendas, I decided to look more closely at what the bill actually says rather than the rhetorical spin.

The primary attack on the bill is evident in various forms of the oft-repeated headline:

Arizona bans "ethnic studies"

This is a fascinating rhetorical spin by opponents of the law. A closer reading of statute 15-112, shows that the law is actually designed to prohibit the promotion of sedition or treason, prohibiting in paragraph 1, classes that promote "the overthrow of the United States government." Notice that it does not prevent the teaching of the right to free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and so forth. It prohibits programs or classes that promote the overthrow of the government. Admittedly, the line is sometimes arguable between sedition and some of our hard-won, staunchly-defended, and democratically-unique freedoms to criticize our own government. This prohibition does not cross that line; rather, it protects it, as the next paragraphs in the bill show.

The next two paragraphs of the statute prohibit teaching "resentment toward a race or class of people" and programs or classes that are "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group." These clauses do not limit ethnic studies at all. In fact, in their repudiation of ethnic exclusivity, they actually promote the value of the individual, which is a basic tenet of American values. Sections E and F enumerate certain curricula that the law specifically allows: teaching controversial aspects of history, teaching about genocide and the oppression of peoples based on ethnicity, race, or class (interestingly, gender is not included), and teaching ethnic history--as long as those classes are not designed for a particular group nor closed to any group. These clauses provide for an inclusiveness in ethnic studies, they do not prohibit ethnic studies.

The next paragraph is perhaps the most controversial, the most powerful, and, ultimately the best part of the bill. Paragraph 4 states that classes may not "Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Note my added emphasis on the words "instead of." House Bill 2281 is not saying that we cannot acknowledge, learn about, and celebrate our ethnic heritage. Such a directive would be unthinkable in a nation such as we are: multicultural, diverse, and--yes--welcoming to myriad nationalities, cultures, religions, and lifestyles. What the bill does say is that ethnic solidarity at the expense of the individual is not allowed, nonproductive in a richly-diverse society, wrong.

There is no question that some people are racists and bigots. It is possible that the Arizona schools superintent who pushed this law, Tom Horne, may be racist as his detractors have accused. However, the merit of a law does not lie in motivating factors, history, or associations. The merit of a law lies in its ability to preserve and protect our nation and protect and enable our people. We are a yet a young nation, a nation striving for our egalitarian ideals of equal opportunity and rights of the individual. Bill 2281 may not be hailed as a champion of the American way, but it does, in some small part, protect those ideals.

Reasonable people should always question and fight against unreasonable actions. The debates about the Arizona bill are based not on reason, but emotion. I have included the relevant excerpt from the bill here. Read it yourself to see what it actually says.

(For space considerations, I used an excerpt reproduced in a small font. Go to the Legislature's web site at www.azleg.gov to see the entire bill in a larger font.)

Senate Engrossed House Bill
State of Arizona
House of Representatives
Forty-ninth Legislature
Second Regular Session
2010

HOUSE BILL 2281

AN ACT

AMENDING Title 15, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, by adding sections 15-111 and 15-112; amending section 15‑843, Arizona Revised Statutes; relating to school curriculum.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Title 15, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding sections 15-111 and 15-112, to read:

START_STATUTE15-111. Declaration of policy

The legislature finds and declares that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people. END_STATUTE

START_STATUTE15-112. Prohibited courses and classes; enforcement

A. A school district or charter school in this state shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that include any of the following:

1. Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

4. Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

B. If the state board of education or the superintendent of public instruction determines that a school district or charter school is in violation of subsection A, the state board of education or the superintendent of public instruction shall notify the school district or charter school that it is in violation of subsection A. If the state board of education or the superintendent of public instruction determines that the school district or charter school has failed to comply with subsection A within sixty days after a notice has been issued pursuant to this subsection, The state board of education or the superintendent of public instruction may direct the department of education to withhold up to ten per cent of the monthly apportionment of state aid that would otherwise be due the school district or charter school. The department of education shall adjust the school district or charter school's apportionment accordingly. When the state board of education or the superintendent of public instruction determines that the school district or charter school is in compliance with subsection A, the department of education shall restore the full amount of state aid payments to the school district or charter school.

C. The department of education shall pay for all expenses of a hearing conducted pursuant to this section.

D. Actions taken under this section are subject to appeal pursuant to title 41, chapter 6, article 10.

E. This section shall not be construed to restrict or prohibit:

1. Courses or classes for native American pupils that are required to comply with federal law.

2. The grouping of pupils according to academic performance, including capability in the English language, that may result in a disparate impact by ethnicity.

3. Courses or classes that include the history of any ethnic group and that are open to all students, unless the course or class violates subsection A.

4. Courses or classes that include the discussion of controversial aspects of history.

F. Nothing in this section shall be construed to restrict or prohibit the instruction of the holocaust, any OTHER INSTANCE of genocide, or the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on ethnicity, race, or class. END_STATUTE

Sec. 2. Section 15-843, [§2, "Pupil disciplinary proceedings," omitted]

Sec. 3. Effective date

This act is effective from and after December 31, 2010.

House Bill 2281 on the Arizona Legislature site.

Rules and Tools: Does New Media Warrant New Standards?

2010-03-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

In a recent Twitter post, a colleague complained about an academic tool he had to use for compliance training.

Blackboard was obviuosly designed by engineers who have never used tech more advanced than an overhead projector.

Having recently been engaged in discussions with my class, other faculty, and instructional technology folks about the "hinckyness" of Blackboard in its current iteration, naturally, I reposted this to my own Twitter stream.

My tweets automatically post to my Facebook page. As a result, a parallel discussion about the eLearning née Blackboard software ensued within my Facebook community. The thread largely took the form of academic commentary about Blackboard, eLearning, Moodle, and course management software in general. That is, until this.

Maybe it was invented by English teachers. I guess it's "obvious" Dave isn't one..

The author of the original post is, indeed, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at my university. My first thought was to delete the critical post in order to spare "Dave" (and myself) any embarrassment resulting from the criticism. I had noticed the typo in the original post, but decided not to change it in my retweet of his post. By retweeting a la mode, now I had inadvertently opened my colleague to ridicule. What a quandary: Remove the criticism, thus placing a premium on the original content (and author) but implicitly trivializing the critic (and typo)? Leave the comment but ignore it - again, with the potential to trivialize both critic and comment. Comment on the critique within the Facebook thread and derail the original discussion stream?

I decided the best course of action is to address the new topic -- which I believe is important -- elsewhere. Which leads us to this blog post.

New forms of media often garner criticism over their seemingly lax rules and improvised writing. Each new form seems to have its own abbreviations and other shorthand forms of writing and spelling. The acceptance level for misspellings, typos, and other mistakes seems to increase with each new medium. Controversy over what is acceptable in email, online forums, the web, comments, posts, tweets, and other emerging media is not new.

Along with mechanics, there are other issues associated with the immediacy of these new genres. The content itself can be a problem. Sending an email without editing it first has long been a topic of discussion. Mobile-facilitated social media compounds the problem. Composing our missives on the tiny keyboard and screen of a phone or smart device and sending it from a dimly-lit Starbucks, we focus more on immediate response than either content or form.

And then, of course, there is writing within Twitter's 140-characters. Arguably, communication within such a limitation does force a certain focus in the message. It also opens the door for additional improvisations of style and allowances for error. Once posted, a tweet lives forever in the Twitter stream and in the various other streams to which it is diverted.

In some ways, the tools themselves will adapt to ameliorate these effects. For example, spelling check is now a standard feature of email software. Most blog and wiki tools also include spelling checkers. Word processor and publishing programs allow customization of the dictionaries that the spell checkers use. It would be a relatively easy task to include this feature in new media.

And my thoughts on the criticism of my colleague's typo? Perhaps we educators should be held to a higher standard. But we also must weigh the merits of editing and revision against the merits of timeliness and getting our thoughts out there in the first place. I've certainly made more than a fair share of errors in my own posts, so I have no room to criticize. I don't have an answer, but I am glad he posted.

Regardless of how we will mediate and navigate new media with tools and rules, this brings to mind a bigger question: Other than the obviously identifiable error of a mistyped word, does the current language usage in Twitter, text, and other instant media represent errors or a new grammar?

Facebook's "Diversity" Study: Fact or Fiction?

2009-12-18T07:45:00.000-08:00

Facebook has just published the results of their own research about the diversity of their users. The introduction to a summary overview of the study states:

In order to make Facebook as open and connected as possible for everyone, one of our goals is to understand how different populations of users join and use the service. With that objective in mind, the Facebook Data team recently sought to answer the question, "How diverse are the ethnic backgrounds of the people using Facebook?"

While I applaud their efforts to determine how well they represent the population at large, I question certain of the Facebook Data team's techniques. The primary method of identifying users as a given ethnicity or race for the study is by a user's reported last name. This methodology is based on the correlation of last names to self-reported ethnicity or race in the US Census statistics. Short of actually asking users to self-report their data, this approach seems reasonable. (I'll say a bit more about why I favor self-reporting later.)

However, what Facebook refers to as a mixture-modeling technique seems a bit sketchy. By their definition, they "back solve" for name based on ethnicity. This is recursive: one has to know a variable (in this case, race or ethnicity) in order to use it as a given. Certainly, using this back-solving method to cross-check data is valid. If one assumes that the makeup of Facebook does, indeed, parallel the (self-reported) ethnic and racial makeup reflected in the Census statistics, then determining whether study data correlates with the Census data is a valid data point to verify the categorization assumptions of the study. However, by both reporting correlation with the Census statistics as a result and using the same statistics to "refine" the statistics, the Facebook Data team has skewed the results to be highly self-referential.

The study results also are adjusted based on Internet adoption rates as defined by the telecom industry's NTIA report. There are two problems with this adjustment. The first is that, like the back-solving technique, using Internet adoption rates is self-referential: in this, the researchers are adjusting the results by a number that they are also reporting as a result. If one adjusts by a given variable, one would most certainly expect the results to reflect a high correlation with that variable. The second problem with this method of normalizing the results is the NTIA-reported adoption rates themselves, which reflect "households with Internet access." The NTIA figures, which are from a 2007 report, do not reflect recent significant changes in Internet access and Internet access methods. In certain communities, there has been a strong movement toward mobile-only personal access to the Internet. A large number of people in the black community, for example, have personal Internet access via only a mobile device and incidental access through public, work, or other borrowed computers. This type of access is not represented in the NTIA report.

Although using a technique of back-solving then making adjustments based on Internet adoption as a way to normalize the results seems to obscure rather than refine the results, I applaud Facebook's effort to collect this data. The 2010 Census data and adoption statistics that are current and more accurately reflect current Internet access capabilities and trends will provide better data against which to verify future studies. Further, Facebook has also stated that they are looking to capture first names and friend connections as data points. This, too, may yield more finely-tuned results.

Ultimately, though, I wonder why Facebook does not simply add an optional (and optionally public) profile statistic for Facebook users to self-report ethnicity and race. If the options are identical to the 2010 Census options -- and identically described, one would expect to obtain results that are directly comparable to the Census statistics and therefore a better indicator of whether or not Facebook is representative of the population at large. Furthermore, Facebook could could provide users with an option to allow this statistic to be used only in cumulative reporting or also in reporting in conjunction with other demographics, which would facilitate a significant depth of data for analysis not only by Facebook but but other social networking researchers. I believe Facebook has work to do here in defining exactly what the purpose of their study is and how best to collect their data.

Post Racial?
A last point about race and ethnicity: It is very difficult to identify. In a large, open, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural country such as the US, what does race or ethnicity even mean? Much to our shame, for much of our history as a country, we had significant national and institutional racial barriers to "the good life." Race and ethnicity statistics were collected and people were labeled as a means of exclusion. To a large extent today, race and ethnicity statistics are collected as a means of inclusion. That said, in our multi-everything society, how does one determine race or ethnicity outside of self-identification? As one commenter posts on the study summary site:

"although i may appear black, i think mostly like a white man, feel like a woman, and sleep with a man....facebook team --can you see me and hear me now????"

In my case, I am a prototypical American: a mixture of many ethnicities. The ones we know for sure are American Indian (Cherokee), Irish, French, Scottish, and English, in roughly the order of percentages. Some recent research points to perhaps also some Egyptian. I self-identify as Cherokee, although most people identify me as Irish (perhaps due to my blue eyes, pale skin, and reddish hair) or French (likely due to my first name) or Scots (based on my last name). Culturally, I am American. So am I white? Native American? African-American? Who knows? Although I identify as an American Indian, recognize my Irish looks and roots, and exhibit certain stereotypical characteristics of my Scots and French ancestry, I am not part of those cultures. So how would Facebook categorize me? Isn't my self-identification about as close as we can get?

Visual Metaphors

2009-11-11T23:09:00.000-08:00

In a Twitter post, Sean Zdenek asks "Which rhetorical figures can be redeployed visually?" He gives a great example of visual chiasmus, a rhetorical form that uses repetition of themes (also sometimes words) or structures in an inverted order. The name derives from the Greek word for the letter "x."

The most prevalent form of visual rhetorical figures may be the metaphor. Metaphors, in the simplest sense, simply refer to one thing as another. Perhaps the most famous metaphor is "The Lord is my Shepherd" from Psalm 22/23. The Lord is not literally a shepherd, nor are we sheep. This song extends King David's shepherd/sheep metaphor into a beautiful allegory of God's love for and protection of his people, using language that is at once familiar and prophetical. Most of us probably don't think about this psalm as a metaphor. It is that familiarity that makes metaphors so widely adopted. (For an analysis of David's famous psalm, read this article by Archbishop Dimitri.)

In addition to metaphors in literature and speech, we see visual metaphors everywhere. Metaphors abound in advertising, in signs, in symbology, even in colors. Here are a few visual metaphors for your consideration.

What does an image of Nike's new shoe say? Running. Fitness. Agility. Athlete.

Winning.

To strengthen their metaphor, Nike named it the "Lunarglide" (coincident with the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, in which the US won the race to the moon) and uses the tag line "Actually, it is rocket science."

A common visual metaphor in symbology is the aquila -- the Roman eagle. Anyone who knows a bit about Roman history (or has watched the HBO series, Rome) knows that the aquila was one of the standards for Roman legions, including those of Gaius Julius Caesar. The Roman eagle signifies power, might, strength, victory.

Unity.

The bald eagle became the official national emblem of the USA in 1789 as a result of those same signifiers. The eagle was adopted over the protests of Benjamin Franklin, who considered the bald eagle "of bad moral character" and wanted the turkey as our national bird instead. But clearer heads prevailed and, thus, the bald eagle became our national emblem. President John F. Kennedy later wrote of this American symbol: "The fierce beauty and proud independence of this great bird aptly symbolizes the strength and freedom of America." Not relegated completely to the sidelines, though, the turkey has become the American symbol of thanksgiving--of abundance, of family, and of peace.

The bald eagle as it appears on the Great Seal of the United States of America carries an olive branch and 13 arrows in its talons. Charles Thompson describes this symbolism in his design: "The olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war...." The visual metaphor of the American bald eagle carries forward the idea of strength and unity from its predecessor, the aquila. Additionally, it signifies defense (the USA has "a strong desire for peace, but will always be ready for war") and freedom.

Finally, I leave you with the humble turkey. (Note this little guy's resemblance to Ben Franklin; I don't think he's destined for anyone's holiday dinner.) May you and your family enjoy abundance and peace and all the good things for which we give thanks. Happy Thanksgiving.

CFP: CEA 2010, ATTW Sessions

2009-10-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

ATTW Sessions at College English Association 2010: Voices
March 25–27, 2010, San Antonio, Texas

Call for Papers
ATTW and the College English Association invite proposals for presentations on technical communication at CEA’s 41st annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. This will be the fifth year in ATTW has sponsored sessions at CEA. As affiliate organizations, ATTW and CEA work together to promote technical communication and English studies more broadly. All proposals must be submitted online at the submission system linked from the CEA website, http://www2.widener.edu/~cea.

Submissions
Deadline: November 1, 2009
Notifications: ~ December 5, 2009
Presentation language: Papers must be presented in English.
CEA does not sponsor or fund travel or underwrite participant costs.

Theme: Voices
We welcome proposals on any topic related to technical communication, but proposals that address the general conference theme, ”Voices,” will be especially appreciated. Topics might include the following:
Voice in technical communication
Voice and intercultural communication
Voice and ethos
Voices from the center, voices from the periphery
Voice(lessness) and power
Voice and technology (spoken commentary in grading, speech recognition, multimedia texts, podcasting)
Voices in Material Culture
Voices of Protest
Voice in Curricula, Courses, and Programs

For the complete CFP and a more complete list for CEA, go to http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2010.htm

Important Information for Presenters

Submission: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea
Choose "technical communication" as one of your topic areas
To preserve time for discussion, CEA limits all presentations to 15 minutes.
No person may make more than one presentation at the conference.
All presenters must join CEA by January 2010 to appear on the program.
Each presenter must make his or her own presentation; no proxies are allowed.
If you need audio-visual equipment, please specify your needs as clearly as possible. CEA can provide overhead projectors, DVD players, audio tape/CD players, and computer data projectors (presenters must bring their own laptop computers to run data projectors). CEA cannot provide internet access.>

Conference Contacts
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea

Miles Kimball, CEA President and ATTW member: miles.kimball@ttu.edu

CEA 2010 program questions: Karen Madison, CEA First Vice President: cea.english@gmail.com (use subject line "Program Chair”)

Membership questions: Joseph Pestino, CEA Treasurer—Membership Center, Department of English, Nazareth College of Rochester, 4245 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14618; phone (585-389-2645). Or email cea.english@gmail.com (use subject line “Treasurer”)

General conference questions: Charles A. S. Ernst, Executive Director—CEA Headquarters, Department of Arts and Sciences, Hilbert College, 5200 South Park Avenue, Hamburg, NY 14075 (716-649-7900, ext. 315), cernst@hilbert.edu

Technical questions: Miles Kimball, CEA President, cea.english@gmail.com (use subject line "Technical)

CEA Awards
Conference presenters (including graduate students) may be eligible for awards; go to http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/awards.htm for more information.

ATTW 2010 Call for Papers

2009-10-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

ATTW conference Proposals Deadline extended to 10/19/2009!
ATTW 2010 13th Annual Conference
Synergies: The Intersections of Research and Teaching
March 17, 2010
Louisville, KY

Also read Spinuzzi's comments.

The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) invites proposals for papers, poster presentations, and workshops to be given at its annual conference immediately preceding the CCCC. The thirteenth annual conference will be held in Louisville, KY, on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. The full-day event includes concurrent sessions, poster presentations, workshops, book exhibits, and opportunities for exchanging ideas, working on projects, and networking in a supportive and challenging academic environment.

This year's conference will highlight ways that research informs teaching and teaching informs research. It will challenge researchers, teachers, and practitioners of technical and professional communication to push beyond the generic "implications for teaching" section appended to research articles to explore the synergies and questions available when we place research and teaching into conversation.

Submissions on all topics are welcome, but we especially encourage proposals that examine topics such as the following:

the effectiveness of established or innovative pedagogies,
a research question sparked by an observation in the classroom,
pedagogical experiments sparked by research findings,
the needs of the workplace, the university, the field, or the community and ways to meet or challenge these needs in service, major, or graduate courses,
the roles, challenges, and benefits of instructional technologies,
the implications of existing research for the design of programs and curriculum,
pedagogies that can be used to teach research in the university and in the workplace,
research methods that can be used to examine pedagogies,
the relationships between teaching and research as they play out in different contexts within our discipline,
directions for future research on pedagogy or questions raised by classroom experiences.

Proposals, limited to 300 words, are due October 19, 2009. All proposals will be peer reviewed. We offer three formats:

1. Regular Sessions: Individuals may submit proposals for 15-minute talks that will be placed on panels by conference organizers. Groups may submit proposals for 45-minute panel presentations. To submit proposals, visit http://english.ttu.edu/attwconf/2010conference/ProposalRegistrationForm.asp.

2. Poster Presentations: Posters will be on display throughout the day with special times dedicated for conversations about this work. Follow the same process for submission as for a regular session.

3. Workshop Sessions: The conference will include two 90-minute workshops overlapping with the regular sessions. Workshops that would help newcomers integrate into our field are especially encouraged. Please submit workshop proposals directly to Summer Taylor slsmith@clemson.edu).

For additional information, contact the conference chair, Summer Taylor at Clemson University (slsmith@clemson.edu). New teachers of technical and professional communication are particularly invited to attend the conference, as are graduate students and CCCC attendees interested in technical and professional communication.

Honoring The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation - September 22, 2009

2009-09-22T20:06:00.001-07:00

Although not officially signed into law until January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln formally announced on September 22, 1862 his intent to free all persons held as slaves in the Conferderate States. This announcement generally is referred to as the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

A little-known fact is that the Emancipation Proclamation actually did not free all slaves, but only those in states in which "the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." Be that as it may, the anniversary of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation seems to me to be a good time to reacquaint ourselves with the text of that document, a document that forever changed the face of our Nation.

God bless America. God bless Abraham Lincoln. God bless those who suffer and strive for freedom everywhere.

The transcript of the text herein is from the National Archives. http://is.gd/3AdIs or http://www.archives.gov

Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862
A Transcription

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued.

That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and part of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to make an additional Article of War" approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:

"Article-All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.

"Sec.2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage."

Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled "An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:

"Sec.9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on (or) being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude and not again held as slaves.

"Sec.10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service."

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act, and sections above recited.

And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

[Signed:] Abraham Lincoln
By the President

[Signed:] William H. Seward
Secretary of State

Writer Humor & New Post on IATX

2009-09-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Past, the Present, and the Future walk into a bar. Bartender looks at them & says, "Why so tense?" (via @willsansbury on Twitter)

Rather than repeat my IA post, here is a link to it: http://iatx.blogspot.com

Happy reading!

How Many Have You Read?

2009-08-19T04:37:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves lists.

In the USA, we expediency-loving Americans like "top ten" lists. In England, they take a somewhat longer view.

In 2003 the BBC surveyed their audiences to compile a list of the top 200 "best-loved" novels in that nation. The BBC refers to this as "The Big Read."

Interestingly, the BBC lists The Big Read books on their website as the top 200, top 100, and top 21. Why 21, I wonder? In any case, 200 is too many to fool with for this expedient American and 21 too few.

There is a meme circulating on Facebook currently that supposedly lists the BBC "top 100" and also posits that the "average person" has read only six of the books on the list. However, the only BBC list appears to be the 2003 one. The list circulating on Facebook differs from this one. In any case, it's an interesting exercise.

How many of the books in the BBC's Top 100 Best-Loved Novels (2003 list) have you read? Take the Poll, at left, to record your results.

To whet your appetite for the larger list, here are the top 21. Go to the BBC site for Top 100 and Top 200 novels.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Remember, the question is not whether this is a good or reasonable "top" list - only how many you have read.

India Rising: The New Empire

2009-06-15T18:42:00.001-07:00

CNBC video of the burgeoning growth in India 4/28/2009

My Twitter Peeps

2009-04-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

I created a Word Cloud of the bios of the people who are following me on Twitter. Interestingly, "husband" shows up as a frequently-occurring word. More expectedly, these words pop up frequently: media, writer, technical, business, communication, marketing, social, blogger, author, speaker, professor, development, and, of course, twitter.

Curious? Use twittersheep.com to create your own.

Small Differences

2009-01-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

I am researching an historical neighborhood that was once an enclave for merchants and other Jewish immigrants to a burgeoning Dallas. The Jews experienced residential restrictions at the time the neighborhood was built, from 1910-1935. They built their essentially segregated neighborhoods to be close to downtown, their Elm Street shops, and their temple and school.

Dallas already had a sizable black population at that time. Most lived in the Freedman's area just north of downtown and -- directly across the Houston & Texas Central tracks -- in near east Dallas. As the Central tracks gave way to Central Expressway, much of Freedman's town (including the cemetery) was uprooted. This area is now the toney Uptown area of Dallas. As soldiers, including black servicemen, returned from WWII, and people migrated from rural to urban areas, the already significant shortage of housing available to black residents in Dallas was exacerbated by this influx of returning veterans and increasing urbanization of the area.

Both de facto and formal residential segregation measures continued to prevent migration of blacks to the established, upper-middle class and upper-class white areas of North and East Dallas. South Dallas is where most of the in-migrating blacks moved, including the typically Jewish areas. Additionally, upperwardly-mobile blacks began to migrate from the tougher black area north of downtown to the middle-class Jewish neighborhoods just south and east of downtown.

In 1949, the first black family moved onto Atlanta Street. As others moved in, the white families moved out. By 1952, South Dallas was about 90% black. The former upscale Jewish enclave of the Park Row - South Boulevard area experienced the same residential upheaval. My study will look at the stories of some of the people who lived in the Craftsman, Prairie-style, Historical Revival bungalows and mansions along the two streets of this neighborhood during those exciting years of upward mobility and home ownership within the context of an ongoing struggle for civil rights. This is the story of ethnic segregation, integration, and racial resegration.

While searching for something quite unrelated, I came across this sweet video. Perhaps we can all take a lesson from these odd-fellows in the animal kingdom. Enjoy.

Indian English

2009-01-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

As a result of my external disk crashing, and taking with it much of my research notes, I've been taking a little break from my research on offshoring to India and other countries. Plus, a more-pressing priority has come up. I must finalize a paper for presentation at an IEEE conference. The research behind the paper actually stems from my offshoring research and work in India and with Indians. But its focus is more on the language: Indian English, or English as it is spoken and written in India.

My interest in Indian English primarily is in the form it takes in technical documents and written and verbal workplace communications. Whether Indian English is a dialect, a patois, or some other form, I cannot say. Nor do all linguists agree on this point. What is certain, is that English as it is spoken and written in India is different than the standard English of either America or Britain, and this difference extends to technical English as well.

In doing some research and preparing material for my presentation, I came across this YouTube video made by an Indian man. He provides us with a humorous look at Indian expressiveness. I particularly enjoy the finger wag. Hmm. I wonder if I can craft a dissertation around Russell Peters? (Watch Peter's "Outsourced Terrorist" for a good laugh.) Enjoy!

YouTube Technical Writer ditty

2008-11-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

Funny play on the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" by a Canadian tech writer.

And the original: Beatles promotional video -- very leading edge.

Lurking in the blogosphere

2008-08-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Blogging is not natural to me. For someone who shreds papers before throwing them out, rarely provides an address more specific than my city, and enjoys "lurking" in discussion groups unless I have something that I consider really relevant to contribute, posting my thoughts in blog form is contrary to my nature and, frankly, somewhat unnerving. Nonetheless, recognizing that it probably does add to my "critical awareness" (and as directed by my digital research professor), here I am: a participating member of the blogosphere. One of our blog prompts was the question of how comfortable I would be if someone studied one of my digital communities. My first thought was: "That's already happening in this blog." Of course, the question is really deeper than that.

What if, without my prior knowledge, a researcher was studying my contributions to an online forum? What if I was in, for example, a cancer survivors forum and a contributor who I believed to be a fellow survivor was actually a researcher who used and published the material gathered? Honestly, it is so difficult for me to relate to that situation because I simply cannot see myself blogging or posting about anything that I would not want to share in the first place. So I questioned myself regarding my loved ones: What if my dear cousin, who is indeed a breast cancer survivor, posted her thoughts during her ordeal to an electronic forum and a researcher used that information without her prior knowledge? Perhaps I should think that would be wrong -- but really, it seems that no matter from what angle I view it, I cannot see electronic posts in a public or semi-public forum as privileged or private in any manner. Even when masked with an alias and a password, it is relatively easy to identify an e-author in blogs and discussion groups.

For the most part, I take an approach of "Don't say anything you wouldn't say to your mother." Now granted, my mother was something of a character, so that philosophy gives me a great deal of latitude. Nonetheless, the point is that if I post my thoughts, or feelings, or whatever in a forum that other people can access, then I should be prepared for other people to read them, quote them (and misquote them), and use them in whatever other way they want. Electronic forum equates to "open forum" in my mind.

Just write

2008-06-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

There are just about as many approaches to writing as there are writers. Some technical writers start with an outline, some start with engineering specifications or market requirements. Unless it is a completely new product or process or whatever, most technical writers start with the existing (or similar) documentation. Some writers take a sort of 'stream of consciousness' approach. With all of these approaches, the author has at least a general thesis in mind: we know what we want to write about. I am particularly fond of this last approach for technical writing.

Starting writing is almost always difficult. Gene Fowler, a 1950's era screenwriter, is attributed as saying, "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." Overcoming the initial inertia of a "blank sheet of paper" can be almost overwhelming. As the director of a technical writing team, I was fond of telling my staff to "just write." Don't get caught up in style, or organization, or what you don't know. Just write what you do know. "Just writing" (with the appropriate end in mind, of course) allows for a focus on the text itself -- the rhetoric of the message. And as a great bonus, it leads to getting a lot of writing done. At the end of the day, the paper is not blank.

Knowing when something is "finished" has its own set of problems, There is always something else that can be written, or edited, or otherwise mucked around with. Using the parieto rule, 80% of the writing probably takes 20% of the time; the last 20% takes 80% of the time. Much of that is because we change and reorganize and edit and format and do a number of things at the end that don't have a lot to do with content. "Just writing" also helps prevent too much mucking. If you are focusing on the writing, you are not focusing on editing or formatting or rearranging. When you have nothing new to say, you stop -- and move on to the next topic to "just write" about that. It actually works.

At my company, we have been interviewing senior managers for the technical communication and training departments. A major topic of discusion is our corporate initiative to move to a structured authoring paradigm for creating "architected" knowledge bases using XML and DITA. XML is the extensible markup language. DITA is the Darwin information typing architecture. Both are technologies that facilitate creating documentation in a topic-based architecture, which makes it easier to reuse content. Because the new manager will manage in this new paradigm, it is important that we discuss it as part of the interview process. To date, each candidate who has already worked in a structured authoring environment stated that the technical communication team initially resisted it. From initial resistance, technical communicators either embraced it once implemented or left for environments more appropriate for their interests (often completely out of technical communication). I hear similar stories from my colleagues at other companies: initial resistance, then either a complete turnaround or total exodus.

Now the reason my little writing trick is of particular interest to me here is that it seems to be a good way to approach writing in the structured authoring paradigm. Research that I began for my master's thesis surfaced some initial data that supports this. However, my sample size was small and it was admittedly slanted toward adopters of structured authoring, so it really provides more of a possible direction for research rather than answers to the questions that I initially sought. One unanswered paradox continues to intrigues me: Why do some technical communicators seem to thrive writing in "topics," focusing almost exclusively on the text rather than format or style? And why do some thoroughly resist it? Before we had "word processors" and everything was typeset, technical writers had little to do with the way something would appear in a final document. The same is true when writing for publication even today; each publication has its own rules about style and format, which leads the author to emphasize the content without relying on format as a rhetorical vehicle for the message. So "just writing" is not specifically a question of the digital age, but it has come to the forefront as technical writing more and more becomes structured authoring.

Ruminations about offshoring

2008-06-11T16:17:00.001-07:00

Discussions about outsourcing technical communication come up frequently in Society for Technical Communication events. Everyone "knows" someone who has lost a job due to outsourcing or has worked with an outsourcer or has provided outsourcing services. Where technical communicators stand on the topic generally has much to do with their own personal experience of outsourcing.

Outsourcing is not a new phenomenon. "Contractor" used to imply something less than "employee." A fellow contractor once referred to a group of us -- most ungraciously -- as "high tech prostitutes," the implication being that a contractor would do anything for money. I was offended by the remark. I would have characterized it differently: contractors tend to be willing to do what it takes to get the job and to get the job done.

As a natural progression of globalization, outsourcing has moved to offshoring (outsourcing that moves certain functions to another country). 'High tech' has outsourced and offshored functions like translation and quality process auditing to Canada and Ireland for decades. Perhaps because these functions were new (quality systems) or required expertise not available en masse (translations) in the United States, the popular reception of this type of offshoring generally was not particularly negative. Now, with more mainstream and traditional functions being offshored, offshoring is again getting media attention. Outsourcing, it seems, has gone mainstream.

Information technology support, call center support, software development, technical communication, and popular media reporting that previously was performed domestically is being offshored to skilled workers in India, Eastern Europe, China, and elsewhere. The company where I work is an international telecom developer that has grown largely through acquisition, with two of the divisions acquired in two different countries. Further, we use an outsourcing consultancy that often uses the more recent outsourcing method of "onshoring" (using workers in rural and other lower-paying areas).

Because it is on the minds and lips of my fellow technical communicators and my coworkers, outsourcing, offshoring, and onshoring picque my interest. I am particularly interested in different perceptions of these phenomena and intend to review how popular media as well as certain trade articles talk about them. If I can obtain IRB approval in time for this initial microstudy, I will also review discussion list posts on the topic from STC and techcomm lists that originate both domestically and abroad. To get at the meaning of the text, I will do text analysis of the metaphors and other rhetorical language that is used, analyzing the sources and the results to determine what patterns emerge. Although I have some notions of what I will find in this research, the rapid and widespread expansion of outsourcing in its many forms as well as the explosion of international collaborative teams may be changing how these phenomena are perceived.