Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication

Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication explores the multiple and sometimes conflicting uses of terms central to the discipline of technical and professional communication (TPC). Each keyword was selected through a multi-stage process that involved corpus analysis of journal publications and surveys of technical communication scholars, educators, and practitioners. Written by experts who have published extensively on the concepts underlying each keyword, each essay provides a history and/or a summary of the changing contemporary and disciplinary contexts in which the keyword has been used, discusses the debates surrounding the term, considers the critical lenses shaping our understanding of it, and discusses how the term could be used in the future and/or whether it needs to be rethought in our current environment.