Revised CCCC Proposal

Where Have We Come From and Where Will We Go?: Twenty-Five Years of Engineering Communication Research

In 1984, IEEE Transactions on Education published a special issue on “developing the ability to communicate” with a focus on engineering students. In 1999, Language and Learning Across the Disciplines (LLAD) published a similarly themed special issue in anticipation of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology’s (ABET) revision in 2000 of required student learning outcomes to put more emphasis on soft skills, including effective communication. In 2008, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication published a special issue on communication in engineering curricula. These 1984 and 2008 special issues bookend a timeline along which the conversation about engineering communication has developed among both composition and engineering education scholars, and provide a framework for investigating that conversation. This timeline mirrors the growth of WAC programs and the concomitant growth of research on writing in the disciplines. Outside of these special issues, scholars in technical communication, such as Dorothy Winsor, have investigated the topic of engineering communication. Her 1996 Writing Like an Engineer: A Rhetorical Education falls within the timeline set by the special issues, and also fits into the WID paradigm by answering its call for more studies of writing in the workplace.

Given this much attention to and scholarship on engineering communication from both pedagogical and workplace perspectives, it’s surprising that there is as yet no longitudinal analysis of approaches to teaching engineering writing and communication. A longitudinal analysis can serve a number of purposes, not least of which is to provide a basis for other researchers in need of historical perspectives for their work. In my paper I will provide just such a historical perspective on the development of research on engineering communication by completing a topic analysis. The analysis will survey not only the contents of these three special issues, but also related works such as Winsor’s. In my analysis, I will focus on the main emphases of each article studied in order to identify trends in research. Which emphases are introduced, which endure, and which lose currency will suggest what roles general composition studies and other fields, such as engineering education, play in defining engineering communication and directing its teaching. My analysis will also suggest further research areas, such as:

• changing conceptions of what defines competency in engineering communication
• changing views of the rationale for and goals of teaching engineering communication
• if the field of composition’s definition of rhetoric has influenced modern engineers
• whether Carolyn Miller’s case for technical communication as a humanistic pursuit has gained traction outside the TC and composition fields
• differences in how compositionists and non-compositionists discuss engineering communication

My longitudinal study will primarily be of interest to scholars studying technical communication and WAC/WID programs. They will learn how discussions of engineering communication in particular have developed over the past 25 years. Additionally, they will see which topics have been most researched and which remain to be thoroughly investigated.