The Language of Work: Technical Communication at Lukens Steel, 1810 to 1925

Baywood's Technical Communications Series, ed. Charles Sides, Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing, 2009.

Winner of the 2010 NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Award in Technical and Scientific Communication in the category of Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication.

This book is an analysis of layers of communication within a single industry between the years 1810 and 1925, the time during which the amount of technical communication began to increase exponentially. Most of these documents do not have a beginning, a middle, or an end; they are instances, fragments, or parts of a larger whole. Some are fragments of ongoing conversations, some are attempts to record present physical realities, some are self-promotion, but most are the visual and verbal remains of complex problem solving. From an analysis of technical communication at Lukens Steel, we can see that the industrial revolution would not have been possible without the evolution of complex technical communication. Video on the writing of the book (poor quality).

Reviews of The Language of Work

• Baake, Ken. Technical Communication Quarterly, (19:2), 2010, pp. 212 — 216.
• Cunningham, Donald H. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, (53:2), 2010, pp. 185-186.
• Eisler, Matthew N. Technology and Culture, (51:1), 2010, pp. 252-254.
• Malone, Edward A. Technical Communication, (57:3), 2010, pp. 151-152.
• Kotlensky, Arron T. Industrial Archaeology, (35:1,2), 2009, pp. 125-127.

2011

"Written Knowledge and Complex Technology: A Case Study of the American Institute of Mining Engineers." ASEE Mid-Atlantic Conference Proceedings, October 2011, p. 451-461.

2010

"Undergraduate Technical Writing Assessment: A Model." With Norbert Elliot. Programmatic Perspectives, (2:2), 2010, pp. 110-151.

"History of the New York State Regent's Exams." ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Descriptive Report (non-refereed), January 2010.

2009

"Robert Erskine’s 1770 Letters about the British Iron and Steel Industry." Historical Metallurgy, (43:2), 2009, pp. 75-97.

2008

"Technical Communications and IA: Case Studies from the Iron and Steel Industry." Society for Industrial Archaeology Newsletter, (37:3), 2008, pp. 6-9.

"The Evolution of Illustrated Texts and its Effect on Science: an Example from the Early American State Geological Reports." Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, MIT Press, (41:2), 2008, pp. 120-127.

"Site-Specific Content Management Systems: Analyze Before You Act." Book chapter with Susan Fowler, eds. George Pullman & Baotong Gu, Content Management: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice, Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing, 2008, pp. 38-48.

2007

"The Steel Bible: A Case Study of 20th Century Technical Communication." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, (37:3), 2007, pp. 281-303.

"Impediments to Increasing Diversity in Post-secondary Education." ASEE Mid-Atlantic Conference Proceedings, April 2007, posted on ERIC.

2006

"A Decade of Research: Assessing Change in the Technical Communication Classroom Using Online Portfolios." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, (36:4), 2006, pp. 413-431.

“The Analytic Assessment of Online Portfolios in Undergraduate Technical Communication: A Model.” Journal of Engineering Education, (95:4), 2006, pp. 279–287.

“Prediscursive Technical Communication in the Early American Iron Industry.”Technical Communication Quarterly, (15:2), 2006, pp. 171–189.

2005

"Teaching Technical Communication in the Wired Classroom – the Transition from Blackboard to Computer Screen" with Frank Casale and Michael Kerley. ASEE Mid-Atlantic Conference Proceedings, April 2005.

2004

"Beyond Cut Scores: Portfolio Assessment in Program Evaluation" with Norbert Elliot. ASEE Mid-Atlantic Conference Proceedings, October 2004.

“Colonial Travel and the Erskine Family.” Journal of the Orange County Historical Society, October 2004.

2003

“Developing Complex Sources,” “Content Management and Networks” and “Information and Order.” IEEE PCS Newsletter, November/December 2003.

“Knowledge Management and the Teaching of Technical Communication: Where does knowledge Reside in the Theory vs. Practice Debate?” IPCC (International Professional Communication Conference) Proceedings, 2003.

“The Birth of a Nation: Technical Communication and the American Revolution.” Journal of the Orange County Historical Society, October 2003.

 

Graduate Student Publications (pre-1995)

Peer Reviewed Articles

"The Oedipal Eliot, or, The Waste Land, a Complex Complex." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. 8 (1993): 172-180.

"'that hidden mysterie': Sources of Misogyny in Donne's Songs and Sonets." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. 8 (1992): 195-203.

"The Limbs of Osiris: Reed's Mumbo Jumbo and Hollywood's 'The Mummy'." Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), (17.4), 1992, pp. 105-115.

Book Chapter

"Constructing Machismo in 'Mean Streets' and 'Raging Bull'." Perspectives on RAGING BULL ed. Steven Kellman. New York: G.K. Hall, 1994, pp. 95-106.

Book

William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" New Jersey: Research & Education Association [MAX Notes], 1996 (a study guide).

Book Reviews

Book Reviews of "Ascending the Prufrockian Stair: Studies in Dissociated Sensibility by Robert F. Fleissner and Circus of the Mind in Motion" by Lance Olsen. Thalia: Studies in Literary Humor [University of Ottawa]. 11 (1990): 51-53.

Book Review of "Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance" by John Bryant. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. 8-2 (1995) 203-205.

Book Review of "Humor in American Literature: A Selected Annotated Bibliography" by Don L. F. Nilsen. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. 7-1 (1994) 85-87.