To understand expertise and expertise development, interactions between knowledge, cognitive processing and task characteristics must be examined in people at different levels of training, experience, and performance. Interviewing is widely used in the initial exploration of domain expertise. Work and cognitive task analysis chart the knowledge,…

Demonstrates study of macrostructure of a story to show how this technique leads to a clearer understanding of its literal meaning and how it can give the reader a clue to its symbolic meaning. Suggests macrostructure analysis provides systemative and objective account of plot content and structure. (Author/BK)

Outlines the characteristics of traditional academic discourse. Analyzes some examples of the new hybrid discourses in order to show what the author means by hybrid and to provide suggestions for hybrid rhetorical strategies that may be helpful to share with students. Offers some tentative suggestions on teaching intended mainly to stimulate…

Considers how Richard Rorty argues that inquiry is completely different from creativity. Argues that in the pragmatic theory of inquiry as conceived by the early Charles Peirce, the novel and the familiar are so intimate with one another that Rorty's distinction turns out to be overdrawn and untenable. (SG)

Pursues a rhetoric of visual fragments by considering the disjunctive packaging of two particular fictional films: Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic "Vertigo" and Christopher Reeve's 1997 adaptation of Alice Elliott Dark's short story, "In the Gloaming." Considers how "Vertigo" offers conflicting stories about the…

The nature and development of discourse topic skills in preschool children are examined and illustrated by observations of very young children. Possible social and cognitive components are explored with implications for language-disordered populations. (CL)

Offers a working definition of the initiation story. Discusses the interesting ways that "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" both fits and complicates the definition of the initiation model. Shows how the understanding of Oates's story as an initiation can offer students another point of view in the ongoing debate about the…

Uses a dramatistic analysis to examine the rhetorical elements of two therapeutic discourses designed to help women cope with eating disorders: spiritual recovery therapy (SR) and feminist psychoanalytic therapy (FT). Finds each therapy has the same key terms but serve different functions and encourage different interpretations. (NH)

Considers reasons for the lack of interaction between dramatistic studies in rhetoric and argumentation theory. Proposes a rapprochement based on the implementing of contextualist assumptions in a critical argumentation. Traces the implications of Kenneth Burke's contextualist and dramatistic viewpoint for the study of argument. (NH)

Applies prevailing conceptions of proper argument to Burke's advocacy of the comic frame. Concludes these common conceptions cannot explain the power of Burke's arguments. Examines Richard Rorty's "edifying discourse" and Burke's "perspective by incongruity" as they illuminate the purpose of Burke's argumentation method. (NH)

Examines the nature and effects of predominant understandings or formulations of the relationship between literacy and work. Evaluates what workplace literacy programs have typically been designed to do. Discusses possible ways for future programs to create real opportunities for all participants to be truly involved in the process of workplace…

Addresses a situation in which a foreign student wrote an extremely homophobic message to a class mailing list--advocating the death penalty for homosexuals, something which is "a practice common in his homeland." Engages in a less triumphal reading of the episode with the homophobic student, then explicates the controversies over…

Uses the lens of postcolonial theory to reflect on the author's uses of a varied series of writing pedagogies in cross-cultural classrooms at an international college. Suggests that a pedagogy constructed against the backdrop of postcolonial theory might provide both students and their teacher in such a cross-cultural setting with a more complex…

Responds to communication scholars' increasing call for scholarship that yields meaningful responses to contemporary problems, thereby enriching public and private discourse and practice. Proposes the theory of the firm as one important frame for analysis, for it confronts key organizational questions at the heart of corporate scandal. (SG)

Notes this special issue focuses primarily on embodied personal writing. Identifies and argues for a powerful alternative to masculinist discourse by incorporating an "embodied rhetoric" into professional discursive practices. Considers how embodied rhetoric requires gestures to the material practices of the professional group and to the quotidian…