TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Call for Proposals From:Filipp Sapienza <urbann_animals -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 1 Mar 2006 13:09:17 -0800 (PST)
CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS ? Submission Deadline May
1, 2006
Culture, Communication, & Cyberspace: Rethinking
Technical Communication for International Online
Environments
Edited by Kirk St.Amant (Texas Tech University) and
Filipp Sapienza (University of Colorado at Denver)
The increasingly global nature of the World Wide Web
presents new challenges and opportunities for
technical communicators who must
? Develop content and navigation for culturally
diverse users
? Use online media to interact with clients or
colleagues (e.g., SMEs) from other cultures and in
other nations
? Provide online instruction or web-based training to
persons located in other countries
Within these situations, cultural communication
expectations and factors of online media affect the
success with which technical communicators deliver
content or interact with others. As international
Internet access grows, the online activities of
technical communicators will only become more
international and intercultural in nature.
One challenge technical communicators face is the way
that web communicators write for different cultural
audiences. A common practice is to adapt content and
navigation for culturally diverse audiences. However,
in an era of increasing interchange among culturally
different groups, what does being culturally diverse
mean on the Internet? In an era of increased
transnationalism, what do people of poly-cultural
heritage expect in the way of culturally sensitive and
shared Internet communication? Some users may require
localized content, while others may prefer to utilize
a pre-existing set of global literacies for web
interaction. Should translation therefore be the first
advice for web communicators?
A second challenge is how cultural and linguistic
factors affect interactions in international online
exchanges. How, for example, do the structures of
different online media (e.g., email, chat rooms,
bulletin boards, web pages) affect cross-cultural
discourse? Do successful online interactions across
cultures involve or require more than just the use of
a common language? In which respects does the
technological infrastructure of online media give
shape to the cultures that interact on them?
Additionally, what differences in technology
standards, government restrictions, and business
practices affect how technical communicators use
online media in international exchanges?
Finally, should teaching and training in technical
communication be modified to address the increasingly
international nature of online interactions? If so,
what steps should individual teachers/trainers or
overall educational and training organizations take to
address this topic effectively? How might online
classes serve as a mechanism for exploring such
interactions and providing valuable learning
experiences in culture and communication?
The editors of Culture, Communication, and Cyberspace:
Rethinking Technical Communication for International
Online Environments wish to address these questions,
and others, through chapters that explore the
different aspects of international online
communication. The editors are interested in a range
of methodological approaches that may include (but are
not limited to): case studies, empirical studies of
international web use, usability studies, composition
practices, writing practices, pedagogical practices.
They are also interested in chapters that examine how
business trends, such as international outsourcing,
content management, and the use of open source
software (OSS), are affecting and could change
practices in the field of technical communication as
related to online cross-cultural interactions.
Articles might consider current scholarly work on
international web communication from a variety of
fields including technical communication, educational
technology, information architecture, computers and
composition, rhetoric, psychology, and usability
engineering.
Submission Procedure
Prospective authors are invited to submit chapter
proposals of 200-500 words on or before May 1, 2006.
In their proposal, prospective authors should clearly
explain the purpose and the contents of their proposed
chapter.
Please send inquiries or submit material
electronically (as Rich Text/.rtf or Microsoft Word
.doc files) to both editors at Kirk St.Amant (email:
kirk -dot- st-amant -at- ttu -dot- edu) and Filipp Sapienza (email:
Filipp -dot- Sapienza -at- cudenver -dot- edu)
Authors will be notified of the status of their
proposal and sent chapter organization guidelines by
May 15, 2006. Drafts of chapters will be due by
October 15, 2006.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
