Winner of the 2022 CCCC Award for best article in Scientific and Technical Communication—Philosophy and Theory

"Distributed and Mediated Ethos in a Mental Health Call Center." Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 3.2 (2020).

This pilot study of a mental health call center clinician’s workplace tools, processes, and organizational structures proposes a preliminary theory of “distributed and mediated ethos.” A distributed and mediated ethos refers to how an organization uses various resources—artifacts, technologies, and processes—situated across disparate locations in order to expand and control their identity in the service of extending their reach and capacity to render essential services.

An analysis of a participant clinician’s rhetorical context flowcharts and network pictures shows how an agency’s ethos is mediated through various technologies. Findings suggest that a distributed ethos

1. projects the impression of being “always there”;
2. relies on dexterity across several human and nonhuman actors; and
3. necessitates targeted tasks from branches that extend ethos farther from the organization.

This piece, co-written with Isidore Dorpenyo and Jennifer Sano-Franchini presents election technologies as a promising topic for integrating considerations of social justice into technical communication courses. We describe an example course unit using The Redistricting Game, a browser game developed by the University of Southern California Game Innovation Lab that provides a basic introduction to the redistricting system. This unit was incorporated into an undergraduate general education writing course on spatial rhetorics as a way of using the election technology of electoral maps and geographic information systems (GIS) to teach students about the politics of space and spatial representations.

"The Spaces Between: Mapping Gaps in the Assemblages of Spatial Renderings" published in Computers and Composition, 55 (2020).

This piece examines how assemblage theory can be used to map out the hidden agents in students' composing work. Through a months-long study of 3 urban design students learning to master the design rendering software, SketchUp, we can see that although students rely on personal, spatial, technological, social, theoretical, and supervisory constraints, that their attention to community based discourses is lacking. This signals an opportunity for Communicating and Designing Across the Curriculum faculty to help create more fully contextualized design assignments that are rhetorically aware.

Click here to view a time-lapse video of Lola's redesign.

Portions of this work were presented at the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication and the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference, both in Tampa, FL.

“Trans Students’ Right to Their Own Gender in Professional Communication Courses: A Textbook Analysis of Attire and Voice Standards in Oral Presentations.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 49 .2 (2019).

This piece highlights the problematic ways in which professional communication textbooks prescribe cis-gender norms when discussing bodily performances in the classroom, such as with oral presentations. Through an analysis of 30 popular textbooks in the field, I note the ways in which these normative practices have the potential to put our transgender students into situations in which they must compromise their gender identity for the sake of their grades. Given the increasingly diverse population of students that we meet in our technical communication courses, I note how we, as instructors, may pay attention to our positionality and privilege in order to promote more inclusive learning environments for all of our learners. The abstract is presented below:

A version of this project was presented at the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing in Kansas City, KS in 2018.

“Racial Gerrymandering and Geographic Information Software: Subverting the 2011 Texas District Map with Election Technologies.” Technical Communication 65 .4 (2018).

Using the 2017 Texas court case involving the 2011 district map involving districts 23 and 35, this article analyzes the methods with which legislative mapmakers operate and deploy GIS software. As previous researchers have noted, latinidad is often constructed in political and governmental documents within the United States to position Latinos as a threat to White Americans. Frequently, this constructed threat is mitigated by inflating the contributions of White Americans over their Latino counterparts. Yet, this examination of the 2017 court case illustrates that mapmakers can also utilize Geographic Information Systems to gerrymander districts and thus suppress Latino’s voting power to help White Americans maintain political power. Most worrisome is mapmakers’ deference to and citation of the Voting Rights Act to justify the creation of districts that account for and control electoral agency. The article concludes by asserting that technical communicators move beyond compliance in order to account for multicultural publics and to avoid engaging in similar technological practices. It also encourages technical communicators to become more active in identifying practices that threaten democratic integrity and in using their skills to promote more socially equitable electoral practices across their teaching, research, and advocacy.

Portions of this article were presented at the 2018 Rhetoric Society Association Conference in Minneapolis, MN and the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Kansas City, MO.

"Enabling Geographies: Mapping Campus Spaces through Disability and Access." Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 18 .3 (2018).

Recently, many articles have promoted mapping activities as a way for students to develop their understanding of local community issues. This article extends this work by communicating the value of asking students to move beyond their own positionality on local issues and instead adopt a different perspective through which to map spaces. In particular, I discuss the results of a student project in which students mapped campus through disabilities as a way to open conversations regarding the ideologies of space. Such an approach may help students to break from their usual view of space and may develop a first-hand awareness of how spaces have an impact on others in their community.

Color versions of figures can be see here:  Sanchez Figure 1   and   Sanchez Figure 2

An iteration of this project was presented at the 2014 Society for Disability Studies in Minneapolis.

"The Roles of Technical Communication Researchers in Design Scholarship." The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 47.3 (2017).

As the field of technical communication looks at design thinking for research and pedagogical purposes, I argue that it is important to take note of how researchers in the field have recently positioned themselves in relation to the design of artifacts in their scholarship.  The abstract to the article follows:

Design has come to be understood as an essential aspect of the work that technical communicators claim. As a result, research in the field of technical communication has approached studies of design in numerous ways. This article showcases how technical communication researchers assume the roles of observers, testers, critics, creators, and consultants in their handling of design artifacts. Such a model regarding these roles may help us to better understand the design relationships researchers presume as they further knowledge of design within our field. This article offers a framework to leverage into a comprehensive and integrated model for explaining our work on design to others outside of technical communication.

The Appendix to this article can be accessed by visiting the Google Document here: http://bit.ly/1WugWJn or by opening the following pdf: appendix-roles-of-technical-communication-researchers-in-studies-of-design

“Crossbreeding Disciplines: Collaboratively Developing a Writing Culture in Animal Sciences Courses.” Writing Programs, Collaborations, and Partnerships: Working Across Boundaries (Edited by Alice Myatt and Lyneé Gaillet, Palgrave MacMillan, 2017). Co-written with Stacy Nall.

In this book chapter, we trace the collaborative work involved in creating sustainable partnerships across writing and STEM fields. Using a case study from our institution as a backdrop for this discussion, we ask WAC scholars, teachers, and administrators to consider the different priorities for assessment that professionals outside of writing programs have for their students, and how we can help shift these priorities through time and negotiation. Below is our abstract:

In this chapter, the authors discuss a sustained writing across the curriculum (WAC) partnership between the Animal Sciences and English departments at their institution. Drawing on archival and interview research, they explore the decade-long collaboration between graduate student coordinators and course faculty to negotiate between learning to write and writing to learn objectives. This chapter aims to encourage WAC practitioners to engage with content experts about differing concepts of and approaches to writing instruction in STEM courses. The history of this partnership demonstrates that graduate students can make a strong impact on faculty development in writing instruction. The authors conclude with a list of recommendations for administrators who may be forming writing partnerships on campuses where there may not be a strong WAC presence.

Aspects of this project have were presented in Minneapolis, MN at the 2014 International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference and in Bloomington-Normal at the 2014 Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference.

"Of Evolutions and Mutations: Assessment as Tactics for Action in WAC Partnerships." the WAC Journal 27 (2016). Co-authored with Daniel Kenzie.

Although much of the scholarship in Writing Across the Curriculum has focused on strategic planning and partnerships, we can learn much from looking at WAC work tactically as well.  This focus on strategy makes sense given that administrative endeavors typically involve shoring up resources and expanding programs. However there are salient benefits to adding tactical thinking to strategic planning in WAC work. Borrowing from Michel de Certeau's framework on strategies and tactics, this article argues that thinking tactically can 1) lead to increased administrative agency—particularly for WPAs and graduate WPAs (gWPAs) who spearhead WAC programs that are not on the path towards evolving—and 2) reveal new strategies that can aid in administrative work as particular WAC programs and partnerships mutate (rather than evolve). Through two case study experiences of how  assessment-based tactics can function in WAC contexts, the authors discuss the benefits of introducing local "busts of action" into WAC administrative work.

Portions of this article were presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Houston, TX in April 2016.

"Locating Queer Rhetorics: Mapping as Inventional Method." Computers and Composition, 38  (2015). Co-written with Don Unger.

This article discusses how mapping technologies can aid researchers in identifying relationships that may often remain hidden. We use Google Maps to trace queer dissertation networks, noting the spatial relationships that begin to emerge. The abstract is presented below.

Because of the sheer abundance of scholarship employing spatial metaphors to trace Rhetoric and Composition’s development, it feels disingenuous to argue that mapping has recently emerged as an important method for shaping and reshaping the field. However, much of this scholarship challenges the lay of the land by describing the discipline as a map (e.g., Glen’s “Remapping Rhetorical Territory,” 1995). In so doing, this work glosses the complexities involved in making and reading maps. More recently, Sullivan and Graban (2010), Tirrell (2012), and others have delved into these complexities by employing mapping technologies to visualize aspects of the field that get overlooked. We draw inspiration from both bodies of work in order to locate queer rhetorics in two maps: one visualizes published work, and the other marks where, when, and from whom dissertations emerged. In one sense, our maps conceptualize queer rhetorics as a landscape in order to complicate how published works define this area of inquiry. In another sense, discussing our processes for creating and reading these maps points toward the limited way we are able to extend this conversation and complete our project. Put simply, we argue that mapping is an inventional method, and maps not an end in themselves. In order to raise questions for future research, we address how our maps locate (and dislocate) what they attempt to visualize.

Portions of this article were presented in Louisville at the 2012 Watson Conference.

"Engaging Writing about Writing Theory and Multimodal Praxis: Remediating WaW for First Year Composition." Composition Studies, 42.2 (2014). Co-written with Liz Lane and Tyler Carter.

My co-authors and I discuss the implications of combining digital rhetorics pedagogy within the framework of a Writing About Writing approach to first year composition. In this course design, we review the advantages of asking students to engage in such practices as

• developing a visual and reflective awareness of their sponsors of literacy through social media platforms,
• creating multimodal assignments that showcase the communication practices of  discourse communities that they are a part of, and
• networking across sections of our introductory composition courses to ask for and receive feedback on the design and content of these multimodal assignments.

"Creating Accessible Spaces for ESL Students Online." WPA: Writing Program Administration, 37.1 (2013).

I call for administrators of online sites to take English-as-a-Second-Language students' accessibility needs into account when they re/design their digital spaces. Through an empirical study of writing center websites, I outline some recommendations that Writing Program Administrators and Writing Center Directors should follow to allow for greater access. The shortened abstract to this article follows:

This essay responds to the 2012 CCCC featured session, "Access--A Happening,"... [ wherein], Paul Kei Matsuda called on instructors and WPAs to create access for ESL students into such spaces. WPAs have long sought out opportunities to allow students to have more of a voice when it comes to policy; in this way, this study examines whether WPA documents--specifically information and support resources available on writing center websites--meet the needs of ESL students. I studied eight OWL websites in universities with large international student populations to gauge how well these sites took into account criteria pertinent to ESL students as evident in the available scholarship: intercultural needs, writing resource needs, plagiarism resource needs, and readability. The article ends with specific recommendations for WPAs to follow in creating documents--online or otherwise--that will incorporate ESL audiences.

"Queer Transgressions: Same-Sex Desire and Transgendered Representations in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger." Trans-Scripts, 2 (2012).

In this piece, I explore how characters within Aravind Adiga’s novel transgress emotionally and physically authorized spaces. I point to two particular examples of how Adiga’s text asks us to role queer desire with transnational subjectivities. Firstly, I argue that the inherent master and servant relationship between Balram and Ashok places the two men in homosocial spaces that ask them to explore same-sex desire. At the same time, Adiga also bars the pursuit of any such exploration through the disapproval of other characters and the strategic placement of heteronormative rules and conventions throughout the text, thus hinting at the maintenance of heteronormative codes. Secondly, I discuss how crossing national borders into India and the United States, respectively, creates a transgendered experience for Pinky, and more specifically Ashok, whose Americanization leads to his feminized portrayal and, ultimately, his death.