Reading Response

 Read and answer the following Questions listed below:

Doheny-Farina’s reflective comments on his 1986 article are fascinating to me as an academic who has been looking back at his own early work. He’s right. It’s too dry. It’s not bad – fascinating, really – but it’s dry.

Windsor’s 1990 article is another one-subject study, but there is more theory than with Selzer and the conclusions are hedged skillfully. Note the use of Latour on p. 343, which is essential reading for any rhetoric of science research. It’s also skillfully applied. Short gems like this one aren’t written often anymore.

Allen et al, 1987, as it is broad, is almost the opposite of Windsor’s or Doheny-Farina’s. This leads to my question for the week. What’s the best “distance” for a study of technical writing? Does it depend on the type of writing, the industry, the researcher, etc, or is one or another method clearly superior?