Toward a rhetoric of engineering: Explorations in the practices of engineers and the implications for the teaching of technical communication

This dissertation addresses the lack of a theoretically rich, rhetorical understanding of the inventive and knowledge producing practices of working engineers. Even though the growing discipline of professional and technical communication has begun to focus on the discourse practices of engineers, technical communication scholarship has produced only research and pedagogy that is attentive to audience awareness. My research instead shows the ways that rhetoric is embedded in all engineering activities. I develop a rhetoric of engineering that I define as an iterative, recursive, and epistemic process, and claim the communications and discourse required for a successful engineering project are rhetorical. Recursion promotes revision to engineering documentation and compels engineers to reassess their world view of a project. That is, rhetorical engineering can actually prevent solipsistic engineering practices common in all of the major disciplines. The rhetoric of engineering's recursivity spawns multiple iterations or versions of the texts necessary for a successful project. These iterations effectively create an archive for an engineering project that serves as an external memory device for an engineering team. Chapter one contains a rhetorical analysis of software requirement specifications for a professionally developed software application from the medical industry. I demonstrate how the text from this pre-engineering design document becomes embedded in the final material product that is the saleable software application. In chapter two I adapt Aristotle's special topics to serve an engineering audience. I apply my new special topics of engineering to real-life engineering situations provided in the form of profiles that document a calendar day of a working engineer. I critique the major textbooks used to teach engineers communication skills in chapter three and propose my own curriculum in chapter four. I believe that the challenges of interdepartmental collaboration necessitated by English writing instructors teaching engineering students provides an important site for theoretical and pedagogical innovation. My findings make an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature, definition, and role of technical communication and about appropriate instructional methodologies for teaching engineers communication.