CFP: SPECIAL ISSUE OF PROGRAMMATIC PERSPECTIVES
Editing and Publishing Programs: Building a New Discipline in Technical and Professional Communication
(community, scholarship, and pedagogy)
Co-editors
Holly Baker, Brigham Young University, bakerht
Jacob Rawlins, Brigham Young University, jacob_rawlins
Special Issue Rationale
Within the broad field of technical and professional communication, editing, revision, and preparing documents for publication are essential parts of the communication process. Many universities have courses designed to teach students how to edit, and some universities have gone beyond single courses to design entire programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels that teach the skills, practices, theories, and business of editing and publishing (E&P). As both need for and interest in editing and publishing courses increases among students, teachers, and scholars, E&P is poised to become a central growth area for pedagogy and curricular work (see Baker, Rawlins, & Pierson, 2024). This proposed special issue of Programmatic Perspectives is designed to take early steps toward building a discipline for E&P by publishing articles on the theories, practices, and pedagogies of editing and publishing.
The current body of academic literature on editing and publishing is small and lacking a core identity. In her summary of the scholarship centered on technical editing, Suzan Flanagan (2019) concluded that scholars have no shared definition of technical editing, that empirical studies on technical editing published in peer-review journals are sparse, and that instructors do not share an established pedagogy for teaching technical editing in the classroom. However, there is a demonstrated growing interest in research on E&P. The website editingresearch.org has tracked and summarized empirical research in editing and publishing since 2020. As of 2024, they have featured 92 articles related to editing and 46 related to publishing from a variety of disciplines and journals across the last four years. While not an exhaustive list, the site offers a representative sampling from a broad range of disciplines, from creative writing to business writing to philosophy to linguistics. These articles, which include theoretical discussions, empirical studies, and pedagogical and programmatic research, demonstrate the wide range of possibilities for E&P research that draws on theoretical and methodological approaches from a variety of disciplines.
One of the key questions being asked in E&P scholarship is about the status and disciplinary home of E&P research and courses. Although some argue that a study that is primarily vocational does not qualify as an academic discipline (Joel S. Demski, 2007), others argue for the acceptance of practical disciplines as legitimate forms of study. In his 2018 article “For a Practical Discipline,” Robert T. Craig positions the field of communications as a discipline that cultivates both wisdom (phronesis) and skill (techne) in a “culture’s communicative praxis” (p. 289). Within the various branches of communications, the balance between the practical and the theoretical is an ongoing academic discussion (see, for example, Kristen M. Getchell and Paula J. Lentz, 2019, which addresses theoretical approaches to business communication; or Lisa Melonçon and Joanna Schrieber, 2022, which focuses on building a disciplinary identity for TPC). In some ways, E&P fits within this discussion as a practical discipline, given its grounding in research and direct application to professions that impact written language and, by extension, thought and culture. Nevertheless, while the practical application is undeniable, the question remains as to whether E&P has its own unique disciplinary home or whether, like other TPC and business communication disciplines, it overlaps with others (see Jason R. Carabelli, 2013; Stephen Carradini, 2020). This leads us to ask critical questions of E&P: Is a unique disciplinary identity desirable? What is the importance of common scholarship and common pedagogy to the existence of a core curriculum within a discipline?
We see that the academic study of editing—not simply as a function of writing but as its own process with distinctive features—is a fairly recent endeavor. Some studies have examined the specific functions of editing, such as determining which errors matter to readers (Larry Beason, 2001; Carolyn Gubala et al., 2020) or connecting editing to questions of linguistic prescriptivism (Don Chapman & Jacob D. Rawlins, 2020) and corpus research (Jordan Smith, 2023). In just the past two years, studies of editing (along with much of academia) have turned their focus to the rise of AI and the editorial role in working with computer-generated text (Krzysztof Węcel et al., 2023; Shakked Noy & Whitney Zhang, 2023). As the demand for practical editing courses grows, the interest in academic treatments of the theories and concepts of editing will similarly grow. We see this as an opportunity not only to build the discipline, but also unify it under common scholarship and pedagogical practices. As a discipline, E&P is ripe for development.
This special issue of Programmatic Perspectives seeks contributions that address current issues in the field of E&P, but that also serve to move the academic conversation forward in defining and uniting E&P as a new discipline. Some potential research questions include:
- How might a cross-disciplinary approach to E&P enhance scholarship in the field?
- How have TPC programs developed a single technical editing course into a certification program, minor, or major? Similarly, how might TPC graduate programs incorporate E&P courses (for instance, an emphasis or graduate certification) into their curricula?
- What is the role of industry professionals in developing and growing E&P programs?
- What kinds of empirical research might be undertaken within E&P studies?
- How might E&P contribute to current TPC programs with respect to recruitment, retention, and career placement?
- What are we teaching in the E&P classroom and/or E&P programs? How do course offerings, aims, and objectives contribute to student success in and outside of the E&P classroom?
- What theoretical and methodological approaches are the most valuable to E&P scholarship and pedagogy?
We are particularly interested in marginalized and underrepresented voices and views on E&P and TPC programs. We encourage diverse perspectives in the curated discussions, critiques, and recommendations for the future of design and/or design thinking in TPC programs.
Publication Timeline: Fall 2025 Issue
- January 15, 2025: Call for submissions announced
- March 15: Proposals due
- April 15: Decisions on proposals sent to submitters
- May–July: Complete study and draft of paper
- August 1: Initial manuscripts due for review
- August 21: Reviewer comments sent to authors
- September 21: Revised manuscripts due for review
- October 15: Second round of reviews sent to authors
- November 1: Final publishing decisions sent to authors
- December 1: Publication of special issue
Submission Guidelines
Please send proposals (400-500 words) in MS Word or PDF via email to both bakerht and jacob_rawlins and indicate your submission type:
- Research article
- Program showcase
- Commentary
- FOCUS article
Review the general submission instructions from the Programmatic Perspectives webpage for further details on submission types.
All prospective authors should review Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices: A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers, and Authors prior to submitting a proposal.
References
Baker, H., & Rawlins, J., & Pierson, A. (2024). In search of a core curriculum: Assessment of editing and publishing programs in higher education. Programmatic Perspectives, 15(2).
Beason, Larry. (2001). Ethos and error: How business people react to errors. College Composition and Communication, 53(1): 33–64.
Carabelli, Jason R. (2013). Disciplinarity, crisis, and opportunity in technical communication. (Publication No. 1543039) [Master’s thesis, University of South Florida]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Carradini, Stephen. (2020). A comparison of research topics associated with technical communication, business communication, and professional communication, 1963–2017. Craig, Robert T. (2018). For a practical discipline. Journal of Communication, 68(2), 289–297. ‹https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqx013›
Chapman, Don, & Rawlins, Jacob D. (2020). Language prescription: Values, ideologies and identity. Multilingual Matters. ‹https://doi.org/10.21832/9781788928380›
Demski, Joel S. (2007). Is accounting an academic discipline? Accounting Horizons, 21(2), 153–157.
Flanagan, Suzan. (2019). The current state of technical editing research and the open questions. In Flanagan, Suzan, & Albers, Michael J. (Eds.), Editing in the modern classroom (pp. 15–46). Routledge.
Getchell, Kristen, & Lentz, Paula. (2019). Rhetorical theory and praxis in the business communication classroom. Routledge.
Gubala, Carolyn; Larson, Kara; & Melonçon, Lisa. (2020). Do writing errors bother professionals? An analysis of the most bothersome errors and how the writer’s ethos is affected. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 34 (3): 250–86. ‹https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651920910205›
Melonçon, Lisa, & Schrieber, Joanna. (2022). Assembling critical components: A framework for sustaining technical and professional communication. WAC Clearinghouse.
Noy, Shakked, & Zhang, Whitney. (2023). Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence. Science (New York, N.Y.), 381(6654), 187-192. ‹https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh2586›
Smith, Jordan. (2023). Corpus linguistics and technical editing: How corpora can help copy editors adopt a rhetorical view of prescriptive usage rules. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 37(2), 194–216. https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519221143125
Węcel, Krzysztof; Sawiński, Marcin; Stróżyna, Milena; Lewoniewski, Włodzimierz; Księżniak, Ewelina; Stolarski, Piotr; & Abramowicz, Witold. (2023). Artificial intelligence—friend or foe in fake news campaigns. Economics and Business Review, 9(2), 41–70. ‹https://doi.org/10.18559/ebr.2023.2.736›