Reassembling Technical Communication: A Framework for Studying Multilingual and Multimodal Practices in Global Contexts

Making the Pitch: Examining Dialogue and Revisions in Entrepreneurs' Pitch Decks

“…As some of the research above implies [22], [32], [34], [43], [47], [49], documents typically do not do work on their own; they are set in interaction with other documents (see the interaction in the GIP process described in Fig. 1).…”

“…Researchers have studied document cycles of proposal and grant writing, particularly in terms of how writers have composed and revised to address the needs of multiple stakeholders as represented in ancillary documents (such as [9], [17], [70] and [78]. Document cycles have been studied in other activities as well: Devitt studied tax accounting [16], Varpio studied health care [75], Spinuzzi studied search-engine optimization [65], Swarts studied information technology [69], and Fraiberg studied product development at a high-tech startup [22]. Again, these studies tend to involve textual analysis of documents contextualized by interviews and often observations.…”

Contemporary Research Methodologies in Technical Communication

“…By the 1990s, technical communication scholars had begun drawing in earnest from associative approaches such as articulation theory (Johnson-Eilola, 1997;Slack, Miller, & Doak, 1993), rhizomatics (Selfe & Selfe, 1994), distributed cognition (Freedman & Smart, 1997;Winsor, 2001), and actor-network theory (Winsor, 1994). Of these, actor-network theory (ANT) has had perhaps the most uptake in technical communication and rhetoric, being used in a range of studies with various methodological commitments (Fleckenstein, Spinuzzi, Rickly, & Clarke Papper, 2008;Fraiberg, 2013;McNely, 2009;Potts, 2009;Jeff Rice, 2009Spinuzzi, 2005Spinuzzi, , 2008Swarts, 2009Swarts, , 2011.…”

“…Activity theory, which was introduced to professional communication via Bazerman (1988), Russell (1995Russell ( , 1997a, and Berkenkotter and Huckin (1993), has been widely used in technical communication to study how genres are durable, suasive, and mediatory within specific activity systems (Fraiberg, 2013;Kain & Wardle, 2005;McCarthy, Grabill, Hart-Davidson, & McLeod, 2011), across linked activity systems (Gygi & Zachry, 2010;McNair & Paretti, 2010), and in broader networks (Ding, 2008;Propen & Schuster, 2010;Sherlock, 2009;Spinuzzi, 2008Spinuzzi, , 2012. (For more detailed overviews of studies involving genre and activity theory, see Russell, 1997b; Activity theory posits a clear asymmetry between communicators and their tools and technologies.…”

Understanding the value proposition as a co-created claim

“…Entrepreneurs must make and support several interrelated claims about the innovation, its intended markets, the team that will bring it to market, and the business models and financials that will support it (cf. Moore [3]; Blank [4]; Spinuzzi et al [2] [7]; Galbraith et al [8]; Hixson and Paretti [9]; O'Connor [10]; Spinuzzi [11]; Spinuzzi et al [2]). And as far as we know, none address the value proposition rhetorically.…”