| Abstract: |
Through an examination
of the technical and professional writing profession as it defines itself
and through a citation analysis of its journals, this thesis highlights
the literature, identifies access problems, and suggests some strategies
for confronting bibliographic obstacles. After a brief introductory
chapter, the second chapter of the thesis examines how the discipline
defines itself through its professional associations, the characteristics
of its practitioners, and its place in the univesity. The third chapter
presents a citation analysis of the eight core journals published in 1990
and 1980 and reports that: (1) although academic programs in technical and
professional communication are physically positioned in humanities units,
the research literature resembles that of that of social science; (2) the
interdisciplinary connections of this literature are to social science
disciplines, with the exception of English and computer science; (3) the
citations indicate that there are two distinct but not mutually exclusive
subdisciplines, business communication and technical communication; and
(4) there was a vast increase in the number of citations per article in
all the journals. The fourth chapter of the thesis details general and
specific problems of bibliographic control for a discipline thus defined,
proposing some strategies for confronting bibliographic obstacles.
Fourteen tables and six figures of data are included; 50 references are
attached. (RS) |