Writing power : communication in an engineering center / Dorothy A. Winsor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Winsor, Dorothy A.

Series:

SUNY Series, Studies in Scientific and Technical Communication

SUNY series, Studies in scientific and technical communication

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communication in engineering.

Technical writing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (184 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Winner of the 2004 Distinguished Publication on Business Communication presented by the Association of Business CommunicationWriting Power examines the way that texts, knowledge, and hierarchy generate and support one another within a for-profit corporation. By encouraging us to see texts and writing as powerful operators in the corporate world, this book presents a case study focused on how one engineering organization uses texts to create and maintain its knowledge and power structure. Based on over five years of observations, the book describes the co-generation of power/knowledge/text from several points of view, including that of managers, engineers, interns, and blue-collar workers. These groups of people use texts to build knowledge within their own areas and establish control over their work when it is passed along to the other groups. Employing Bourdieu's notion that people possess different kinds of "capital" that can be converted to one another under the right circumstances, the book demonstrates that text is one of the major ways that this conversion of capital takes place, and is thus one of the major ways that power and knowledge are generated and accumulated.

Contents:

""Writing Power""; ""Contents""; ""Illustrations""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Vignette 1. Scenes in an Engineering Center(and Elsewhere)""; ""1. Using Writing to Negotiate Knowledge and Power""; ""Vignette 2. Two Hours in an Afternoonof a Manager: Doug""; ""2. Managing the Organization Through Powerful Texts""; ""Vignette 3. A Meeting with Engineers: John""; ""3. Negotiating Knowledge Across, Down, and Up the Hierarchy""; ""Vignette 4. Two Hours in a Technician�s Afternoon: Rich""; ""4. Amassing Knowledge in the Hands of the More Powerful""

""Vignette 5. An Engineering Intern�s Morning: Kevin""""5. Entering Systems of Knowledge/Power""; ""6. Knowledge/Power/Texts in an Engineering Center""; ""Notes""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""K""; ""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""S""; ""T""; ""U""; ""V""; ""W""; ""Y""; ""Z""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-170) and index.

ISBN:

9780791486702

0791486702

OCLC:

923416494