A Note from the New Editor

As the journal begins its 38th year, I am honored to take the helm as editor of a publication that not only conveys cutting-edge research but also serves as a vehicle for helping us to reimagine the purpose and future of our field. My vision for Technical Communication Quarterly begins with inviting a wider breadth of voices, perspectives, and expertise to inform that imagining. For example, we have doubled the editorial board, adding to the excellent and experienced earlier members additional scholars who are diverse in terms of university type, rank, areas of expertise, and demographics. The primary role of editorial board members is reviewing manuscripts submitted to TCQ. And though reviewing manuscripts is in many ways hidden work, it powerfully shapes the field. Therefore, it is essential that a wider diversity of reviewers inform the field’s perspective of what makes research valid, original, important, meaningful, and ethical. In addition to diversifying perspectives, an expanded editorial board equips TCQ to move manuscripts more quickly through review and make timely research available to the field at large. In the coming year, we will introduce some additional changes that will improve our processes and offer scholars new opportunities to engage with the journal. Stay tuned!

The articles in this issue reflect the breadth of work that technical communication encompasses: from empirical studies to theory building, from new materialism to critical race theory, from video affordances to census form design, from Vietnamese humanitarian organizations to Swedish farmers. The first two articles in this issue are critical scholarship that reveal oppression in different forms and environments relevant to the field of technical communication. The first piece, by Deborah Balzhiser, Charise Pimentel, and Amanda Scott (all of Texas State University), reports a critical visual semiotic analysis of portions of the 2010 U.S. Census form. This analysis highlights real-world, harmful effects of design incongruities for people who are members of nondominant races and ethnicities. Drawing upon interviews with 39 women practitioners, the second article, by Emily Petersen of Weber State University, conveys how participants used interactional power to negotiate agency and solve workplace problems involving discrimination, sexism, and other oppressive structures. The third article, by Sarah Beth Hopton of Appalachian State University and Rebecca Walton¹ of Utah State University, reports two keys to successful humanitarian communication based on interviews with members of a humanitarian organization in eleven provinces of Northern and Central Vietnam. The fourth article, by Michelle Gibbons of the University of New Hampshire, draws upon the Burkean concept of recalicitrance to extend new materialism in ways that shed light on technological invention. In the final research article of this issue, Per Erik Eriksson of Dalarna University in Sweden and Yvonne Eriksson of Mälardalen University in Sweden identify four affordances of live-action video. Their findings emerge from a Research through Design project to develop how-to videos for Swedish farmers seeking to build antipredator fences to protect livestock. The strength of this issue is thanks in large part to the excellent outgoing editorial team from East Carolina University, which did much of the editorial and copyediting work before the leadership transition. We are grateful for their excellent work. Many, many thanks to former Editor Donna Kain and former Managing Editor Suzan Flanagan for their patience, availability, and instruction! It is daunting to take up their important work, but their kindness and support facilitated a seamless transition to the journal’s new home at Utah State University.

Carrying forward this work requires a team, and I am deeply grateful for the insightful scholars coming alongside me to usher TCQ into its fourth decade. Managing Editor Beth Shirley has capably taken up manuscript management, becoming an indispensable partner in pursuing early goals for TCQ, such as reducing time from manuscript submission to decision. To further support quick turnaround, this spring we welcome two new Associate Editors: Ann Shivers-McNair of the University of Arizona and Jared Colton of Utah State University. Scott Mogull of Texas State University has graciously agreed to continue serving as Book Editor, which is a mentorship role as much as an editor role and a valuable contribution to the journal. Together, we’ll work with the ATTW Executive Committee and Editorial Board to build on the work of the previous team: former Editor Donna Kain, Managing Editor Suzan Flanagan, and Associate Editor Brent Henze, all of East Carolina University. This first journal issue of my tenure as editor begins what I hope will be a lively, inclusive conversation about the field: who contributes, who belongs, where to direct our attention, and what impact we seek to have in the world. I welcome your contributions and ideas. Please get in touch ([email protected]) and get involved!

Notes

1. Please note that this manuscript was submitted well before I applied to become journal editor and was accepted for publication before I began serving as editor. The journal online management system does not grant me access to the publication in my editor role, and reviewer anonymity is preserved.