Research that Resonates: A Perspective on Durable and Portable Approaches to Scholarship in Technical Communication and Rhetoric of Science

The current U.S. political climate has catalyzed intense public conversations about our relationship with facts and the truth. Declarations we have entered a Post-Truth Era vie with demands for renewed attention to the authority of facts. Attacks on science-based knowledge are countered with a form of scientism locking society into a discursive stalemate…. This context raises a critical question: How can our research more effectively engage (in) these broader societal conversations?

– Call for Papers: TCQ Special issue on Durable and Portable Research in Technical and Scientific Communication

When we initially circulated the CFP for this special issue (excerpted above) our concerns were animated by the proliferation of fake news and rampant science denialism in contemporary politics. Following the political campaigns that led to Brexit and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, there was an explosion of scholarly and public discourse devoted to lamenting the role of disinformation in pollical decision making and exploring possible solutions. These concerns reached such a fever pitch that “post-truth” was eventually dubbed the 2016 Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries (Flood, 2016). Academics from a wide variety of disciplines mounted various defenses of truth and/or facts, and thus we saw everything from The March for Science to a now-famous course on “Calling Bullshit” at the University of Washington (Bergstron & West, 2017). Indeed, in record time, a dedicated group of rhetoricians were able to produce a public-facing edited collection called Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us about Donald J. Trump (Skinnell, 2018).

At the time the CFP was circulated, we agreed (and continue to agree) with many that technical communication (TC) and rhetoric of science (RoS) are uniquely poised to intervene in public conversations about the role of science in a democracy. However, we are also motivated by concerns that researchers in TC and RoS have likely experienced disconnects when discussing their scholarship with others. Individuals housed in English or communication departments might have encountered colleagues unfamiliar with what research in technical and scientific communication entails. This can include everything from the topics TC and RoS researchers study to the methods they use to collect data to the theories that guide their analytic activities. A similar disconnect can occur when working with colleagues from other disciplines. In these cases, a lack of familiarity with what the areas of RoS and TC are and what the research members of these fields do can lead to misperceptions of how we can contribute to group research projects. And, when engaging with individuals outside of academia, we often encounter wide-ranging perspectives on what academic research, in general, encompasses.

In some instances, these situations represent moments where one can engage meaningfully to explain the research TC/RoS scholars do and the contributions their work can make. In others, the situation can be more frustrating. These instances occur when TC and RoS researchers must address misperceptions of how their work connects to departmental objectives, interdisciplinary research projects, or greater society. Unfortunately, inaccurate understandings of the research in TC and RoS can create a range of problems. These can include confusion as to how effectively TC and RoS scholarship meets a department’s or institution’s research requirement for tenure and promotion. They can also encompass missed collaborative opportunities when researchers in other fields fail to realize the contributions TC and RoS can make to interdisciplinary research projects.

At issue are ideas of value as connected to research. The central question to answer becomes,

“Do individuals outside of the field see the value of the scholarly work in TC and RoS?”

It is these perceptions of value that drive many of the frustrations RoS and TC researchers might encounter. A lack of perceived value of one’s work could threaten one’s employment (e.g., “The candidate has produced research, but it is not research we value in terms of tenure and promotion”). It could also restrict abilities to collaborate (e.g., “We don’t value what you can bring to this research team” or “We don’t know how you can contribute value to this research project”). At perhaps its worst, misperceptions of value can lead to calls for cuts in funding academic research in general (e.g., “They do work that has no value to greater society/is a waste of taxpayer money”).

The dynamics of such situations can be very complex. As such, this introduction aims to catalyze an enduring disciplinary conversation about “durability” and “portability” by

• Reflecting on what we see as possible barriers to productive conversations in these areas

• Outlining possible frameworks for grounding discussions

• Previewing the diverse and compelling articles in this volume, each of which tackle these issues head-on.

We seek to examine these concepts in terms of how effectively work can be tested and assessed by others (durability). We also wish to examine how such factors affect portability – or the ways research is perceived by and used (or tested and assessed) by others – be they members of the field, of other disciplines, or greater society.

Barriers and beyond

Our disciplinary DNA

Conversations about fake news, science denialism, and effective approaches to public communication in light of these concerns each construe the role of academia and the nature of quality research differently. Nevertheless, the furor around each of these issues is a clear indication of the need for useful heuristics that can support effective public discussions about durability and portability. Ultimately, we worry that such discussions too often fall back on tacit assumptions about either the ostensibly unassailable credibility of (capital S) Science or a rejection of all durability as a positivist pretention.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the increasing complexity of these issues, we continue to feel that RoS and TC are well suited to contribute productively to public debates around durability and portability. However, we also believe we will be better prepared to do so following a rigorous and nuanced disciplinary discussion of these issues. At present, we worry that some of our disciplinary presumptions about scientific inquiry, methodological rigor, and dissemination of findings may hinder our ability to have these necessary disciplinary conversations and to subsequently participate in broader discussions about durability and portability.

Starting in the 1980s, TC and RoS saw an explosion in activity. There are many different reasons for the growth of these two areas including changes in academic cultures, student populations, and an increasing separation between departmental area groups. However, this rise in activity also coincides with the rhetorical turn in science studies and an increasing cross-disciplinary emphasis on the role of language and argument in scientific inquiry. Within our own disciplines, Carolyn Miller’s (1979) “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing” and Robert Scott’s (1967) “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic” have been incredibly generative. Indeed, their similar arguments about the problems of positivism and the inherent rhetoricity of knowledge production have been instrumental in authorizing large swaths of inquiry. Beyond Miller and Scott, powerful critiques of Science and scientific epistemologies have been built through a careful study of some of science’s greatest failures – particularly eugenics and predatory pharmaceuticals research. One result of this has been that the dividing line between rhetoric and science was mapped not only onto positivism, but also on to an ethical gradient. As such our dominant disciplinary zeitgeist includes a profound distrust of positivist knowledge claims and quantitative methods. The essential presumption of our discipline is that most knowledge claims are inherently facile, based on laughably ignorant epistemological foundations, and used as cover for unethical programs.

An unfortunate side effect of these ethical and epistemological commitments is that they may hinder our extra-disciplinary communication efforts. Certainly, many in TC and RoS have an uneasy relationship with social scientific guarantors of epistemic authority (e.g., constructs like “validity,” “reliability,” and “replicability”). This discomfort is enduring enough that Davida Charney (1996) was essentially able to publish a sequel to her famous “Empiricism is not a Four-Letter Word” quite recently. This sequel, “Getting to 'How Do You Know?' Rather Than 'So What?' From 'What's New?'” (Charney, 2015), is largely an appeal for greater durability in TC and RoS. As the title suggests, it asks us to consider methodology before impact. Interestingly, research from our own disciplines indicates that the careful use of validity, reliability, and replicability constructs (the answers to “how do you know?”) often results in findings that carry greater caché. Indeed, if there’s one topic about which TC and RoS have an abundance of evidence, it is how effectively the strategic use of quantitative methods can lead to increased disciplinary prestige. But, insofar as many view quantitative methods as ethically problematic and epistemologically suspect, we have created a powerful tension between concerns over the function of knowledge claims and the need to develop a persuasive evidence base for our research practices. We argue, therefore, that it is still incumbent upon TC and RoS to develop methods and methodologies a) responsive to critical insights about epistemology, and b) capable of producing durable and portable findings that support effective practices in the field.

Given how generative the rhetorical turn has been for our areas of inquiry, it is no wonder that it has put the “commitment” in intellectual commitments. Treating knowledge as inherently rhetorical, as fundamentally a product of debate and consensus, is in our DNA. It is an inextricable and foundational part of who we, as members of a field are – because it has historically authorized our participation in areas of inquiry from which scholars of RoS and TC were once expected to be excluded. However, these same commitments are now stymying our ability to participate in other important conversations. Our construal of Science as monolithically positivist and our subordination of knowledge to rhetoric authorizes both of the tacit responses to public durability discussions mentioned above (blind trust in Science and complete rejection of knowledge).

Despite the challenges created by the collision of our extradisciplinary goals and our epistemic commitments, we (the guest editors) believe that there are productive ways forward. Indeed, we find that more recent research in RoS, TC, and science studies provides powerful theoretical frameworks that may allow RoS and TC to better navigate these conflicts. The last 30 years have seen a shift from predominantly textual and archival research to a combination of textual and ethnographic inquiry. As a result, a much richer tapestry of nonpositivist scientific epistemologies has emerged.

New(er) horizons in epistemology

As the title of this special issue makes clear, we are interested in the potential new horizons of inquiry and outreach made possible by a fuller embrace of durability. This particular term comes from the work of Bruno Latour (1987) who argues that durable research survives methodological “trials of strength” (e.g., experimental methods, statistical tests) (p. 78). For Latour, durability is the foundation of portability – results ready to be considered, tested, and even used by other fields. Methods that allow for any and all explanations to equally explain the findings of study fail to achieve durability. Limitless interpretive possibilities make research nonportable because findings are generally seen as meaningless and not respected beyond disciplinary boundaries.

Latour’s (1987) Science in Action articulates this new epistemology of recalcitrance, perhaps, most directly in his attempt to account for the durability of scientific claims. As he writes:

Laboratories are now powerful enough to define reality. To make sure that our travel through technoscience is not stifled by complicated definitions of reality, we need a small and sturdy one able to withstand the journey: reality as the Latin word res indicates, is what resists. What does it resist? Trials of strength. If, in a given situation, no dissenter is able to modify the shape of a new object, then that’s it, it is reality, at least for as long as the trials of strength are not modified. (p. 93)

According to Latour, reality is real because of its recalcitrance. It is obstinate in the face of new theories and new experimental designs (trials of strength). It takes great effort to reliably and durably articulate a scientific claim to a facet of reality, and it is precisely this difficulty that underwrites scientific authority.

In a recent issue of Technical Communication Quarterly, Michelle Gibbons’ (2019) “The Recalcitrant Invention of X-Ray Images” reminds us that Latour is not the only source for an epistemology of recalcitrance. A remarkably similar approach is also found in Kenneth Burke’s (1984) Permanence and Change. As Gibbons describes it:

Recalcitrance compels revision, inducing adjustments and alterations. In places, Burke uses terms like “shaping” and “reworking” to characterize its effects (p. 258). Burke emphasizes the conservative nature of this transformation, referring to it, in places, as a corrective, and describing it as a force that results in more practical assertions (pp. 255–256). In this way, it acts as a capacious force that shapes our generative extensions in the world in a powerful, but often inscrutable fashion. (p. 4)

The parallels between this and Latour’s trials of strength are readily apparent. Whether working from a science studies or Burkean perspective, the reciprocal agitation between theory and a recalcitrant reality define inquiry and invention as features of engaged practice.

Ultimately, these approaches to epistemology are built on a foundation of practical action. Latour, for example, famously asserts that un fait est fait. Drawing on the Romantic etymology that provides a common origin point for both un fait (a fact) and fait (third-person present indicative conjugation of faire, to make), Latour reminds us that facts are made, or as he prefers it, facts are fabricated. Similarly, Burke (1984) suggests,

The universe “yields” to our point of view by disclosing the different orders of recalcitrance which arise when the universe is considered form this point of view. Thus, suppose that you begin by saying, “Oceans are clocks,” […] As you seek […] corroborative data, the recalcitrance of your material discovered en route may eventually compel you to revise your […] statement as “Oceans have periodic movements.” (pp. 257–258)

And it should not go without noting that these two are certainly not the only scholars to invoke this version of pragmatic realism via fabrication. Andrew Pickering’s (1995) “The Mangle of Practice” describes how “material and social agency are … emergently transformed and delineated in a dialectic of resistance and accommodation” (p. 23). Annemare Mol’s (2002) theory of multiple ontologies relies on the same underlying premise that “enacting reality involves manipulations” (p. 89). Karen Barad (2007) offers an intra-active agential realism that describes science as a performative activity that “meet[s] the universe halfway” (p. 39).

Despite very different cases, methods, and theoretical orientations, Pickering, Latour, Burke, Mol, and Barad converge on a very similar construct. The practical manipulations of fact fabrication are translated through progressive orders of discourse as bodies of scientific theory are assembled and established. In the two excerpts below, the powerful similarities between Pickering and Latour’s account become evident. As Pickering (1995) writes,

[S]cientific knowledge – from the realms of high theory to the humble domain of empirical facts – should be understood in terms of representational chains ascending and descending through layers of conceptual multiplicity and terminating in captures and framings of material agency, with the substance and alignment of all the elements in these changes formed in mangling. (p. 101)

Where Pickering focuses on the body of scientific knowledge and Latour on an individual claim, it’s clear that both are reciprocally created and imbued with authority through multiple nested layers of material and discursive practices. Latour’s (1987) account is as follows:

What is behind the claims? Texts. And behind the texts? More texts, becoming more and more technical because they bring in more and more papers. Behind these articles? Graphs, inscriptions, labels, tables, maps, arrayed in tiers. Behind these inscriptions? Instruments, whatever their shape, age and cost that end up scribbling, registering and jotting down various traces. Behind the instruments?…. Trials of strength to evaluate the resistance of the ties that link the representatives to what they speak for. (p. 79)

In either case, scientific practices (mangling, trials of strength) are those that extract a recalcitrant reality for use in orders of discourse. Facets of reality or phenomena under study are captured and made visible through the agency of scientific instruments and inscriptive practices, and the authority of the eventual claims made are nested in those investigational practices in the liminal spaces between a recalcitrant reality and a scholarly discourse.

Ultimately, we believe this intellectual framework provides a useful foundation for escaping the restrictions of our disciplinary DNA. Understanding knowledge production through a notion of recalcitrance that is discursive, but not discursive without remainder authorizes a new way of engaging with questions of science denialism and our “post-truth” world. However, epistemological recalcitrance is a starting point. It does not begin to exhaust what might be said about durability and portability in TC and RoS. Subsequently, we wish to offer an even broader framework for thinking through research and resonance.

Research and resonance

Successful research is often a matter of resonance. It has an effect on others, an effect that prompts them to see it as important or as having value and is therefore significant. Successful research resonates with – or is seen as having value by – a given community. Recognition of resonance, moreover, is seemingly instinctive: we reflexively know something is important, but in that moment, we may not be able to clearly articulate why. This is because the item that resonated with us mapped onto a set of expectations we associate with or use to identify items that have value to us.

This resonance is not universal. What resonates with you as important might be dismissed by others as irrelevant, superficial, or even silly. We often encounter such differences in our everyday lives in everything from the music we listen to (e.g., arguments of “this is the greatest song ever” vs. “this is awful”) to the theorists we read (e.g., “X is brilliant!” vs. “How can you read that?”). And we increasingly encounter it in how our research is perceived by others. Such disconnects in resonance can appear in situations where colleagues from other disciplines question if the work we do is worthwhile (e.g., “You’re doing what?”) to instances where the idea of research itself is called into question (e.g., “That’s nice, but folks in my field actually do important research/research important things”).

These disconnects in resonance become increasingly apparent in how greater society often views the work academics do. At a minimum, this lack of resonance appears as a failure in understanding the demands such work entails or how academic positions are configured to allow for research time. This factor can be seen in the oft-encountered claims of “But all you do is work three or four hours a day (classroom contact time) and have all of your summers off and vacation time free” (How many of us have cringed at statements like this before?).

None of these situations does us as individual researchers any good. Given the current context in which various forces increasingly push to cut higher education budgets, abolish tenure, and adopt a business-style approach to academia, this lack of resonance is downright dangerous.

What makes this situation particularly problematic is that members of the field could be doing work that has a great deal to offer other disciplines and many segments of society. Unfortunately, some aspect of that work does not resonate with other audiences, and it goes unnoticed and unvalued. An example can be seen in the National Academies of Science Engineering Medicine’s 2017 Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda that notes the need for “building a coherent science communication research enterprise” with the obvious implication that no such enterprise currently exists (p. 74). Given the amount of research TC and RoS scholars have done in this area over the last decade, how did this happen? Were individuals actually not working in this area, or did this work go unacknowledged because it did not resonate with the report’s authors?

These factors lead to an all-important question, “What causes resonance?“ Or, better stated: ”How do we assess such value that creates this resonance?”

The challenge for academic researchers is that their work must often address the resonance expectations of different audiences – audiences who have varying backgrounds in relation to the topic and who view research as relating to different objectives. Failure to understand and address such resonance factors can lead one audience to value the work a researcher does while that same work is dismissed by others. Consider the example of theoretical research that members of a field see as highly valuable but is often dismissed by members of greater society as having no value because it cannot be applied. Such work resonates with one community but fails to resonate with another.

For researchers in TC and RoS, this aspect of resonance often involves four different areas – or spheres – of resonance. Each of these spheres is located in a concentric order starting with the individual’s own department and expanding outward to include greater society. As such, researchers need to understand the dynamics of these “spheres of resonance” if they wish to show the value of and gain support for their work.

The four primary spheres of resonance relating to academic research are

• Local (institution and departmental home)

• Domain (discipline and area of inquiry)

• Sector (overall academia)

• Societal (greater society).

Each sphere encompasses a different audience and focuses on a particular objective that researchers must address for their work to resonate with and be seen as valued by that audience. Resonance within a given sphere involves addressing the objectives the related audience – those reviewing the work – associates with the purpose for using the individual’s work in that sphere. These dynamics operate as follows.

Local (institutional/departmental) sphere

A key sphere in which one’s work must resonate is the institution and unit where the researcher is housed. At this level, the objective of research is connected to job security and advancement or reward within the context of one’s affiliation. In this environment, resonance involves meeting the expectations of internal reviewers who assess the value of the individual’s scholarship. These local individuals examine the researcher’s work and determine if it resonates (i.e., has value or is worthwhile) in terms of meeting departmental and institutional tenure and promotion requirements or annual assessment criteria.

The audience with whom such work must resonate – or who assess its relative value – often include the chair/head and certain members of one’s own department, the dean of one’s college, and various other administrators (and sometimes committees) tasked with overseeing an institution’s tenure and promotion process. In some cases, these individuals might be familiar with the researcher’s disciplinary field; in others, they might not. Achieving resonance in this local sphere involves knowing what factors those individuals associate with “credible” research that “counts” toward tenure and/or promotion. The objective of the individual researcher then is to present work in a way that addresses those expectations – or resonates with the audiences reviewing it.

In some cases, these factors can shape the research one does based on the methods such local audiences view as valued (e.g., “empirical research” vs. “theory building”). In others, they can connect to the venues one must publish in to meet tenure and promotion expectations (e.g., “only works appearing in indexed journals can count”) and the research expectations of those selected venues (e.g., “publication X only publishes work on …”). Such factors generally begin at the department level and radiate out within the institution to include college or school level expectations and overall institutional requirements. In theory, such factors have been built into department-level research guidelines. So such approval at the department level (i.e., recognition that the individual’s work “resonates” with a departmental audience) often means relatively easy approval at higher levels of the institution. The researcher’s focus in terms of resonance within the local sphere is thus pragmatic – it is about job security and the ability to advance in one’s job at that institution. It is based upon what departmental and institutional evaluators identify as constituting “valued” research that “resonates” with them.

Domain (discipline and area of inquiry) sphere

While individuals are employed by departments and institutions, they exist as and are viewed as researchers within particular disciplines and areas of inquiry. How one advances in his or her field (and hirability in terms of moving within one’s field) entails producing research that resonates with members of that field. Likewise, research may need to resonate within coordinated interdisciplinary spaces devoted to addressing similar problems (e.g., rhetoric of medicine, bioethics, and public health). Within domain-level spheres, value/resonance involves how well the individual’s work connects to and reflects research expectations the discipline or area associates with

• How work is done (i.e., methods)

• What contributions it can make (e.g., extending knowledge in the discipline)

• How it has guided the work of others (e.g., recognition via citation by others)

In domain sphere, audience members understand the discipline or area of inquiry well. They also associate certain conventions (e.g., methods of data collection or theoretical foundations) with what constitutes resonance – or effective or meaningful research – based on field-wide perspectives and attitudes.

The objective of achieving resonance in this sphere is building one’s prestige or reputation in the discipline or area in ways that could lead to one’s advancement within and beyond the discipline (e.g., selection for office in key organizations). It also includes one’s ability to shape knowledge in the field overall (e.g., selection to edit a disciplinary journal) and the prospects of collaborating with other members of the field based on one’s reputation as a researcher. In some cases, this disciplinary resonance can connect to tenure and/or promotion if external review is part of an institutions’ processes. Such connections, however, are not always the case, nor is it necessarily true that these external factors, such external letters of assessment from reviewers in one’s field, will resonate with audiences in the local/institutional sphere.

Sector (greater academia) sphere

All academic disciplines exist within a greater overall sector, in most cases academia. In this sphere, the researcher is not interacting with or seeking to achieve resonance with colleagues in a common institutional home or domain area. Rather, the audience in this sphere comprises academic researchers working in other domains within the greater context of the academic endeavor.

This audience might share an area of research interest with the individual, and they might understand the nature of tenure and promotion and the dynamics of the academic publishing process. This audience might also have a common, general understanding of and appreciation for a particular research topic (e.g., effective interface design). These individuals, however, bring with them different disciplinary expectations of what constitutes valued research that resonates with them. Such resonance factors are based upon the expectations of their domain and the related requirements of their own institutional/departmental homes. These factors can affect how these individuals perceive resonance in terms of everything from methods (e.g., valuing participant observation with little or no understanding of rhetorical analysis of texts/artifacts) to the objectives of research (e.g., authoring an indexed proceedings paper vs. securing a major grant vs. publishing a chapter in an edited volume or coauthoring a book).

In this sphere, resonance is a matter of showing the members of certain disciplines what individuals from another field can contribute or bring to a research project. Audiences from other academic disciplines/in this sphere often make such determinations based upon the work that individual does (i.e., it “resonates” with them as having value). The objective of achieving resonance in this sphere generally involves

• Engaging in interdisciplinary research collaborations that extend beyond one’s own field

• Accessing funding options – such as grants and/or awards – that do not exist in one’s field but are available via collaborations with members of different disciplines

Success (i.e., resonance) in this sphere entails understanding how to present one’s research in a way that individuals in other academic disciplines recognize as a valuable/valid approach. Doing so helps such audiences see how the research others do can augment their own work in ways they cannot within their given academic field.

Societal (greater society) sphere

The largest and most diverse sphere in which one’s research must resonate is that of the greater society in which the individual lives. In this case, the audience with whom one’s work must resonate is vast and can include everyone from the neighbors living on one’s street to the legislators in one’s state to citizens of the same nation. Interestingly, though this audience is large and diverse, the objective associated with research that resonates is often quite common: Producing work that contributes to or improves society.

Within this sphere, the objective of the researcher is to gain greater societal support for the work one does. Such support generally comes in the form of public appreciation of and advocacy for allocating funds – be they government (for taxpayers) or private companies (for shareholders) – to support for the research individuals do. The challenge is often one of register. The academic researcher must effectively convey what her or his work is and how it contributes to greater society. Such conveyance, moreover, must be done in a way that allows individuals outside of the researcher’s home institution or disciplinary field to understand it and see the contributions it can make. Additionally, the way in which individuals report research must allow nonacademic audiences to comprehend it and see the value of that person’s work. Doing so is a matter of shifting ideas of resonance to address expectations of what it means to be an effective public scholar whose ideas and findings resonate with greater society. Such resonance needs to entail encouraging the members of a society to listen to and consider the researcher’s ideas and views on a research topic as well as the significance of and contributions that person’s work can make. A comparison of such factors of resonance across these four spheres is provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Spheres of resonance associated with academic research.

Sphere (Area in Which One Must Achieve Resonance)	Audience (With Whom Work Must Resonate)	Objective (What Resonance Entails)
Local/institutional	Colleagues and administrators at one’s home institution and in one’s home department	Objective of audience: To determine how effectively an individual meets a department and institution’s tenure and promotion guidelines; To determine how effectively an individual meets departmental and/or institutional criteria for merit in research
Domain	Colleagues in same academic discipline or area of inquiry	Objective of audience: To identify prospective research partners in the field; To identify effective candidates for service roles or distinctions in the domain
Sector/greater academia	Academic researchers working in other disciplines	Objective of audience: To identify prospective effective collaborators from other disciplines bases on what the individual is seen as being able to contribute to a research project
Societal/greater society	Average citizen, residents, or person in one’s community, state, region, or nation	Objective of audience: To see the applicability or use of research in relation to everyday life/the undertakings and challenges of greater society

Addressing expectations of research resonance in any one of these spheres is challenging. Attempting to produce research that resonates across multiple, ideally all, of them is truly complex. Yet it is not impossible. Doing so involves understanding how the audiences assessing resonance in each sphere define and assess or value concepts of durability and portability. Once known, the researcher must consider how to present or contextualize work in a way that addresses such perspectives.

To clarify, resonance, as we use the term here, is a rhetorical concept involving “durability” and “portability.” These are methodological and presentational concepts designed to lead to resonance. Our goal in examining the idea of resonance in these ways is to think through the relationships among durability, portability, and resonance in a more general and practical sense.

Dynamics of durability and portability

Few persons readily accept new and different ideas without question. Rather, there is a seemingly innate desire to test or try that which is new to determine the accuracy of claims. The same situation can occur with research. Within academia, individuals rarely seem ready to accept research claims without question. Rather, there is a tendency to review the methods of data collection and analysis to determine if the findings reported could have resulted from that process. Accordingly, the better individuals can see and understand the design of studies, the better they can determine the plausibility of related claims. Providing such information when reporting research is a first step to – or a primary characteristic of – resonance across many academic disciplines. It is foundational to the research concept of durability.

Dynamics of durability

From a research perspective, durability involves the ability to test a process and check the related claims. It is one thing to see how a particular research process could have yielded certain results; it is another to try the same process and see what occurs. If we can confirm the claims reported by one researcher (or group of researchers) are ones that can be independently replicated by others, then our willingness to accept such claims, and to see the value of them, grows. This testability generally makes such work connect to or resonate more deeply with the members of a group. As such, it increases the value the group associates with the related research and its reported results. The more testing done and the more confirmation of results reported, the greater the research resonates with the members of a field and the increasing value they associate with the contributions that work can make.

Such durability can be central to how audiences in different spheres of resonance perceive the value of research. Within the local sphere, individuals might review the methods one uses to determine how clearly they are articulated in terms of meeting institutional requirements for assessing research. If the research samples one provides contain nondurable elements (e.g., incomplete methodology sections or failure to discuss how results relate to data collection methods used), such work might not resonate with local reviewers who expect certain aspects of durability to be stated.

Within the sphere of domain, if members of one’s own area of scholarship cannot understand how results were produced, cannot test them, or do not get the same results from a process, the related work fails to resonate with, or be seen as valued by, the members of the field. In the sector sphere, if individuals from other disciplines can see how results were produced, the related work might be more likely to resonate with them, for it meets core expectations of what constitutes valued research. And if they can actually test and confirm those results, the ability of such work to resonate with members of other fields only grows.

Within the sphere of society, the challenge involves helping individuals contextualize what results mean, or how they can be applied, in one’s daily life. In many cases, this process involves examples that allow individuals to “test” such research through mental exercises. Such examples often resemble mock experiments that allow individuals to “test” results in the contexts of their daily lives (e.g., “Try the following … Note what you see. This result indicates how X works”). Even in these ways, research is contextualized in terms of durability that allow others to test it and see for themselves if and how it works. As with many academic undertakings, if average persons can replicate results and see what such research means, the related research is more likely to resonate with them and be valued by them.

In this way, durability can be central to another aspect of resonance-value in research: Portability.

Perspectives on portability

Results need to be shared. Only through presenting research results to others for review and consideration can research make a difference – or resonate/contribute value. Theoretically, the more widely individuals share research results, the greater the contributions that work could make across larger and larger areas. This is portability: The ability to share research across spheres of resonance so its potential can be more widely recognized and applied.

If individuals share research exclusively in certain venues (e.g., journals, conferences, etc.), only persons who know of such venues can access that work. Alternatively, a large number of individuals might know of venues for sharing research, but factors such as subscriptions to a publication or membership in an organization might be essential to accessing these venues. Again, the degree to which work can be accessed and shared is limited. Such factors can be particularly problematic within the sphere of domain if financial restrictions mean members of a field cannot access research shared in select venues (journals or conferences). These factors are also problematic within the sector sphere where researchers from other fields might know of the work individuals in TC and RoS do, but financial factors again restrict access to it, and the need to invest in accessing scholarship in one’s own field comes first and foremost.

In other instances, access to venues might be easy (e.g., free-access online journals). The way in which researchers have written up their results, however, might affect the accessibility – and the potential resonance – of that work. Most published academic research, for example, is written for other members of one’s field (i.e., domain sphere). Academic authors thus often assume a degree of foundational knowledge readers will have of particular topics, methods, and theories as well as what certain, discipline-specific terms mean. In some instances, considerable knowledge of a technical topic or approach is required to effectively contextualize a research process (e.g., a certain understanding of statistical methods) and interpret results (e.g., use of equations to indicate relationships). As such, individuals outside of the field might not have the foundation needed to understand the ideas conveyed in an entry. This makes that research inaccessible to them, and it will not resonate – and be seen as having value – with them.

This situation often affects the portability of research across fields – particularly those fields outside of an overall area, like the portability of physical science research to humanities fields and vice versa. It also affects the portability of research to audiences in the sphere of greater society. In such cases, the lack of background relating to a topic and a lack of familiarity with the structure of academic articles affects whether non-specialists can access and understand the ideas in a scholarly entry. Moreover, it can create issues within the societal sphere. If the individual in RoS or TC is the only member of her/his field in a department, then it is a situation akin to communicating across academic fields (sphere of sector), and the same kinds of access problems can occur. In such cases, an inability to understand/access the TC or RoS scholar's research could lead to issues with tenure, promotion, or other internal assessments.

Similarly, the terms researchers use to present ideas can render them inaccessible to individuals in other disciplines and to persons outside of academia (social sphere). Such factors can include everything from field-specific terms that are not defined (e.g., performing a discourse analysis of a corpus) to strings of polysyllabic words and academic-specific structures not commonly used by everyday audiences (e.g., an epistemological endeavor that contributes to the creation of knowledge). Again, if the TC or RoS researcher is the lone representative of her/his field in the department, the same issues could become problematic within the local sphere.

And then there is durability as a factor of portability.

As noted, the ability for others to test and assess research results can be key to their resonance – or how work is accepted and valued by others. If RoS or TC scholars report research in ways that meet the durability expectations of an audience (i.e., they can be tested and confirmed), it can enhance the portability of the work. Again, this durability-portability connection can resonate based on perceived durability – where individuals can follow the research process as reported and understand how they might replicate the process to test the results. It can also resonate based on actual durability – situations where others do re-create the process to assess if the reported results are replicable. The key is addressing the aspects of durability an audience expects (or requires) for work to resonate with that audience. Such replicability/testability can involve actually re-creating a process (e.g., sphere of domain and sphere of sector) or observing how an idea works via thought experiment or in everyday life (e.g., sphere of society).

If individuals do not have the background to understand what took place in a process, they will have a difficult time assessing the durability of that work, let alone re-creating the conditions needed to test it. (Consider an item like “The researchers used process X to assess relationship Y,” where it is assumed the reader knows what process X is and what relationship Y entails and provides no further explanation of either.) This situation can be particularly problematic in the sphere of sector and the ability for research to be portable across different fields. Similarly, it could also affect issues of resonance within the local sphere where the TC or RoS researcher resides.

Finally, if the language, style, and format used to share research makes it inaccessible to the individuals in a given sphere of resonance, their ability to assess the durability of that research is limited. Such a situation might limit the resonance of work within the sphere of society, where nonacademics might find the organization of scholarly articles and the use of academic terminology confusing or incomprehensible. In such cases, the ability to “test” research is limited, for the individual is not sure what exactly to test or how. A similar situation can occur in the sphere of sector – and even the local sphere – if the academic terminology used to convey ideas is unfamiliar to academics from other fields (e.g., “enthymeme,” “pistis,” and even “rhetoric” as used in the field vs. by individuals outside of it).

Overview of this special issue

This special issue represents an initial examination into these ideas of durability and portability by providing different perspectives of what they mean and how they are approached within the domain sphere of TC and RoS. The contributors represent scholars who bring different backgrounds, perspectives, and approaches to the study of communication in technical and scientific domains. As such, these entries represent a cross-section of ideas and approaches at work in RoS and TC at this time. The goal of this special issue, in turn, is twofold. The first goal is to provide readers with a range of perspectives they can use to determine what resonance means for members of the field. A second is to assess how the field defines and approaches ideas of durability and portability to determine how we might address such factors in how we, as members of a field, undertake and share research.

In essence, this issue represents a first step toward examining what resonance means to members of the field (i.e., domain). Ideally, this initial step can represent the start of a greater journey in which all of us, as a field, can undertake. After all, resonance is a matter of community expectations, and the more our scholarly community works toward understanding how the field can address ideas of durability and portability, the more effectively we can share work within and beyond our discipline.

In “Building Better Bridges: Toward a Transdisciplinary Science Communication,” Jenell Johnson and Michael Xenos ruminate on new possibilities for durability and portability that might arise from collaboration between rhetoricians of science and quantitative social scientists interested in science communication. Through both extending and critiquing Latour’s notion of durability, the authors reflect on both the promise and the peril of transdisciplinary collaborations that bridge rhetorical inquiry with quantitative methods. Devon Moriarty, Paula de Villavicencio, Lillian Black, Helen Cai, Monica Bustros, Brad Mehelenbacher, and Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher’s “Durable Research, Portable Findings: Rhetorical Methods in Case Study Research,” explores the design of a mixed-methodological approach to case studies in rhetoric of expertise. Their analysis argues that case study results and more quantitative methods can be reciprocally integrated and translated into one another for different purposes. Along the way, the authors reject, at least in part, the framing of the special issue and argue that research in rhetoric of science and technical communication is already substantively durable and portable.

“Q-Rhetoric and Controlled Equivocation: Revising ‘the SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF SUBJECTIVITY’ FOR CROSS-disciplinary Collaboration,” by Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, Eric G. Booth, and Emma Lundberg introduces rhetoric of science and technical communication to a novel methodology born of a fusion of decolonial anthropology, rhetoric of science, and Q-methodology (a quantitative approach to the study of human subjectivity). The authors outline how their new methodology and method will be applied to support more productive public deliberation about natural resource management. In “Disconnecting to Connect: Developing Postconnectivist Tactics for Technical Communication Research,” Gustav Verhulsdonck, James Melton, and Vishal Shah leverage insights from cognitive science and behavioral economics to challenge some of TC’s basic presuppositions about online connectivity and connectivism. In so doing, the authors argue that TC’s default position is one of connectivity and therefore neglects the importance of tactical disconnection as a mode of (dis)engaging technology.

Cathryn Molloy’s “Durable, Portable Research through Partnerships with Interdisciplinary Advocacy Groups, Specific Research Topics, and Larger Data Sets” uses an interview study of patient–provider communication to argue that TC and RoS can increase their durability through partnering with interdisciplinary advocacy groups. More specifically, the analysis engages with participant recruitment protocols as part of a mixed-methodological study on how patients established credibility with care providers. In so doing, Molloy demonstrates how researchers can simultaneously recruit study participants and future audiences beyond academic domains and sectors.

Concluding thoughts

Despite this broad range of theoretical commitments, methodological constructs, and areas of inquiry, each of the contributions ultimately converge on the idea that resonance is a matter of commonality. Specifically, it requires parties to have or to come to a common understanding of what constitutes value in a situation. For researchers, the challenge is to achieve resonance in a way that allows audiences in different spheres of resonance to see and appreciate the value of academic scholarship. By understanding the roles durability and portability play in such processes, researchers in TC and RoS can reflect upon how they do and report research to different audiences. Doing so can often be the key to gaining recognition for the work one does and the contributions it can make. Ideally, the five entries in this special issue provide perspectives that can begin such reflection among members of the field.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirk St.Amant

Kirk St.Amant is the Eunice C. Williamson Chair in Technical Communication and a member of the Center for Biomedical Engineering and Rehabilitation Science (CBERS) at Louisiana Tech University. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Technical Communication with the University of Limerick in Ireland and a Guest Professor of Usability Studies with Southeast University in China. He researches how cognitive processes affect the usability of technologies in health and medical contexts and in online education.

S. Scott Graham

S. Scott Graham is an assistant professor in the Department of Rhetoric & Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the developer and curator of conflictmetrics.com, a biomedical research funding visualization initiative. He researches how experts and public stakeholders communicate about risk and uncertainty as part of science-policy decision making.