“A Proficiency in What We Call Rhetoric”: A Role for Community-Engaged Technical Communicators in Interpretive Planning Processes

ABSTRACT

Non-formal learning institutions use interpretive plans to create effective interpretation (mission-based communications) for their visitors. This article argues that interpretive planning offers professional and technical communicators great potential for engaging with communities. Following an introduction to the field of interpretation and interpretive planning, I explain how interpretive plans are a type of metagenre. I then provide technical communicators with specific examples of how technical communicators’ expertise is relevant to interpretation.

KEYWORDS:

• science communication
• environmental communication
• interpretive planning
• community-based research
• action research
• interpretation
• metagenre

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the extended team that has contributed to this project over the last five years, including Maria Sanchez, Amanda Curry, Ashley Mayes, Molly Davis, Jackie Gallimore, Emily Ellingson, Ned Crankshaw, Jordan Phemister, Dawn Bailey, and Jess Slade. Our work has also been generously supported by funding from the University of Kentucky Office of the Vice President for Research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The complete official title of the organization is, in fact, “The Arboretum, The State Botanical Garden of Kentucky” For the sake of brevity, in the remainder of the manuscript, I will use the shorthand name “The Arboretum.”

2. The results of this survey research will be presented in a separate future article focused on environmental rhetoric.

3. Landscape assessment has its roots in scenic assessment, a method established primarily by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in the mid-20^th century. Some of the earliest scholarship was produced by James Palmer and Richard Smardon beginning in the 1970s, and the field has had influences from environmental psychology as well, particularly in the work of Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. For more on the history and theory of landscape assessment, refer to Fairclough, Herlin, & Swanwick, (2018) Routledge Handbook of Landscape Character Assessment: Current Approaches to Characterisation and Assessment.

4. Although Giltrow (2002) uses the hyphenated form meta-genre, I follow later theorists, including Schryer and Spoel (2005), Pantelides (2015), and McNely (2017), in using the unhyphenated metagenre save for in direct quotations of Giltrow.

5. Wayfinding may in fact present one of the most immediate opportunities for TPC scholars and practitioners to contribute to interpretation and interpretive planning, given our field’s burgeoning interest in wayfinding processes and texts. For more on wayfinding in TPC, check Britt and Britt (2021), Conway, Oppegaard, and Hayes (2020), De Souza E Silva and Frith (2014), and Strantz (2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lauren E. Cagle

Lauren E. Cagle is an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies and Affiliate Faculty in Environmental and Sustainability Studies and Appalachian Studies at the University of Kentucky. She teaches environmental rhetoric, technical communication, and communication in the natural and social sciences. Her research often focuses on overlaps between these areas; she studies questions such as how web interfaces promote productive conversations about climate change, how smartphones’ ubiquity change our everyday behaviors, and how signage design in public spaces can increase environmental knowledge. Her work has been published in Technical Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Computers & Composition, Rhetoric Review, and POROI.