Potential Topics for
EH 501 Research Projects
The following are project ideas for which
the Society for Technical Communication (STC) can supply clients. You may come
up with your own project and client, or you may have an idea for a research
project that needs a client. I will help you find an appropriate client. The
important thing to remember is that your project must apply research to
a practical problem,
i.e., a real problem or issue that real people need solved. Your goal is to
connect theory (research) to practice in the form of real people using the
research to do something.
For any topic, you must develop research
methods for collecting original data (primary research) as well as methods for
identifying published findings of other researchers (secondary research).
Dr. Norman has access to the local STC salary survey database, and the local STC
membership list for survey purposes.
1. Consulting/Contracting in Technical
Communication
Secondary
Research Tips: The May 2002 issue of STC’s Technical Communication
has several articles on consulting and contracting, and in 2005 the Society
published results of a 2003 survey of contractors.
The local STC chapter has collected salary and
other data from local contractors since 1999 but has analyzed only one year's
worth of data (see 2005 report
http://www.uah.edu/english/EHTJobs/2005_survey.htm).
Primary Research Tips: Could analyze the part-time and
contractor data for the last few years, or conduct a surveymonkey survey of
local contractors, or both. The
analysis might suggest ways to tweak the next local salary survey to provide
more useful data about people who do contract work in the area.
2. Technical Writers in Huntsville:
Where They Work, What They Do
Secondary
Research Tips: The STC national salary survey provides some
demographic information about Alabama, and the 2000 census may also have data.
Primary Research Tips: In 2002-2003,
two graduate students began an employer database and reported on the methods and
research that went into the database (see
http://www.uah.edu/english/EHTJobs/Database/employer_database.htm)
Their list is not out-dated, but would be a
good starting place for another approach to that project, perhaps working
through the Chamber of Commerce.
The local STC salary survey also collects
raw data about industries in which respondents work.
3. Online Resources for Technical
Writers: Style Guides, Symbols, Abbreviations, Clip Art, etc.
Secondary Research Tips: See
the Salmon Library library research guide to business writing:
http://www.uah.edu/library/business/eh300.html
Online research of other libraries,
professional societies, etc., may reveal similar research guides for
technical communication, or quick reference guides (all-in-one-place).
Primary Research Tips.
Survey or interview technical writers about
the online resources they use and the kinds of questions they would like to
answer with online resources.
4. Trends in Technical Communication
Secondary
Research Tips: In 2006, Money Magazine ranked
Technical Writer #13 in “50 Best Jobs in America.” A student could study what
factors placed technical writing so high in the ranks, and what other studies
back up Money’s findings. STC has conducted several large-scale surveys
about what colleges should teach technical writing students and what skills they
need to get good jobs (see Technical Communication May 2003 and August
2004). These would also be a good source of data about current trends in the
profession, as would STC’s various publications on trends (see August issues of
Technical Communication since 2004, and many issues of STC Intercom,
e.g., January 2003, July/August 2004).
Primary
Research Tips: Develop a list of "hot topics" by reviewing the
table of contents of Technical Communication and IEEE Transactions in
Professional Communication over the last 5-10 years. Then survey or
interview local technical communicators about these topics.
5. Social Networking for Technical
Communication
Background. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and
other online social networking resources have been used in businesses for online
conferencing, collaboration, and other business purposes. The STC member
who suggested this topic is mainly interested in finding out what other
technical communicators are doing along these lines. It would probably
make a better research project if you set up an experiment using Facebook for a
technical communication purpose, purpose for a technical writing class.
You would need to do preliminary research for ideas or to find a research model
to emulate.
6. Using Software Open Source
Applications for Technical Communication
Background. Mozilla Firefox and Open Office are examples of "open
source" applications--the source code for the software is public, not
proprietary, which makes them much cheaper than proprietary products like MS
Office. Technical communicators use a multitude of software applications
to work with graphics, video, screen capture, etc.
Here's a link to a list of open source
applications that will run on Windows operating systems:
http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
Secondary Research. There is
plenty about open source applications on the Web, but you would have too do
library research to find out what people are writing about it.
Primary Research. Conduct a
survey or interviews with technical communicators to find out what open source
applications they use or what tasks they would like to find open source
applications for.
7. Evaluate Metrics for Teamwork (or for
Documentation)
Background. "Metrics" are ways of measuring success or effectiveness or
productivity. Some research on this topic appears under the heading "adding
value" or "added value." Technical communicators often have to demonstrate
their value to the company's bottom line (hence metrics for documentation or
productivity). They also often have to work in teams (we will have a
speaker on "scrum teams"), and thus need to know ways of measuring team
effectiveness.
Client:
Gloria Greene, Director of UAH Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).
Background.
The class project for EH 502 (taught spring 10) involves studying and doing
research on NSF grants, with successful and unsuccessful grants supplied by Ms.
Greene. This will be the third 502 project of this kind, and last spring a
student did a literature review on grant writing specifically directed at the
502 project. Several previous 501 projects have focused on grantwriting,
especially ways that universities can support faculty grantwriting efforts.
Ideas. A
student might work on the NSF review process. As primary research, you
could seekout examples of NSF review comments on unsuccessful grants. (We have
one set already.) Secondary research may be problematic on this topic, and
it may be difficult to reach the required 15 library sources specifically on NSF
review processes, but you could probably find sources of grant review processes
more generally.
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