(Re)defining “Professional” in Technical & Professional Communication

ABSTRACT

This special issue questions current notions and practices of “professionalism” in TPC. Professionalism – whether an identity, a status, or a set of behaviors or conventions – continues to be constructed in white supremacist, ableist, heteronormative, and classist frameworks. The authors in this issue work to reimagine what professionalism means in our classrooms, workplaces, and communities by critiquing the professional practices that uphold oppressive and exploitative structures, inspiring just action and new futures.

KEYWORDS:

• Workplace studies
• professional practice
• social justice
• ethics

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Imposter syndrome, a belief that one’s success or place within an organization is undeserved or a mistake, is a common occurrence in academia, particularly among women. Tulshyan and Burney (2021) explain that there are many cultural dimensions of how imposter syndrome is felt, experienced, and even promoted. They argue that we should stop telling women they have imposter syndrome because the emphasis on the individual fails to account “for the historical and cultural contexts that are foundational to how it manifests in both women of color and white women.” Although a deep examination of the origins of our own imposter syndrome is not the focus of this piece, we felt it important to at least acknowledge, given imposter syndrome’s obvious ties to the concept of professionalism and who is afforded the elite status as a “professional.”

2. When we began writing this introduction, we realized the discussions that came out of the workshop were so formative to the evolution of the ideas we wanted to put forward here. We believe that the informal discussions in the workshop constitute a powerful form of knowledge production, particularly as we gathered as a group of TPC educators and practitioners with a shared curiosity for what it is we mean when we say “professional.” As such, we reached out to those who attended the workshop to ask if they were comfortable with being cited. We extend many thanks to Traci Billingsley, Codi Renee Blackmon, Avery Edenfield, Mary Glavan, Rachael Jordan, Katie Manthey (2020c), Nicole O’Connell, and Anne-Marie Womack.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bridget Gelms

Bridget Gelms is an associate professor in the English department at San Francisco State University, where she teaches courses in professional communication, social media, document design, and team writing. She is also the co-director of the College Undergraduate Research Experience in SFSU’s College of Liberal and Creative Arts. Her work has appeared in Technical Communication Quarterly, Computers & Composition, and Composition Forum, among other journals and edited collections.

Cynthia Johnson

Cynthia Johnson is an assistant professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma, where she is the Director of Composition and teaches in the Technical Writing and Composition & Rhetoric programs. Her research centers on composition and technical writing pedagogies and has appeared in Computers and Composition, The Writing Center Journal, and edited collections. In 2023, she received a CCCC Emergent Researcher Award for her work with the FYW Syllabus Project.