tiquing this memo. Finally, for their writing assignment, I asked each student to pick an organization in the university to which he or she belonged, to treat that organization as a business for which they worked, and to write a memo to the organization's members attempting to achieve goodwill and rapport with their audience members while they announced and summarized the policy and explained its relevance to their organization's members. This assignment certainly would not have had the credibility or force that it has had if I had not been able to have the students experience and critique how the same matter had been handled in business.
This article explores the implications of career research for the field of technical communication. The interdisciplinary strands of career theory provide a useful perspective on the contexts of work with which our field interacts and for which it prepares technical communicators. To help us gain an understanding of the historical, methodological, and ideological contexts of career studies, the article first provides a historical overview then reviews current trends, particularly in the way recent research diverges from traditional approaches. Finally, it discusses four broad but interrelated strands of inquiry that technical communication researchers might pursue based on research in career studies.
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