Critical Power Tools or Improving Software Quality

Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies

Author: J Blake Scott

The first book to focus on the intersection of cultural studies and technical communication, Critical Power Tools draws on various traditions of cultural studies to develop new or expanded theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical approaches to technical communication. Offered as a sourcebook for the field, the book is organized into three parts. The first section, emphasizing theory building, reconceptualizes key concepts or practices, such as usability, through a cultural studies lens. The second section illustrates alternative research methods through several case studies. The third section offers critical and productive pedagogical approaches, including specific assignments, applicable to both undergraduate and graduate courses.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction : why cultural studies? : expanding technical communication's critical toolbox	1
Ch. 1	The technical communicator as author : meaning, power, authority	25
Ch. 2	Extreme usability and technical communication	47
Ch. 3	The phantom machine : the invisible ideology of email (a cultural critique)	71
Ch. 4	An approach for applying cultural study theory to technical writing research	111
Ch. 5	The rhetorical work of institutions	133
Ch. 6	The study of writing in the social factory : methodology and rhetorical agency	151
Ch. 7	Living documents : liability versus the need to archive, or, why (sometimes) history should be expunged	171
Ch. 8	Writing workplace cultures - technically speaking	199
Ch. 9	Rhetoric as productive technology : cultural studies in/as technical communication methodology	219
Ch. 10	Extending service-learning's critical reflection and action : contributions of cultural studies	241
Ch. 11	Designing students : teaching technical writing with cultural studies approaches	259

Book review: Diagnostiquer l'Instrument de Culture D'organisation

Improving Software Quality: An Insider's Guide to TQM

Author: Lowell Jay Arthur

Improving Software Quality Do you want to cut development and maintenance cycle times by 500r more? Do you want to reduce costs by 500r more? Do you want to virtually eliminate software defects and related reliability problems? Do you want to get out from under the burden of your existing software? Then, you need this book—an insider’s guide to Total Quality Management. Improving Software Quality tells you how to apply Total Quality Management (TQM) to software development and evolution. You’ll find out how to translate the manufacturing orientation of existing TQM material into a software environment with extensive examples for both development and maintenance. Using the Software Engineering Institute’s assessment (SEI), you’ll learn how to quickly benchmark your existing software organization against the best in the world and begin to implement proven action plans to establish a baseline of excellence.

Booknews

A guide to translating total-quality-management concepts from their manufacturing orientation and applying them to the development, evolution, and maintenance of commercial software. Shows how to benchmark an existing software organization using industry standards, then implement a program for improvement. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)