Liminality: The Work of Resilience in Technical Communication
Edited by Miriam F. Williams and Lisa Melonçon
Designed by Mike Palmquist.
The chapters in this edited collection represent the final essays accepted for publication in Technical Communication, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). In January 2025, after the STC filed for bankruptcy and ceased operation, we brought together these essays for publication. Scholarship in the field of technical and professional communication (TPC) has always resided in something of a liminal space—between academics and practitioners; between the classroom and the workplace; between subject matter expertise and writing and communication expertise. This liminality has been a hallmark and a strength of TPC. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, this volume exemplifies the diverse range of work that technical and professional communicators do. The chapters illustrate various component parts of the field’s identity and what it has long valued. Equally important, this collection demonstrates the resilience of ideas that has long defined TPC as a field and a practice.
Table of Contents
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Introduction. Examples of Components of Technical and Professional Communication’s Identity, Lisa Melonçon
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.1.3
1. Is AI the Right Tool for the Job? Understanding the Environmental Implications of This Emerging Technology, Alisa Bonsignore
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.01
2. Navigating Human-AI Collaboration: The Emerging Role of Technical Communicators as AI Facilitators, Amber Hedquist, Mark A. Hannah, and Heidi Willers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.02
3. The Error of Using Readability Formulas for Research and Practice: An Integrative Review of the Technical Communication and Accounting Literatures, Timothy D. Giles
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.03
4. Beyond Relevance: Improving Documentation Quality with the Kano Model, Yoel Strimling
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.04
Part Two: Collaborations in Communities
5. Card Sorting as a Way to Prioritize Content for Websites, Nick Carrington
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.05
6. Breaking from PowerPoint’s Defaults: A New Workshop Model Encourages Presenters to Adopt Best Practices in Presentation Slide Design, Joanna Wolfe, Juliann Reineke, and Karen Stump
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.06
7. Where Do I Go from Here? A Rhetorical Analysis of Norwegian Wayfinding Signs, Nicole St. Germaine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.07
8. Communicating Science to the Public: A Comparison of Lexicogrammatical Features in Student-Produced and Popular Science Writing, Jordan Batchelor and Jordan Smith
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.08
9. The Argumentative Structure of Paragraphs and the Importance of Models in Undergraduate Recommendation Reports, Mike Duncan, Ashleigh Petts, Jillian Hill, and Andy Hill
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.09
10. More Than Words: A Text Mining Approach to the Analysis of Topics and Skills in Technical Writing Job Ads, Bremen Vance and Erica M. Stone
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.10
11. “Not Favors, but Fair Play”: Black Technical Communicators in Mid-Twentieth-Century America, Edward A. Malone
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869.2.11
About the Editors
Miriam F. Williams is Professor of English in Texas State University’s Department of English. Before joining Texas State in 2004, she worked for eight years with State of Texas agencies as a caseworker, health and safety investigator, policy analyst, policy writer/editor, and program administrator of rules and regulations. Her books and articles focus on public policy writing, plain language, race and ethnicity, and archival research. She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Social Justice in Technical and Professional Communication (2025), a co-editor of Communicating Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Technical Communication (Routledge, 2014), and the author of From Black Codes to Recodification: Removing the Veil from Regulatory Writing (Routledge, 2010). She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Society for Technical Communication’s journal, Technical Communication, from 2020 to 2025.
Lisa Melonçon is Professor of Technical Communication and chair of the department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Clemson University. She is widely published on programmatic and pedagogical issues in TPC, accessibility, and the rhetoric of health and medicine. You can learn more about her at http://tek-ritr.com.
Publication Information: Williams, Miriam F., & Lisa Melonçon (Eds.). (2026). Liminality: The Work of Resilience in Technical Communication. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869
Digital Publication Date: February 19, 2026
Print Publication Date: TBD
ISBN: 978-1-64215-286-9 (PDF) | 978-1-64215-287-6 (ePub) | 978-1-64642-885-4 (pbk.)
DOI: 10.37514/TPC-B.2026.2869
Contact Information:
Miriam F. Williams: mfw@txstate.edu
Lisa Melonçon: meloncon.research@gmail.com
Foundations and Innovations in Technical and Professional Communication
Series Editor: Lisa Melonçon, Clemson University
This book is available in whole and in part in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). It will also be available in a low-cost print edition from our publishing partner, the University Press of Colorado.
Copyright © 2026 Miriam F. Williams, Lisa Melonçon, and the authors of individual parts of this book. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 United States License. 342 pages, with notes, illustrations, and bibliographies. This book will be available in print from University Press of Colorado as well as from any online or brick-and-mortar bookstore. Available in PDF and ePub formats for no charge on this page at the WAC Clearinghouse. You may view this book. You may print personal copies of this book. You may link to this page. You may not reproduce this book on another website. For permission requests and other questions, such as creating a translation, please contact the copyright holder.