Introduction to the Special Issue on New Case Studies forTechnical and Professional Communication Courses

Abstract

This special issue of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION focuses on developing new case studies for use in technical and professional communication courses. The term “case study” used here refers to descriptions of real world events that illustrate particular communication problems through collections of primary documents and secondary materials. While case study pedagogy provides students with many benefits, such as concrete applications of technical communication theory, there are distinct challenges that may prevent instructors from developing case studies, such as collecting primary documents as they become available in the media. The case studies treated in the special issue focus on the following events: the crash of Air Midwest Flight 5481; the accounting scandals of the Enron corporation; the communication crisis at Brookhaven National Laboratory; the leaking of nuclear material at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant; the Texas AM and airline press releases in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center.