Rhetorical Wayfinding: Towards a student-centered Internet research praxis
Abstract
Online research practices are continually reworked and re-envisioned due to the increasingly wireless, internetworked, and mobile nature of our digital connections. This thesis situates Internet research praxis as a student-centered, technologically savvy, and digitally spatial action. Rhetorical Wayfinding is used as a key concept, combining the contextualization of rhetoric and research methodology with the wayfinding techniques used by web designers and theorists. This in turn focuses the overarching practices of digital research into a more localized, social, and visual examination of the individual researcher's research path. By articulating the digital worksite in this way, the spatial language connecting the researcher, his or her subjects, and the technology involved becomes apparent. The act of research is contextualized as movement that constantly reworks these local concerns, not a linear path or simple reaction to data. Turning this concept of Rhetorical Wayfinding to the classroom, this thesis examines student digital research practices and explores ways writing teachers could better aid students through discussions of wayfinding practices. By examining the path of research and the digital worksite, both students and teachers can better map out their myriad digital connections as real entities with different concerns and goals. In examining student research through the lens of Rhetorical Wayfinding, the practical and theoretical implications of digital research are made clear: these digital entities are not just miscellaneous data, but internetworked people and technologies writing, researching, and inventing online in complex digital spaces.
Degree
M.A.
Advisors
Sullivan, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Technical Communication|Rhetoric|Educational technology
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