TY - JOUR
T1 - Entwining interactive fiction with technical writing to develop structured authoring competencies
AU - Terry, Robert
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, EQUINOX PUBLISHING.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Concerns about teaching structured authoring, which is the use of software in technical writing to allow automatic textual reuse and reassembly, have been woven into the debate about what role technologies should play in preparing technical writing students for ‘real world’ needs since the late 1990s (see Brumberger & Laurer, 2015; Carnegie & Crane, 2019; Kimball, 2015; Rainey et al., 2018). Vee (2017) and others have argued that fundamental aspects of writing software code, many of which parallel structured authoring, are now required literacies. Indeed, as Gentle (2017) demonstrates, the difference between those writing code and those writing structured authoring continues to shrink. Helping to develop technical writers to understand this overlap remains a significant challenge. This article suggests that this challenge might be met by using an open-source interactive fiction authoring platform called Twine, which provides many of the building blocks of structured authoring while teaching fundamental aspects of coding. However, this approach is not without its perils. Through analyzing the findings of a two-year study, this article identifies potential avenues for success as well as potential pitfalls to be mindfully considered.
AB - Concerns about teaching structured authoring, which is the use of software in technical writing to allow automatic textual reuse and reassembly, have been woven into the debate about what role technologies should play in preparing technical writing students for ‘real world’ needs since the late 1990s (see Brumberger & Laurer, 2015; Carnegie & Crane, 2019; Kimball, 2015; Rainey et al., 2018). Vee (2017) and others have argued that fundamental aspects of writing software code, many of which parallel structured authoring, are now required literacies. Indeed, as Gentle (2017) demonstrates, the difference between those writing code and those writing structured authoring continues to shrink. Helping to develop technical writers to understand this overlap remains a significant challenge. This article suggests that this challenge might be met by using an open-source interactive fiction authoring platform called Twine, which provides many of the building blocks of structured authoring while teaching fundamental aspects of coding. However, this approach is not without its perils. Through analyzing the findings of a two-year study, this article identifies potential avenues for success as well as potential pitfalls to be mindfully considered.
KW - CONTENT MANAGEMENT
KW - INTERACTIVE FICTION
KW - STRUCTURED AUTHORING
KW - TECHNICAL WRITING
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148433732&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1558/wap.21547
DO - 10.1558/wap.21547
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85148433732
SN - 1756-5839
VL - 14
SP - 183
EP - 201
JO - Writing and Pedagogy
JF - Writing and Pedagogy
IS - 2
ER -