Textual Dynamics of the Professions: Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities - Tapa blanda

How do discursive differences between legal professionals and jurors affect courtroom decisions? How does the DSM-III - the American Psychiatric Association's taxonomy of mental disorders - shape psychiatric practice? How can a narrative of social progress shape scientific theory? How do conflicting problem-solving strategies within a community contribute to technological disasters like Three Mile Island and the Shuttle Challenger? This book is a collection of 15 essays examining the real effects of texts on professional practice - in academic, scientific, and business settings. The authors describe textual dynamics as an interaction in which professional texts and discourses are constructed by, and in turn construct, social practices. This anthology treats a wide range of professional texts including case studies, student papers, medieval letters and product instructions.

Charles Bazerman is professor of education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is author of eighteen books and over twenty edited collections, including Writing Across the Curriculum and Shaping Written Knowledge. James Paradis is Robert M. Metcalfe Professor of writing and humanistic studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of T.H. Huxley: Man s Place in Nature and Samuel Butler: Victorian against the Grain A Critical Overview. "