The Communicative Work of Biology-Journal Captions: Lessons for Technical and Professional Communication. Issue 4 (1st October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Smith, Jordan; Mackiewicz, Jo; Hanson, Derek; Fanning, Shannon N.; Doan, Sara
• Is Part Of: Technical communication quarterly. Volume 25:Issue 4(2016)
• Page Start: 260
• Page End: 277
• Publication Date: 2016-10-01
• Subjects: Biology journals -- captions -- coding scheme -- content analysis -- figures -- technical and professional communication journals -- visuals; Technical writing -- Periodicals; Technical writing -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 808.0666
• DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2016.1222453
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1057-2252

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The authors examined a corpus of figure captions from technical and professional communication (TPC)-journal articles to test their sense that TPC captions do not fulfill their communicative potential as well as, they sensed, journals in science often do. The authors performed a content analysis on captions from biology-journal articles and iteratively tested a coding scheme of caption content. The resulting scheme can help in analyzing caption content, developing captions, and imparting a variety of TPC-related skills to students.