Ann Shivers-McNair

Interests

Research

Technical and professional communication, user experience, equity design

Teaching

User experience research, user experience writing and content, technical and professional communication

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Shivers-McNair, A. (2021). Beyond the Makerspace: Making and Relational Rhetorics. University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.11724511

Chapters

• Gonzales, L., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2022). Designing Across Difference: Intersectional, Interdependent Approaches to Sustaining Communities. In Writing Across Difference: Theory and Intervention(pp 175-194). Utah State University Press/University of Colorado Press.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2022). Lessons Learned from an Early Career, Five Year Project with Digital Methods: Accounting for Positionality and Redressing Injustice. In Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Writing and Rhetoric(pp 29-47). WAC Clearinghouse/University of Colorado Press.
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  Edited collection under advance contract and in peer review with WAC Clearinghouse.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2021). A Response to Clay Spinuzzi’s ‘What’s Wrong with 3GAT?’. In The Expanded Universe of Writing Studies: Higher Education Writing Research Today. Peter Lang.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2021). Marking Mobility: Accounting for Bodies and Rhetoric in the Making. In Mobility Work in Composition. Utah State University Press.
• Poudyal, B., Zhyvotovska, T., Castello, E., Rivera, N., Shivers-McNair, A., Robinson, J., & Gonzales, L. (2020). Interrogating What We Mean by ‘Making’: Stories from Women Who Make in Community. In Re-making the Library Makerspace: Critical Theories, Reflections, and Practices. Litwin Books.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2018). Making and Mattering. In Rhetorics Change/Rhetoric’s Change. Intermezzo/Parlor Press.
• Guerra, J. C., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2017). Toward a New Vocabulary of Motives: Re(con)figuring Entanglement in a Translingual World. In Crossing Divides: Exploring Translingual Writing Pedagogies and Programs(pp 19-30). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. doi:10.7330/9781607326205.c001
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  We argue that the emergence of translingualism as a new approach to language difference is symptomatic of efforts by transdisciplinary scholars interested in challenging the ideological constraints of monolingualism, an approach that for far too long has colonized the writing classroom, as well as in demonstrating dissatisfaction with efforts by proponents of multilingualism. Because critiques designed to respond to the vicissitudes ignored by monolingualism and multilingualism require the introduction of a new vocabulary of motive, efforts to establish the legitimacy of a translingual approach have reflected a collective, albeit unorchestrated, search for a figurative language that provides fresh insights and a vocabulary of motive that takes us beyond worn and tired conceptualizations with little generative power.We begin our effort to describe a vocabulary of motive (we acknowledge ours is provisional, one others will want to refine and modify in situ) by locating translingualism in the context of approaches to language difference. We then review various efforts among scholars in composition and literacy studies to informally identify what C. Wright Mills (1940) refers to as a “vocabulary of motive” and Rosi Braidotti (1994) calls “figurations.” We conclude by introducing a generative vocabulary developed by Karen Barad (2007) in her work on material-discursive phenomena to illustrate a critical shift taking place in the field toward the use of a more precise vocabulary that addresses the rhetorical and discursive needs of our students as they tackle the array of conflicts and contradictions language difference produces in their lives.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2014). A New Mission: Veteran-Led Learning Communities in the Basic Composition Classroom. In Generation Vet: Composition, Veterans, and the Post-9/11 University(pp 216-239). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Journals/Publications

• Scott, K. L., Shivers-McNair, A., & Gonzales, L. (2022). Language, Access, and Power in Technical Communication (Special Issue). Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric, 22(1), 1-372.
• Gonzales, L., Leon, K., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2020). Testimonios from Faculty Developing Technical and Professional Writing Programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Programmatic Perspectives, 11(2), 67-92.
• Gonzales, L., Shivers-McNair, A., & Bawarshi, A. (2020). SPECIAL ISSUE: Transdisciplinary Connections in Composition Studies and Technical and Professional Communication. College English, 82(5).
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2020). Mediation and Boundary Marking: A Case Study of Making Literacies in a Makerspace. Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction, 20.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2019). Making Knowledge: A Kit for Researching 3D Rhetorics. Enculturation.
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  Digital manuscript solicited and under review for a special issue of Enculturation edited by Helen Burgess and Roger Whitson.
• Shivers-McNair, A., Gonzales, L., & Zhyvotovska, T. (2019). An Intersectional Feminist Framework for Community-Driven Technology Innovation. Computers and Composition, 50, 43-54.
• Romero, Y., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2018). Encountering Internationalization in the Writing Classroom: Resistant Teaching and Learning Strategies. Across the Disciplines, 15(1), 47-60.
• Shivers-McNair, A., Gonzales, L., & Zhyvotovska, T. (2018). An Intersectional Feminist Framework for Community-Driven Technology Innovation. Computers and Composition, 50.
• Shivers-McNair, A., Phillips, J., Campbell, A., Mai, H. H., Yan, A., Macy, J. F., Wenlock, J., Fry, S., & Guan, Y. (2018). User-Centered Design In and Beyond the Classroom: Toward an Accountable Practice. Computers and Composition, 49, 36-47.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2017). 3D Interviewing with Researcher POV Video: Bodies and Knowledge in the Making. Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy (PraxisWiki), 21(2), n.p..
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  This piece describes how a small handheld or body-worn digital video camera can help us study rhetoric and writing in relation to other forms of (meaning)-making. First, I contextualize 3D interviewing, the method I offer, in ongoing conversations in rhetoric and writing studies, as well as my own research. From there, I contextualize my method in qualitative research traditions in and beyond rhetoric and writing studies, offering examples and technical specifications and considerations. I conclude by suggesting ways in which this method could be adapted for a variety of research sites and questions.
• Shivers-McNair, A., & San Diego, C. (2017). Localizing Communities, Goals, Communication, and Inclusion: A Collaborative Approach. Technical Communication, 64(2), 97-112.
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  Purpose: The authors, one a researcher and one an international community strategy practitioner, illustrate community strategy work as a multi-faceted localization practice that intersects with user experience design and user localization. We argue that localized community strategy is crucial not only to practice that aims for inclusivity and social justice but also to research and theory building that aims for inclusivity and social justice.Method: We model a dialogic, localized knowledge-making process that operatesat the level of collaborative research between a theorist and a practitioner and at the level of international practice. e authors collaboratively analyzed the experiencesof the practitioner, as well as our own collaboration process, and coded them for key dimensions, which can guide and be further developed both in practice and in research.Results: The authors identify and discuss four key dimensions of a community strategist’s localization practices—localizing communities, localizing goals, localizing communication, and localizing inclusion—and illustrate them both in our own collaborative practice of analysis and in the practice of international community strategy.Conclusion: The definitions of user, community, and diversity themselves mustbe continually localized in our work to engage across cultures and across theoryand practice. We call for further collaboration and research at the intersections of international community strategy work with technical communication and global user experience, particularly the role of localizing diversity and inclusion.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2014). "(Becoming) At Ease: Teaching First-Year Writing on a Military Post [A vignette]. College Composition and Communication, 66(2), 231-233.
• Shivers-McNair, A., & Inman, J. O. (2014). Story-Changing Work and Asymmetrical Power Relationships in a Writing Center Partnership. Basic Writing e-Journal, 13(1), n.p..
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  Shivers-McNair and Inman analyze and reflect upon the dissolution of a partnership between their institution's basic writing program and writing center. In their network reading of the partnership, the authors argue that their efforts to combat institutional discourses about students and faculty in two marginalized programs were complicated by asymmetrical relations of power. The authors conclude with reflections on possibilities for partnerships and collaborations between marginalized programs.
• Shivers-McNair, A., & Lynch-Biniek, A. (2013). The Ethos of Contingency and Writing Program Administration. FORUM: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, 16(2), A6-A12.

Presentations

• Shivers-McNair, A. (2021, April). Anti-Racist and Anti-Oppressive Design: Epistemologies, Coalitions, and Actions. Watson Conference. Online.
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  Invited workshop.
• San Diego, C., Loiseleur, T., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2019, March). A Community-Focused, Accountable Approach to the Design of Communication and Experiences. Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference. Pittsburgh, PA.
• Gonzales, L., Lanius, C., Robinson, J., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2018, May). Building User Experience (UX) Research Centers. Computers and Writing Conference. Fairfax, VA.
• Gonzales, L., Leon, K., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2018, March). Developing User-Centered Technical and Professional Writing Programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference. Kansas City, KS.
• Rose, E., Edenfield, A., Walton, R., Gonzales, L., Zhyvotovska, T., Shivers-McNair, A., Jones, N., Garcia de Mueller, G., & Moore, K. (2018, August). Social Justice in UX: Centering Marginalized Users. SIGDOC (Special Interest Group in the Design of Communication) '18. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2018, February). Centering Social Justice in Professional and Technical Writing at an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution. Arizona Writing and Social Justice Conference. University of Arizona: Arizona State University and University of Arizona.
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  The field of technical communication is increasingly encouraging an emphasis on diversity and social justice not only in research and practice, but also in programs and pedagogies (Haas, 2012; Jones, Savage, & Yu, 2014; Matveeva, 2015; Williams & Pimentel, 2012; Yajima & Satoshi Toyosaki, 2015). Jones, Savage, and Yu (2014) advocate for diversity and inclusion as an important dimension of user-centered design in course and program descriptions, and Matveeva (2015) calls for community integration in professional and technical writing (PTW) programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). In this presentation, I will discuss efforts to take up these calls in pedagogical and programmatic initiatives in PTW at the University of Arizona, where the institution's emerging HSI status provides opportunities to align the PTW program with university efforts to engage Latinx students and communities. I will describe two key components of the approach: 1) a commitment to highlighting the assets and supporting the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students and 2) centering social justice in the PTW curriculum and partnerships. I will conclude by briefly introducing the design of a new cross-institutional study of PTW programs at three HSIs in California, Arizona, and Texas, and by inviting participants to reflect on and share resources for social justice writing pedagogies in HSIs.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2018, March). Reworking Causality: Non-Linear Relations in Genre Uptakes. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Kansas City, MO.
• Turner, H., Gomes, M., Gonzales, L., Cooley, S. N., Green, M., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2018, October). When We Say Justice, What Do We Mean?. Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Conference. Minneapolis, MN.
• Shivers-McNair, A. (2017, June). Digital Video for Accountability (Virtual Presentation). Computers & Writing Conference. University of Findlay: Computers & Writing.
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  Virtual presentation available at annsm.us/cwcon17.
• Shivers-McNair, A., & Shivers-McNair, A. (2017, October). Expanding Methods for Expanding Communication Practices: Rhetoric and Entrepreneurship in the Making (Virtual Presentation). 82nd Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication. Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland: Association for Business Communication.
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  Slide deck at goo.gl/GKYkUTThe makers of makerspaces-the people responsible for establishing funding and revenue sources for the collaborative, warehouse-style spaces containing traditional and emergent fabrication tools associated with the fast-growing international maker movement-are an under-considered case of entrepreneur. Research on makerspaces has highlighted persistent issues of financial sustainability in makerspaces (see Wang et al., 2015; Lindtner & Li, 2012), and it was in response to his own observation of this phenomenon in the Seattle area that a self-described serial entrepreneur decided to make a more sustainable makerspace that could serve as a site not only for creative tinkering and education but also for incubating financially successful inventions and projects. The rhetorical practices of entrepreneurs like this one, who are working to make makerspaces more sustainable and to identify and support sustainable inventions and projects in their spaces, offer the field an opportunity to expand our understanding of entrepreneurial communication, as well as how we prepare students. First, the speaker will connect the values and practices of the maker movement with entrepreneurial rhetoric. Persuasion, passion, failing (fast), and seizing opportunities are central to the fast-growing international maker movement, which claims among its goals an aim to democratize innovation by making "makers" of people who might not otherwise have the training, access to technologies, or inspiration (Hatch, 2014), and these rhetorical practices are important to entrepreneurs. Studies of entrepreneurship have noted the centrality of persuasion (see Chen et al., 2009; Green, 2004; Klamer, 2011), kairos (Spinuzzi, 2016), and ethos (see Holt & Macpherson, 2010; Galbraith et al., 2013), which includes entrepreneurs' passion for their project (see Clark, 2008; Galbraith et al., 2013;), as well as entrepreneurs' ability to successfully reframe failure as an opportunity (see Mara, 2008; Singh et al., 2014). Next, the speaker will illustrate these connections with examples from a year-long ethnographic case study of a makerspace in Seattle, WA, USA. Specifically, the speaker will suggest that the makerspace case offers examples of entrepreneurial communication in what Spinuzzi (2015) calls an "all-edge adhocracy," an organizational phenomenon characterized by high permeability and connectivity. Indeed, makerspaces are dynamic assemblages of people, machines, and organizations coalescing around a project or problem, then dispersing and reassembling in different configurations around other projects or problems. The speaker will present data from the case that follows the communication practices of the makerspace CEO (the aforementioned serial entrepreneur) and two of the inventor-entrepreneurs involved in the makerspace. Examples will include specific communication scenarios (such as social media content development, conversations with potential partners and clients, and internal communication and documentation), as well as overviews of trends in communication practices (such as consolidation of social media strategies and changes in pitching strategies). The speaker will conclude by reviewing effective strategies that emerged in the study and suggesting directions for further study of entrepreneurial communication in all-edge adhocracies. The speaker will also offer pedagogical strategies adapted from the study for preparing undergraduates to communicate effectively in a range of organizational contexts.ReferencesClark, C. (2008). The impact of entrepreneurs' oral "pitch" presentation skills on business angels' initial screening investment decisions. Venture Capital, 10(3), 257-279. doi:10.1080/13691060802151945Chen, X.-P., Yao, X., & Kotha, S. (2009). Entrepreneur Passion And Preparedness In Business Plan Presentations: A Persuasion Analysis Of Venture Capitalists' Funding Decisions. Academy of Management Journal, 52(1), 199-214. doi:10.5465/AMJ.2009.36462018Galbraith, C., McKinney, B., DeNoble, A., & Ehrlich, S. (2013). The impact of presentation form, entrepreneurial passion, and perceived preparedness on obtaining grant funding. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 28(2): 222-248.Green, S. E. (2004). A rhetorical theory of diffusion. Academy of Management Review, 29(4), 653-669. doi:10.5465/AMR.2004.14497653Hatch, M. (2014). The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers. New York: McGraw Hill.Holt, R., & Macpherson, A. (2010). Sensemaking, rhetoric and the emotionally competent entrepreneur. International Small Business Journal, 28(1): 20-42.Klamer, A. (2011). Cultural entrepreneurship. Review of Austrian Economics, 24(2), 141-156. doi:10.1007/s11138-011-0144-6Lindtner, S. & David, L. (2012). Created in China: the makings of China's hackerspace community. Interactions, 19(6), pp.18-22.Mara, A. (2008). Ethos as market maker: The creative role of technical marketing communication in aviation start-up. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 22(4): 429-453.Singh, S., Corner, P. D., & Pavlovich, K. (2014). Failed, not finished: A narrative approach to understanding venture failure stigmatization. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(1), 150-166. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.07.005Spinuzzi, C. (2016). Introduction to the Special Issue on Entrepreneurship Communication. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 59(4), 316-322.---. All Edge: Inside the New Workplace Networks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Wang, D., Dunn, N., & Coulton, P. (2015). Grassroots Maker Spaces: A Recipe for Innovation? In Proc. of 11th European Academy of Design Conference, Paris, France. Retrieved from http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/grassroots-maker-spaces%289b9f62c8-c229-4290-a3af-e51b7136f543%29.html. (30 Nov. 2015).
• Wheeler, S., Shivers-McNair, A., Leon, K., Gonzales, L., & Snedeker, B. (2017, October). User-Centered TPW Programs and Pedagogies at Hispanic Serving Institutions. Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Conference. Savannah, Georgia: Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication.
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  Slide deck available at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-qZ7LurDapyi6qMbYKjtl9Mtf5i6Ln9zACLPK50nLl4/edit?usp=sharing.Over the last decade, the field of technical communication has encouraged an emphasis on diversity and social justice not only in research and practice, but also in programs and pedagogies (Haas, 2012; Jones, Savage, & Yu, 2014; Matveeva, 2015; Williams & Pimentel, 2012; Yajima and Satoshi Toyosaki, 2015). Jones, Savage, and Yu (2014) advocate for emphasizing diversity as an important dimension of user-centered design in course and program descriptions, and Matveeva (2015) calls for more community integration in technical communication programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). This panel takes up these calls by featuring user-centered programs and pedagogies at HSIs that are responsive to local contexts and to social justice practices in the field. The roundtable-style discussion will offer strategies and practices designed both to meet the needs and to highlight the assets of linguistically diverse students, from classroom activities, to community partnerships, to programmatic design. Attendees will take away tools that can help teachers and program administrators continue supporting important efforts toward diversity and social justice. Speaker 1 will discuss the efforts of an activist student group of several Latinx students at a recently designated HSI. Using a Universal Design for Documents (UDD) (Jones & Wheeler, 2017) approach, students utilized translation and cross-cultural design skills to create information documents in a community-wide movement. Speaker 1 will suggest that UDD give Latinx students the opportunity to demonstrate the value and power of their prior knowledges inside and outside of the classroom.Speaker 2 will discuss pedagogical and programmatic initiatives at a campus where both the HSI designation and the Professional and Technical Writing certificate program are emergent, providing opportunities to align the program with university efforts to engage bilingual Latinx students and communities. Speaker 2 will discuss efforts to create accountability for the program through community partnerships in and beyond the classroom.Speaker 3 will discuss programmatic design at a campus that recently received HSI designation. The campus is in a moment of reinvention as a HSI, which includes university wide initiatives and program development. Speaker 3 will focus on the university locale in our design decisions to take up HSI in our newly proposed Technical and Professional Writing program. Speaker 4 will discuss pedagogical and programmatic initiatives she has developed for working with bilingual Latinx technical and professional communication students at two HSIs, one in Orlando, Florida and one in El Paso, Texas. Through this discussion, Speaker 4 will suggest that TPW programs at HSIs can leverage Latinx students' linguistic and cultural strengths by programmatically highlighting the increasing needs for translation, interpretation, and cross-cultural design in workplace contexts.Speaker 5 will share her experiences as an undergraduate student in a Latinx-focused communication and media program at an HSI. Being in the last semester of her undergraduate career at this HSI, Speaker 5 will discuss how her cross-cultural, bilingual college training and professional experiences shaped her career trajectory in Latinx news media.

Reviews

• Shivers-McNair, A. (2016. Review of Risk Communication and Miscommunication: Case Studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, Government, and Community Organizations by Carolyn Boiarksy(pp 93-98). Communication Design Quarterly vol. 4 no.4.