LibGuides: English: 76-10X Series (First-Year Writing): Language, Technology, and Social Justice

BACKGROUND SOURCES

To find background sources, the best strategy is to look at encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, and books. This strategy applies to library catalogs and databases that contain "reference collections".

Here is how you can locate these materials:

First and foremost, build a list of related words (synonyms vs antonyms; broad vs narrow terms). For example, Language (communication, verbal communication, non-verbal communication); Social Justice (Advocacy, justice, social law); Technology (or a specific type of technology like VR, Internet, etc.)
Always use Advanced Search so you can build a specific strategy, using AND, OR, NOT, and specific fields:
- For example: [Subject] contains Language AND [Subject] contains Technology AND [Any Field] Social Justice

From the library catalog

Here are some sample results from our library catalog, based on the strategies above:

Critical American Studies by David J. Vazquez Just as mariners use triangulation, mapping an imaginary triangle between two known positions and an unknown location, so, David J. Vizquez contends, Latino authors in late twentieth-century America employ the coordinates of familiar ideas of self to find their way to new, complex identities. Through this metaphor, Vizquez reveals how Latino autobiographical texts, written after the rise of cultural nationalism in the 1960s, challenge mainstream notions of individual identity and national belonging in the United States. In a traditional autobiographical work, the protagonist frequently opts out of his or her community. In the works that Vizquez analyzes in Triangulations, protagonists instead opt in to collective groupsOCooften for the express political purpose of redefining that collective. Reading texts by authors such as Ernesto Galarza, Jess Coln, Piri Thomas, Oscar OC ZetaOCO Acosta, Judith Ortiz Cofer, John Rechy, Julia Alvarez, and Sandra Cisneros, Vizquez engages debates about the relationship between literature and social movements, the role of cultural nationalism in projects for social justice, the gender and sexual problematics of 1960s cultural nationalist groups, the possibilities for interethnic coalitions, and the interpretation of autobiography. In the process, Triangulations considers the potential for cultural nationalism as a productive force for aggrieved communities of color in their struggles for equality."
Call Number: Online
ISBN: 9780816678587
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
Equipping Technical Communicators for Social Justice Work by Rebecca Walton (Editor); Godwin Y. Agboka (Editor) Equipping Technical Communicators for Social Justice Work provides action-focused resources and tools--heuristics, methodologies, and theories--for scholars to enact social justice. These resources support the work of scholars and practitioners in conducting research and teaching classes in socially just ways. Each chapter identifies a tool, highlights its relevance to technical communication, and explains how and why it can prepare technical communication scholars for socially just work.   For the field of technical and professional communication to maintain its commitment to this work, how social justice intersects with inclusivity through UX, technological, civic, and legal literacies, as well as through community engagement, must be acknowledged. Equipping Technical Communicators for Social Justice Work will be of significance to established scholar-teachers and graduate students, as well as to newcomers to the field.   Contributors: Kehinde Alonge, Alison Cardinal, Erin Brock Carlson, Oriana Gilson, Laura Gonzales, Keith Grant-Davie, Angela Haas, Mark Hannah, Kimberly Harper, Sarah Beth Hopton, Natasha Jones, Isidore Kafui Dorpenyo, Liz Lane, Emily Legg, Nicole Lowman, Kristen Moore, Emma Rose, Fernando Sanchez, Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Adam Strantz, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq, Josephine Walwema, Miriam Williams, Han Yu      
Call Number: Online
ISBN: 9781646420940
Publication Date: 2021-06-01
Technical Communication after the Social Justice Turn by Rebecca Walton; Kristen Moore; Natasha Jones This is the first scholarly monograph marking the social justice turn in technical and professional communication (TPC). Social justice often draws attention to structural oppression, but to enact social justice as technical communicators, first, we must be able to trace daily practice to the oppressive structures it professionalizes, codifies, and normalizes. Technical Communication After the Social Justice Turn moves readers from conceptual explorations of oppression and justice to a theoretical framework that allows for the concepts to be applied and implemented in a variety of practical contexts. It historicizes the recent social justice turn in TPC scholarship, models a social justice approach to building theories and heuristics, and presents scenarios that illustrate how to develop sustainable practices of activism and social justice. Its commitment to coalition building, inclusivity, and socially just practices of citation and activism will support scholars, teachers, and practitioners not only in understanding how the work of technical communication is often complicit in oppression but also in recognizing, revealing, rejecting, and replacing oppressive practices.
Call Number: Online
ISBN: 9780429198748
Publication Date: 2019-05-16

EXHIBIT, ARGUMENT, & METHOD SOURCES

These sources are more likely to be journals, specialized books, databases that contain data sets. To find them, you need to think about the type of information you need and ask yourself:

Who might publish that information? For example, datasets on language are typically collected by the census, international organizations, gallop reports, etc.
What type of exhibit? Are you looking at historical data? current data? How long of a set? Are you needing surveys?
Where would this data be published? reports (by for-profit), gallop surveys (by governments or a non-profit), statistical publications (typically by organizations)? Original research (typically in journal articles)?

Here are core databases on this subject:

Core Databases

Gale Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Articles in academic journals from all disciplines. Database Guide.
Communication Source This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive resource on the market for communication research and offers abstracts and indexing as well as full-text content from publications worldwide pertaining to Communication, Linguistics, Rhetoric and Discourse, Speech-Language Pathology, Media Studies and other fields relevant to the discipline.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) This link opens in a new window
This database abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences and includes journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Database Guide
Linguistics Database This link opens in a new window
Full-text database with scholarly journal articles and other sources covering linguistics (coverage varies; ranging from 80s to present). Includes articles in French, German, Spanish, Italian and some in a number of other languages. Database Guide
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource for research on literary topics, authors, and their works, covering all genres and disciplines, all time periods, and all regions of the world.
PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window
1894-present.The full text of nearly 80 journals from the American Psychological Association as well as its imprint, the Educational Publishing Foundation (EPF), and from allied organizations including the Canadian Psychological Association and the Hogrefe Publishing Group. It includes all journal articles, book reviews, letters to the editor and errata from each journal.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
1887-present. American Psychological Association's renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, it is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. Database Guide. Also see definitions of methodologies.

Related Resources

THE LAST WORD

The quality of your search and results depend on your search strategy:

keep track of your search terms (they will change based on the database)
keep track of the database (so you are not using the wrong strategy)
notice suggested subjects and ways to limit your searches in databases (they can save you quite a bit of work)

English: 76-10X Series (First-Year Writing): Language, Technology, and Social Justice

BACKGROUND SOURCES

To find background sources, the best strategy is to look at encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, and books. This strategy applies to library catalogs and databases that contain "reference collections".

Here is how you can locate these materials:

Always use Advanced Search so you can build a specific strategy, using AND, OR, NOT, and specific fields:

For example: [Subject] contains Language AND [Subject] contains Technology AND [Any Field] Social Justice