Browsing by Author "Getchell, Kristen"
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- The Disappearance of Business Communication From Professional Communication Programs in English DepartmentsDubinsky, James M.; Getchell, Kristen (SAGE, 2021-08-18)Since 1985, the field of professional communication has grown in size and reputation while maintaining a space within its primary disciplinary home of the English department. This article relies on historical evidence to examine how a field that was once evenly divided between business communication and technical communication is now technical communication-centric, almost to the exclusion of business communication. The authors pose questions about the field of professional communication and how faculty who consider business communication to be their primary discipline (regardless of their disciplinary home) might play a role in future discussions related to disciplinarity and domains of knowledge.
- Pronouns, Positioning, and Persuasion in Top Nonprofits’ Donor AppealsLentz, Paula; Getchell, Kristen; Dubinsky, James M.; Kerr, Mary Katherine (SAGE, 2021-12)Despite increased giving in 2019, competition for donations among nonprofits remains high, especially when a charitable organization’s niche overlaps with that of others’. Consequently, nonprofit charitable organizations must tell stories that persuade donors to support their mission and contribute. This study uses positioning theory to examine how websites of the charitable organizations that appeared in Forbes Magazine’s 2019 top 100 charities use storytelling to facilitate their ethos such that they gain support and thus increase their donor base. The results revealed that nonprofits use positioning to establish two types of partnerships: invited and assumed. Furthermore, the coding revealed three primary types of positioning within these partnerships: savior-follower, business partners, and teacher-student. These positions organize and set the parameters for each organization’s story and will not only influence and potentially dictate the speech acts that follow, but also the responsibilities and rights of all those involved.