Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Is Professional Writing Relevant? A Model for Action Research: TCQ TCQ Clark, Dave Technical Communication Quarterly; Summer 2004; 13, 3; ABI/INFORM Complete pg. 307 TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY, I 3(3), 307-323 Copyright © 2004, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Is Professional Writing Relevant? A Model for Action Research Dave Clark University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee This article argues that engaged "action research" can help professional writing re- searchers both develop new and interesting collaborative models and help our profes- sion develop a greater relevance to those not reading our journals and attending our conferences. I outline one particular, localized approach in the hope that our troubles, struggles, and failures at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee can help others to de- velop their own programs and can further our discussion of community engagement. In a spring 2003 discussion on the ATTW listserv, Mark Zachry initiated a discus- sion about the "reach" of our research outside the boundaries of our field, asking us to ponder the kinds of work we've done with "an audience or stakeholder outside of our field" and to share how that work has been received, cited, and/or used by non-TC colleagues (Zachry). Respondents listed interdisciplinary collaborations, detailing their work with other departments and fields; as one example, Zachry mentioned the willingness of an engineering colleague to cite technical communi- cation scholarship in a jointly written grant proposal. Both the question and the an- ecdote reflect an anxiety over the relevance of our scholarship to others. As he sug- gests, "After spending some time examining a citation index and other search tools, my sense is that our work is not frequently cited by others," which is true; scholars in professional writing whose work is used by researchers from other fields arc the exception rather than the rule. Others worry that our research isn't of relevance even to professional writing practitioners; Stan Dicks notes that the relationship of academics to practitioners is troubled by the mutual perception that the discourse produced by the other camp is "laughably absurd:" "Business people make fun of academic obfuscation and po- litical correctness; academics make fun of people in expensive suits saying 'proactive' frequently" ( 15). I would add that, as you can learn at any STC confer- ence, there is a theory/practice tension between the two groups. Practitioners often view theory with suspicion, and academics tend to produce theoretical research