Introduction

Dr. Michael Salvo has been with Purdue for half a decade. He is an Assistant Professor of Technical and Professional Writing at Purdue University, has earned a doctoral degree in Technical Communication and Rhetoric from Texas Tech University, and is an expert in Usability and User-Centered Design, Information Architecture, and News Media. His interests are Pedagogy and Workplace Ethics. He attended Hunter College as an honors student and declined a doctoral interest in Herman Melville because, in his opinion, English Literature degrees are too common.

Background

Dr. Salvo’s degree enables him to perform consultations on academic and textbook publications to verify their field usability in learning environments. His primary concern is research for innovative and engaging means of education and communication with a concentration in the use of new technology, as well as teaching at the college level. His experiences have led him to the opinion that there is a necessity for technological fluency, and that experience and expertise with new forms of technology are supportive of the interests of any writer.

Perspective on Professional Writing

Dr. Salvo is invested in the new technologies of the modern world. His ideas of writing professionally are based on how people can learn and convey meaning in innovative and inviting social contexts. In his experiences with teaching he sought to develop technologically-based strategies for teaching in the classroom, which stemmed from his exasperation with his 7:30a.m tutored remedial English class in Binghamton. He began using the idea of a MUD (Multiple User Domain, the technological progenitor to games like World of Warcraft and Second Life) and object-oriented domains to teach students who had a difficult time with the traditional means of learning writing. He had his students create fictional worlds utilizing the MUD’s interface, and found it to be much more engaging for the students.

He puts great emphasis on the art of writing as being active. He believes that writing goes beyond the skill of choosing words and putting them on paper; he feels that writing requires much organization, and especially consideration for how things are being communicated instead of just what is being communicated. He puts emphasis on the importance of context, language, and style in professional writing. Such things as visual rhetoric and sensual rhetoric are things that, through technology, can be implemented in increasingly greater degrees. He uses the example of a wedding invitation as opposed to a parking ticket to show that both are forms of visual rhetoric with difference in meaning. Wedding invitations are generally cheery and in scripted font with emphasis on being happy, whereas parking tickets are generally straight-forward and in boring, default font that simply gets the point across that you have done something wrong and need to pay for it. Stop signs uses a red center with a white border to emphasize a warning. Furthermore, he says that the relevance and definition of words we hear and say are not exact and are subject to reinterpretation from specific points in time. More specifically, he says that we combine words with feelings, connotations, and denotations, and when writing those same addendums to words by a given individual are subject to change depending on the rhetorical setting. In essence, as a professional writer there is great importance on what words one uses and how, as well as where and when. All those aspects contribute to the relevancy and immediacy of the communication being given.

Dr. Salvo continues to recognize the importance of context and visual rhetoric in the sense of space and time. America’s modernity started in the era of railroads, where cities and towns had a person to watch each clock for the next train. He claims that this era began the myth of a supposed fast-paced society. Now with computers and high-speed intercommunications, there is an assumed necessity for technological savvy in the professional writing field. Corporations and businesses will look for the writers who understand and can make good use of computers and new communications equipment. Even videogames and music incorporate rhetoric, both written and sensatory. Dr. Salvo used the term “Gesamptkunstwerk”, German for “the total work of art”. He believes that punk rock’s “do it yourself” attitude is similar to the attitudes of computer and technology developers and therefore their design processes. This is especially so in videogames, where a player can be immersed in a virtual world of texture and color, leaving the irons of physical space and expanding into the imaginary.

Conclusion

It is apparent that Dr. Salvo is committed to utilizing technology as a primary and efficient means of singular and mass communication. His experience with technology’s appeal to learning, and as a teaching tool for effective communication, has brought him to be a strong advocate and researcher of new ways for its implementation. He points out that as times change and people’s values change; that professional writers, too, will have to cope not by learning new and different things, but by learning tried and true methods in new and different ways. The professional market for writers will continue to grow as the means of communication becomes more advanced, and to succeed, those aspiring writers will have to stay with the times.

Appendix:

Questions-

1. What is you occupation here at Purdue and how did you come about acquiring it? What background was necessary for such a job?
2. What interests you most about working here at Purdue and what interests you most about Professional Writing?
3. What can you tell me about your experiences here at Purdue that relate to Professional Writing, and do you have any advice for an aspiring writer like myself?

Complications concerning scheduling led to Dr. Michael Salvo’s suggestion of contacting Moira C. and Matthew for detailed notes. Questions were supplemented due to the kindness of Moira Croley, along with notes, and are used with permission by both Dr. Salvo and Moira.