Expert and Apprentice:

1
Expert and Apprentice Hybrid Identities for
Graduate Students
H. Allen Brizee Ph.D. Student in Rhetoric and
Composition Purdue University
2
Expert and Apprentice Introduction

• Background as Ph.D. student, practiced
  professional writer
• Responsibilities in project
• Challenges as expert and apprentice
• Opportunities created by PW, Writing Lab,
  Graduate Program
• Usability study as vehicle for learning,
  research, and civic engagement

3
Expert and Apprentice Experience

• First-year Ph.D. student still learning about
  usability and research
• English 515, Advanced PW - Usability (Salvo)
• English 625, Empirical Research Methods (Sullivan)

4
Expert and Apprentice Experience

• Professional writer with ten years of experience
• Project management, prioritization
• Document design, organization, proofing
• Usability experience with The D.C. MRDDA online
  database user manual, version 3.0

5
Expert and Apprentice Responsibilities

• One of three Ph.D. students in English 515
• Certified, CITI Course in protection of human
  research subjects, Purdue IRB requirements
• Key Personnel in research study
• Data recorder for usability tests
• Composed three extensive documents
• 30-page formal usability report
• Proposal for second-generation testing (html)
• User-centered OWL prototype (html)

6
Expert and Apprentice Responsibilities
7
Expert and Apprentice Responsibilities
8
Expert and Apprentice Challenges

• As expert, apprentice, and GTA, it was
  challenging playing dual roles
• Mentor and student in English 515 - avoiding
  obnoxious know it all syndrome
• Data recorder and Key Personnel
• Learning/researching/composing

9
Expert and Apprentice Unique Opportunities
(Kairos)

• Opportunity to help users, help learning
  resource, apply theory in practice
• Helping users and creating user-centered material
  aligns with core beliefs
• Helping Writing Lab aligns with core beliefs
• Applying usability, empirical research methods
  theory to practice a crossroad of opportunities

10
Expert and Apprentice Unique Opportunities
(Kairos)

• Crossroads of PW, Writing Lab, Graduate Program
  offered expert-learners to work on influential
  OWL
• Added bonus! Research and pedagogy first-year
  composition students exposed to research (praxis)
• Usability study created dynamic atmosphere of
  learning, research, civic engagement, goals of
  land grant, state universities Purdue

11
Expert and Apprentice Conclusion

• Background as Ph.D. student, professional writer
  helped English 515, study
• Responsibilities more than other classes, but
  proved valuable
• Challenges were more than other classes, but
  provided opportunities to excel, contribute
• Unique opportunities created by PW, Writing Lab,
  Graduate Program were kairotic and
• contributed to study as vehicle for learning,
  research, civic engagement, goals of land grant
  state universities Purdue

12
Expert and Apprentice Bibliography
Anderson, Paul. Technical Communication A
Reader-Centered Approach. 5th ed. Boston,
MA Thomson-Wadsworth, 2003. Coe, Marlana.
Human Factors for Technical Communicators.
New York, NY John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1996. Dumas, Joseph S., and Janice C. Redish.
A Practical Guide to Usability Testing,
Revised Edition. Portland, OR Intellect
Books, 1999.