Biographies . . .
This page contains information about preparing
your biography: sample biographies | communication or rhetorical aspects of sample biographies
Your instructor may ask you to share
your biography with class members and/or may use it only to better know
you and your writing.
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Sample Biographies
In this section, you will find biographies
for Michelle Eble, Brent Henze, Donna Kain, Catherine Smith, Sherry
Southard,
and Janice Tovey. They provide a pattern for you
to
adapt as you write your biography, and they tell you a bit about
persons
who may be your instructor. The names link you to their profile on the
English
Department's faculty website.
No longer a newcomer to East
Carolina
University, Brent Henze
joined the faculty in the English Department's Technical and
Professional Communication Program in August 2001. Prior to coming to
ECU, he spent five years in the doctoral program at the Pennsylvania
State
University, where he specialized in the rhetoric of science, the
rhetoric
of disciplines and institutions, and technical writing. His
dissertation investigates
the emergence of institutionalized scientific disciplines that explored
racial
difference in the nineteenth century.
While at Penn State, he taught courses in professional and technical
writing,
including an advanced course in document design and information
architecture
for print and the Internet. Because of his interest in providing
innovative
learning opportunities for students, he served as director of the
Leonhard
Center Technical Writing Initiative, a joint project of the PSU English
Department
and the College of Engineering. He also coordinated Penn State's
Graduate
Writing Center. He currently is Lead Faculty for the programs in
technical & professional communication.
Before going to Penn State, Henze received an MA in English from
Syracuse University and a BA in English from Hamilton College.
Having spent most of his life in the mountains of central
Pennsylvania and upstate New York, he is still getting used to the
unique geography of
the coastal plain, but he is very much looking forward to exploring
Greenville
and visiting the Outer Banks. When he isn't engaged in professional
pursuits,
Henze enjoys hiking, cooking, woodworking, playing tennis with his wife
(also
a faculty member in English), and watching birds with his two cats and
dog.
Another
faculty who is no longer a newcomer to
East Carolina University, Michelle Eble
joined the technical & professional communication faculty in August
2002.
Before coming to East Carolina University, she spent five years at
Georgia
State University in Atlanta, Georgia, completing her Master’s in
English
Education and her Ph.D. She specialized in the history of rhetoric and
writing
instruction, professional and technical writing, and the effect of
emerging
technologies on communication. While at Georgia State, she taught
composition
and professional/business writing courses, assisted the Director of the
Writing
Program, and served as advisor to English major undergraduates.
She serves as faculty advisor for graduate
students working in grant
writing
capacity for the ECU Grants Outreach Network and as a member of
the University and Medical
Center
Institutional Review Board. At present, she is interested in how
professional
and technical communication can inform health literacy issues and
genres
especially as applied to informed consent documents. She is also
interested
in how rhetorical and literacy theories inform genres emerging from
Internet
technologies. As a result, she uses various technologies in the courses
that
she teaches.
Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Dr. Eble received her
undergraduate degree from University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
An important aspect of her life includes her family and friends, but
of great importance, her husband.
She also enjoys reading and surfing the Internet.
In
1989, Sherry
Southard joined the ECU faculty
after nearly ten years on the graduate
faculty at Oklahoma State University. Since coming to ECU, she has
served
on the English Department's Computer and Instructional Technology
Committee, has written grant proposals collaboratively to
fund
computer-aided classrooms and laboratories, but since 2000, has been
involved in developing e-learning courses. She currently teaches
students
to use electronic components in her classes in order to collaborate as
well
as develop information products. Together with Philip Rubens (now
retired), she
helped
develop the post-baccalaureate online Certificate in Professional
Communication, as well as the online MA in English, concentration in
Technical & Professional Communication.
At both Oklahoma State and East Carolina University, she has served in
many
administrative positions.
Her advising has been recognized with an ECU
1999 Outstanding Advisor Award for Undergraduate Studies and a national
2000 Outstanding
Advisor Award given by the National Academic Advising Association. A
Fellow
of the Society for Technical Communication, she received the Jay R.
Gould
Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication. In addition
to
serving actively in STC activities, she has participated in the
Association of Teachers of Technical Writing and Council for Programs
in Technical and
Scientific Communication.
Her professional career outside of
academia includes writing and editing for employers such as NASA
(Langley Research Center), Fire Protection Publications ("redbooks" for
firefighters), and Carolinas
Association of General Contractors.
An important aspect of her life is family --
her husband (another academic in linguistics and Teaching English as a
Second Language), two sons (both having studied psychology
and philosophy, one working in secondary marketing for
financial services involving home loans and the other son working in
marketing for a well-known disc golf company), a to-become
daughter-in-law (working as an accountant), and two cats.
Janice Tovey has been at East Carolina University since 1993
following
her graduate studies at Illinois State University and Purdue University
where
she taught first-year composition, business writing, technical writing
and
desktop publishing. She has also taught at Danville (IL) Area Community
College,
in junior and senior high schools in Illinois. She has served in
numerous administrative capacities, such as ones associated with ECU Grants Outreach Network and ECU Faculty Senate. Beginning Fall 2006, she will serve as
Graduate Director
of Studies in English.
Her research interests include visual
communication and rhetoric, design of both print and online documents,
and cultural implications in technical and business writing. She has
published in Technical Communication Quarterly, Journal of Business and
Technical Communication, Business Communication Quarterly and in the
conference proceedings of the Atlanta and the Knoxville Chapters of
STC, The Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific
Communication, and the Midwest Region of the Association for Business
Communication.
When she has time outside of her university
commitments, she enjoys reading--especially mystery novels--sailing and
tennis. She also
loves completing activities with her husband, as well as traveling to
visit with her grand children.
Discussion of
communication
or rhetorical aspects of sample biographies
In this section, in bold at the left-hand
margin, you find the name of the rhetorical aspect being discussed.
Then in a salmon (or peach) boxes following the names are discussions
of the rhetorical aspects
with references to the sample biographies (what your instructor would
say
to you in class). You do not have to pattern your biography EXACTLY as
the
samples are written, especially in terms of content.
Audience & purpose
Whom are you directing this
biography to?
You've not been told directly, but probably are assuming that the
audience is your
instructor. Is there anyone else who might read this biography? ...
possibly
other member of your class??
What is the purpose of this biography?
Above
you are told that the sample biographies "provide a pattern for you to
adapt as you write your biography, and they tell you a bit about
persons who may
be your instructor." The other side of the coin then--you are
indicating that
you can write a biography that adapts the pattern provided and that
tells
your instructor a bit about yourself.
|
Content
Look at the sample biographies
paragraph
by
paragraph.
1st unit of information, which may be one or
two paragraphs: Describes work experiences and roles in
those work
environments. You learn about where they have
taught
and related experiences. If you've not worked full time in your field,
then your "work
experiences"
may translate as your educational experiences. You should also note
that
the work experiences are presented in reverse chronological order with
current
ones first.
2nd unit of information: Describes experiences related
to their experiences as
teachers, but
completed outside the academy. You learn about their work as technical
communicators for employers outside the university.
3rd unit of information: Describes a few personal items
about them, although no
names are given. The information is personal, but somewhat sanitized.
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Organization
First, you learn about their
credentials,
very important to you as a student in their classes. Then you learn how
their credentials
include practical application of what they teach. And finally you learn
some
personal items which are not that important is demonstrating their
ability
to teach the course that you are taking, but which flesh them out as
persons.
|
Style (words and sentences among other
matters)
The biography is written in third
person:
he or she. Precise words are used. For example, you may be told that a
faculty
member "served" as a director, not that he "was" one, and she
"received" an
award, not that
she "got" the award. The style is not a slangy or particularly
conversational one.
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Visuals
No visuals are used, only text.
However,
photographs could have been use to show them teaching and with their
families and cats.
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Format & layout & design
The biographies are present here as
part
of
a website. If the biographies were printed, they would be paragraphed
text similar to what essays look like. The biographies could have been
presented in columns with headings. Design elements could have been
included.
As is, the layout is sparse with only
the
names bolded. The paragraphs are single-spaced with double-spacing
between
paragraphs. Check whether your instructor has provided directions about
spacing as well as size and type of font to be used.
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