My years at the University of Waterloo have been spent helping to build the Rhetoric and Professional Writing/Communication Design programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels while establishing a profile in the practice of professional communication and documentation. To those ends, I have published numerous how-to computer books and many feature articles, columns, and reviews in computer magazines such as PC Magazine, Smart Computing, PC Computing, PC Gamer, etc. In addition, I have consulted with a variety of technology companies on topics such as proposal writing, copyright and patent issues, and public relations. Also in the professional writing line, I have recently begun to design and work on the production of board games of the complex simulation kind, and in the past I was a music columnist and a computer columnist for the local newspaper. All of this activity has found its way into my classes and my research, as has my long-time fascination with the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Current Research

I have various areas of focus in my current research. The first is the rhetorical and semiotic analysis of user interfaces, in technologies ranging from computer operating systems through cellular phones and videogames. Second is metaphor theory – particularly cognitive/conceptual metaphor – which relates in part to interface analysis but which also informs a more general interest in cognitive rhetoric. My long-abiding interest in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and the adaptations of his works into other media constitutes a separate area of study. Finally, I have become increasingly engaged in studying games that attempt to simulate history and/or politics, using semiotic and social semiotic theory to determine the simulative structures of these games.

Areas of Graduate Supervision

Rhetoric and semiotics of Human-Computer Interaction

Semiotics of games and game design

J. R. R. Tolkien

Practice and analysis of various genres of professional writing: technical documentation, magazine journalism, multimedia production