LATIN-AMERICAN WRITING INITIATIVES IN ENGINEERING FROM SPANISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

his article analyzes Latin-American publications from Spanish-speaking countries to map programs pursued in the region and then provide a context to envision further research agendas for Latin-American Writing Studies in Engineering. he analysis of 22 publications suggests that initiatives and studies in Engineering are recent (as of 2009). he sample reveals an emphasis on pedagogically-oriented publications focused on Engineering as one ield. he trends suggest that the Latin-American writing advocates in Engineering might broaden research scopes by incorporating theoretical frameworks for a) exploring and understanding diferent roles of writing across time and curriculum in student learning and by Engineering subields and, b) exploring theoretical approaches to understand genres beyond individual texts (genre repertoires and genre systems).


Introduction
In Latin America there is no ield known as writing studies and there is a lack of systematic research to document the history and the emergence of the ield (Navarro et al., 2016).However, studies and pedagogic initiatives on reading and writing in higher education date back to 2000.An interregional project titled "Initiatives of Reading and Writing in Higher Education in Latin America (ILEES)" conducted between 2013-2015 aimed at mapping endeavors in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela 1 .ILEES data show that Latin American writing advocates are ailiated to diverse disciplinary ields: Language Sciences, Applied Linguistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Education, Psychology, and Humanities.Furthermore, there are no central venues in the region, journals or associations, on professional or disciplinary writing; thus, academic publications primarily circulate in journals ailiated to Linguistics and Language Sciences. 2he ILEES project also reveals that the most frequent initiative across countries is courses on freshman composition in Spanish, although writing centers and programs are rapidly emerging in the region (Narváez, 2014). he analysis of information available on the websites of writing centers and programs reveals that despite an advocacy for supporting disciplinary writing endeavors, online materials (guidelines, activities, forums) portray academic writing as a general skill in freshman years regardless of disciplines, since writing support is focused on essays, book reviews, literature reviews and a general genre named "writing assignments" (Narváez, 2015).herefore, in Latin America there is no speciic ield of writing in the disciplines (WID), in general, or Technical Communication, in particular.
he interdisciplinary ield of Technical Communication has developed in the U.S. as part of historical and evolutionary interactions among economic changes, scientiic developments, and digital technology innovations.he ield has been fostered especially by advancement of engineering and related disciplines which generate both scientiic knowledge and inancial proit.his interdisciplinary ield has emerged to research and teach communication practices within institutions (companies, research centers, civil organizations, government, and universities) associated with scientiic and technological changes and corporate capitalism in North America.
In Latin American countries, global trends of science, innovation, and technology transfer appear as part of higher education reforms and funding research agendas.Regardless of the gap in progress and the presence of diverse needs among regions and economies, Latin-American faculty and students in Engineering are asked to produce cutting-edge knowledge and artifacts within a ierce competition.Consequently, contributions of technical communication programs are valuable across regions, especially in Spanish Latin America, provided they are developed to help stakeholders by taking critically into account their local conditions and challenges of global and transcultural demands.
Given the emerging Latin-American body of initiatives and studies in Engineering writing, this article aims at exploring features of these speciic endeavors reported by publications.Journal articles and oral communications have been explored to provide tentative answers for the following research questions: a.When  his article takes into account the important call for conducting research about writing and communication across cultures avoiding an ethnocentric bias (hatcher, 1999; 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010).To do so, the aforementioned questions are, in the irst place, answered by describing the sample and the results of the analysis of Latin-American publications on Engineering writing.Since the ultimate goal of this study is to provide a context to boost agendas for Latin-American Writing Studies in Engineering and the development of Technical Communication Programs in the region, 3 a section framing technical communication programs in the U.S. is presented and utilized, in the discussion section, to identify shared features and diferences between the Latin-American endeavors and the U.S. programs.his contrast is useful to envision Latin-American research agendas by valuing what has been locally developed and identifying international debates in which Latin-American writing advocates can contribute in the ield of Technical Communication.

A qualitative analysis of publications that report Latin-American writing initiatives in Engineering
Since there are no central venues (either journals, professional associations, or open-access projects) to easily access the literature on writing studies in Latin America, in general, and Engineering writing, in particular, the sample in appendix 1 was comprised of 22 publications (journal articles and oral communications) collected as a convenience sampling.I revised the published memoirs in CD of two academic events 4 I participated in August 2014 by electronically searching across the iles with the label "Engineering".During the same period, I emailed Latin-American colleagues I knew they worked on Engineering writing and asked for their publications.By using this data gathering, I collected 16 publications.In December 2014, the irst Latin-American Data Base on reading and writing studies was launched (Cisneros, 2014), 5  and I also searched by using the tag "Engineering"; 6 other publications were gathered.
Titles, abstracts, and sections of conclusions and discussion of the publications were read to conduct the analysis.Table 1 presents the relationship between the research questions and the analytical categories utilized: What might count as "genre": here is a methodological debate in the ield of Genre Studies about theoretical and methodological limitations in describing and labeling genres (Devitt, Bawarshi and Reif, 2003;Herrington & Moran, 2005;Gardner & Nesi, 2012); therefore, the following categories were deined in advance to analyze the notion of "genre" as a theoretical entity based on the overview presented by Bawarshi and Reif (2003): • An individual textual-linguistic entity.
• As a group of linguistic, textual, and/or rhetorical patterns of language use that has been called "genre families" or "genre repertoires".
• As a language usage and circulation enacted by diferent participants/roles within discourse communities and actual institutions (genre systems).

What Engineering ields have been of interest? Mentions of Engineering ields, if any
This paper aims to analyze on writing guidance and assessment ofered in a course titled "Sotware Engineering Processes" and its impact in students for learning content knowledge.he research relies on theoretical frameworks on Academic Literacy and Writing across the Curriculum.Writing assignments were designed collaboratively between the instructor of the course and a writing instructor.A case study was conducted based on this experience (…) he results show as inluential elements in the learning process: instructors' guidelines, evaluation rubrics, instructor's feedback, student-teacher conferences, assigning writing tasks with speciic purposes, as well as opportunities to write drats and present progress reports (…) Reasons for studying or leading initiatives on Engineering writing 3. What theories of genre have framed the studies and initiatives? he trend of the initiatives and studies being primarily focused on incorporating writing to learn might be also related to 14 of the 22 articles in the sample thematizing genres as textual-linguistic entities.Out of 14 cases, 4 publications are research-oriented, 6 are pedagogically-oriented, and 4 are research on pedagogical experiences.he following fragment illustrates these cases by presenting an excerpt of an Argentine study about a pedagogic intervention focused on a professional Engineering genre named "the yearly memory": In this research, we present a didactic design that articulates research work about professional genres and disciplinary contents based on teaching a professional genre.More speciically, it is about an experience that took place in an Economics course for Engineers in which the speciic teaching of a professional genre, the yearly memory, is addressed in relation with other contents of the course program (…) he tendency on writing to learn approach throughout the publications might be connected with some of the types of genres mentioned in the sample (i.e., writing assignments, summaries, and computinglaboratory tasks) (table 2).

Writing assignments 3
Computing laboratory tasks 2 Summaries 2

Annual report 1
Lab reports 1 Reports of formative research experiences 1

Research report 1
Standardized operating procedure 1  Engineering students.he ultimate purpose in using this strategy was to raise students' consciousness about the key role of writing in their learning process.Unlike traditional summary writing, these ones were not written for the professor for him to assess whether the students had reviewed course contents.Instead, summaries provided the students with an opportunity to monitor their own learning process and express what they had learned in a written format (...) At least 13 cases of the studies/initiatives reported have implied certain degree of institutionalization (i.e., they have had departmental supports and have been part of curriculum reforms or products of faculty development programs).his tendency is illustrated by the next example about a research project conducted as part of an Argentine institutional program for teaching academic and professional literacy across curriculum: Example 6 Article title: "Professional literacy during the university career: between the university and the enterprise" (2015) Abstract (…)his paper presents some partial results of an ongoing research project about writing practices in the Industrial Engineering ield.As part of the activities of an institutional program for teaching academic and professional literacy across the university curriculum (PRODEAC) developed at Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento (UNGS), we surveyed a group of engineers in order to analyze the genres employed in professional settings (…) 6. What type of language is studied or taught?
In 16 cases in the sample, it was not possible to identify the type of language addressed/studied in the initiatives/studies of the publications; however, the cases analyzed suggest that there is an attempt to address linguistic and mathematical systems by articulating them (4 cases), as well as see language as multimodal (1 case). he following case illustrates with a research project that aimed at describing and quantifying multisemiotic artifacts emerging from a Chilean corpus collected in twelve PhD programs:

ABSTRACT
From strictly linguistic studies, the characterization of multisemiotic written specialized texts has been scarce or almost null.Not many corpus-based studies focus on the description of graphs, tables, and diagrams, as well as their layouts, as part of academic texts.he objective of this study is to identify, describe and quantify the occurrence of (multi)semiotic artifacts which are present in a sample of texts (1.043) belonging to the PUCV-2010 Academic Corpus. he corpus was collected in twelve PhD programs in six Chilean universities and comprises all the documents students are given to read during their formal curricula, with the exception of those included in the inal doctoral research (3,160 written texts, which are distributed among Physics, Chemistry, Biotechnology, History, Literature, and Linguistics) (…)

Are computers part of the studies and interventions
on Engineering writing?
Computers were mentioned as part of the initiatives/studies in 3 cases (reported as part of the same pedagogical experience).he case below shows these types of mentions in an Argentine action-research experience in which students were asked to perform computer assignments in a calculus course: Example 8 Article title: "Early error detection: an action-research experience teaching vector calculus" (2013) his paper describes an action-research experience carried out with second year students at the School of Engineering of the National University of Entre Ríos, Argentina.Vector calculus students played an active role in their own learning process.hey were required to present weekly reports, in both oral and written forms, on the topics studied, instead of merely sitting and watching as the teacher solved problems on the blackboard. he students were also asked to perform computer assignments, and their learning process was continuously monitored (…)   he next case is an illustration of conclusions implying the trend in the approach "writing to learn".According to the evaluation of an Argentine pedagogic intervention that was relying on writing weekly reports, it seems that some of the students considered the approach very demanding: texts, and weekly reports for solving problems with theoretical justiications).In junior and senior years, research-oriented writing has been incorporated (e.g., research reports) (table 4).
Table 4 he genres mentioned in diferent learning moments of the initiatives pedagogically-oriented he qualitative distribution of individual genres mentioned by the publications pedagogically-oriented conirms that in freshman and sophomore years one of the pedagogical goals has been writing to learn (i.e., computer laboratory tasks, reading mathematical

Example 9 Article title: "Improvement of Mathematics teaching and learning in Bioengineering: a challenge assumed from action research" (2012)
A survey was designed and implemented to the students in the courses 2008, 2009 and 2010, with the purpose of evaluating their perception of the weekly report.he questions and results are shown in igure 3. 85% of the students regard the experience as useful and necessary for their performance, since it helped to understand concepts and correct mistakes.On the other hand, 15% of the students said the experience was not positive, most of all for the lack of respect of individual learning pace of students and for being too demanding in terms of time.
he tendency of the publication in the approach "writing to learn" might be also related to fact the publications were primarily pedagogically-oriented or reporting research on pedagogical experiences.Furthermore, the third frequent mention in the conclusions related to positive evaluations of interdisciplinary work (6 cases) conirms that interdisciplinarity has been a feature of the initiatives/ studies undertaken (16 cases).
he speciic conclusion about "Interdisciplinary work is an opportunity" emerged in 5 cases in publications pedagogically-oriented (3 are research on pedagogical experiences, and 2 are pedagogicallyoriented), and in 1 case a research-oriented article.
he analysis of the topics on limitations stated by the publications also suggests that the writing advocates demand certain conditions related to class sizes in the cases of initiatives/studies pedagogicallyoriented; for instance, the amount of students is mentioned in the following Argentine case as a hindering issue in incorporating writing as part of the Engineering courses:

Example 10 Article title: "Creating an educational research space in an Engineering department" (2009)
Regarding the negative aspects and diiculties in its implementation, "it is diicult to distribute the time between the control of individual work and group discussion to explain the subjects in which frequent errors of the group are detected"."he high number of students by section hinders a more personalized monitoring".Furthermore, it is stated that despite the writing supports introduced by these initiatives, the students still struggle in developing audience awareness.
As for implications derived from the studies/ initiatives, the writing advocates envision studies to explore disciplinary features of writing and communication in Engineering as well as professional genres.his particular implication is regarded in the publications as useful to inform pedagogical initiatives across the curriculum and design teaching materials and resources.he following fragment illustrates these cases by presenting an excerpt of a Chilean study describing multisemiotic artifacts from a corpus of readings at PhD levels: Research studies as the one described here also have pedagogical implications concerning: (a) the selection of written genres, (b) the elaboration of teaching materials, and (c) the preparation of language tests of various kinds, such as the assessment of disciplinary contents and of specialized discourse comprehension.
Furthermore, this analysis also reveals that the authors of the publications are advocating for pedagogic initiatives that bridge academic and professional writing practices in Engineering, which might suggest that it is already acknowledged this double nature of writing and communication in the Engineering ield (3 cases of publications research-oriented).

Technical communication programs in the U.S.: teaching and research agendas
Since the ultimate goal of this study is to provide a context to boost agendas for Latin-American Writing Studies in Engineering and the development of Technical Communication Programs in the region, the following section is framing technical communication programs in the U.S., which will be utilized, in the discussion section, to identify shared features and diferences between the Latin-American endeavors and the U.S. programs.his contrast is useful to envision Latin-American research agendas by valuing what has been locally developed and identifying international debates in the ield of Technical Communication to which Latin-American writing advocates can contribute.

he status of the U.S. Technical Communication Programs
Several studies have mapped the scope of the ield of Technical Communication in order to understand the history, the inluence of diferent disciplinary traditions, and tensions between theories and practices in academia and workplace settings (Selfe & Selfe, 2012).Overall, the ield is acknowledged as interdisciplinary, since it shares and borrows methods, theories, and even content areas from Design Communication, Speech Communication, Rhetoric and Composition, Psychology, Education, and Computer Science (Spilka, 2002;Rude, 2009).his interdisciplinarity might be related to an unformed disciplinary identity and the lack of external recognition that has been attributed to multiple causes: a) the relative newness of the ield as an area of inquiry; b) the assumption that the ield on technical communication ofers "services", in both corporate and academic settings, for more dominant ields such as Engineering, Information Technology, and Business; and, c) the adjunct status of technical communication programs within the English departments (in which they are usually housed), and within the broad ield of Rhetoric and Writing (Rude, 2009).
Universities oten treat Business and Technical Communication Programs (BTC) similarly to irst-year composition (FYC), that is, as a course about academic writing as a general domain instead of a professional or disciplinary practice.As happens in FYC courses, BTC courses for students who are not pursuing Engineering or Science as their majors perceive the classes as service courses, and their instructors must struggle for status and identity within their universities (Russell, 2007).Technical communication instructors have reported they oten feel like outsiders within English departments.Regarding work conditions, technical communication instructors are typically hired as lecturers; however, sometimes instructors in writing programs are better situated in terms of status, community, and respect (Reave, 2004).
Diverse student population shapes the BTC programs.In technical communication courses, all the students are Engineering majors; whereas in courses ofered outside the schools, students from other majors attend.A diverse student body is more typical for elective courses (Reave, 2004).
Furthermore, "writing to learn" and "learning to write" 8 are still part of the pedagogical debates in the ield, because BTC courses are seen as more disciplinary or professionally orientated than irst-year composition courses (FYC), which are mainly associated with general education classes. 9BTC research and pedagogy have mainly focused on workplace communication and preparing students for workplace communicative practices (Russell, 2007).As a result, these courses typically are comprised by a more cohesive student population in terms of their majors than those in liberal arts courses (FYC associated with general education) (Russell, 2007).
he academic unit housing the programs of technical communication is also an issue of debate mostly because of the diversity of approaches from humanities, professional, and science communication (Maylath, Grabill & Gurak, 2010).For instance, since Departments of English ofer "services" to Engineering majors, teaching this type of course is seen as outside of the main purpose of English departments.herefore, technical writing instructors (and scholars) are seen as subservient to both Engineering and English but essentially at home in neither place (Yeats & hompson, 2010).Overcoming the tensions between English departments and technical communication programs is thus seen as an important issue in the agenda of the U.S. ield (Bernhardt, 2002). he tensions might be overcome insofar as it is accepted that technical writing has humanistic value by exploring rhetorical features in science communication even under expectations of objectivity (Miller, 2004).Cultural beliefs tend to treat "technology" and "data" as ixed and unbiased objects, but these assumptions change if science production is acknowledged as a rhetorical act, that is, knowledge production as a result of interpersonal negotiations in interpreting evidence (Winsor, 1996).
Debates over the status of the ield have therefore inluenced research and teaching agendas.One of the visible debates is how to deine the ideal practices of the ield.If technical communication and writing simply draw on the best practices carried out by industry and other workplace settings, non-academic environments would be producing authoritative knowledge, which leaves a narrow intellectual space for the discipline.Instead, if technical communication and writing are more than instrumental means predetermined by others, academic knowledge on technical communication and writing can advise about qualities of workplace practices (Monberg, 2002;Boettger, & Lam, 2013).Furthermore, under the importance of models on "expanding learning" (Bernhardt, 2002), 10 a research agenda is needed to provide information about transitions and overlapping practices between industry and academic settings; this means that academia and workplaces should interact to boost knowledge propagation and innovation between these two contexts.
he research agenda of the ield of Technical Communication must also include studies on what has been marginalized or silenced in order to democratize participation of those who have been seen as historically relegated in organizations (hralls & Blyler, 2002).Participatory research is one way to give voice to those who are being investigated (hralls & Blyler, 2002).his study of marginalization also includes the study of tacit system of values and commitments within bureaucratic hierarchies, high technologies, and corporate capitalism that are embedded in technical communication practices (Miller, 2004).his topic is part of cultural studies in which power and contradictions are explored as ongoing and emerging forces in interaction within organizations (hralls & Blyler, 2002).

Technical communication and digital technologies
Studies have also documented emerging technical communication practices because of the inluence of digital technologies.Developments in mobile technology have encouraged more cooperative work that is contingent and not physically-situated.On one hand, more people can work anywhere by telecommuting, collaborating electronically, and running their own business with mobile phones and laptops; however, on the other hand, freedom to work anywhere oten means isolation and diiculty to build trust and relationships with others, which brings restricted opportunities for collaboration and networking but opportunities for co-working.As a result, co-working is an emerging technical communication practice that has been recontextualized by other inter-organizational activities as freelancing, virtual teams, and peer production (Spinuzzi, 2012).
Because of the inluence of digital technologies in technical communication practices, some scholars have claimed that the main goal of BTC programs is to increase students' marketability to be prepared for the job market, mainly by increasing their skills for documentation process in the age of cooperativetechnological interaction.Accordingly, practitioners are expected to learn problem-solving and analytical skills, writing ability, and lexibility to keep learning on new digital writing situations (Kim & Tolley, 2004;Yeats & hompson, 2010).his is why computer literacy is visible in the pedagogical agendas.here are diferent types of courses: a) skill courses for every day computer literacy at workplaces; b) courses on hardware and sotware for technical communication practices; c) courses on desktop publishing or graphic design programs that are focused on costefective productions for organizations; d) publication management courses; e) computer intensive instruction in introductory writing courses; and, f) computer literacy courses to build critical awareness on digital reading and writing practices.Pedagogies on critical computer literacy particularly advocate for ideological analysis of literacy practices surrounding computer usage against to computer-skills pedagogies (Selber, 2004).

Subject matter of the courses: science communication, professional genres, research skills, and journal publication
Besides including digital communication practices in the curriculum, pedagogical agendas also stress the role of drawing in learning science.Students are encouraged to represent knowledge through drawing, observation, recording, and making inferences as opportunities to learn inductively on scientiic concepts.Diferent goals are pursued: a) encouraging students to produce visual texts; b) increasing awareness of rhetorical efects of graphics and images in science (semiotic realities created by disciplinary communities) rather than groups of facts (Lerner, 2009).
here are, for instance, pedagogical experiences in which students are taught about how scientists make complex decisions in designing experiments and reporting quantitative data for creating claims while addressing their peers.Students are supported for understanding diferences between "raw data" (i.e., jots, plots, notes, outputs, visual traces produced in labs) and "evidence" for publications and communications ("selected data") (Poe, Lerner & Craig, 2010).Systematizations show that students struggle in learning how to gain conidence from data, decide the best "evidence" for dissemination, and deal with sotware or other technical issues while interpreting data; especially because students tend to believe that there is a "correct way" to present visual data instead of creating visual evidence rhetorically-oriented.herefore, these types of interventions help students to a) make decisions according to their audiences by selecting a "meaningful" subset of "raw data" (i.e., using data to "make a case" of their work); b) describe detailed explanations of the indings; and, c) avoid forcing data to it in a theory to rather identify "interesting indings" (Poe, Lerner & Craig, 2010).
Regarding Engineering genres to teach, proposals, progress reports, and completion reports are mentioned (Artemeva, 2005).Job applications and cover letters are also suggested as contents for upper division courses, because freshman or junior students have no experience in workplace cultures.hus, these students have no incentive to look carefully and relectively at past experiences to ind applicable strategies; ultimately, these writing tasks might have no relevance beyond the grade for novice students (Quick, 2012).
Teaching academic research skills for workplaces is also highlighted in the pedagogical agendas through, for instance, encouraging students' publication of capstone experiences that address audiences beyond classrooms.hese initiatives are undertaking by the following stages: a) literature review and research about a speciic topic of the ield; b) oral presentations for department staf and guests (practitioners); c) conference presentations; and, d) journal submissions.hese initiatives also advocate for journal internships in which students learn how to write to be published and how to manage the publishing backstage (i.e., the administrative side of communicating with reviewers and authors, as well as the technical side of journal production by web design, content management, website updating, and e-journal promotion) (Ford & Newmark, 2011).

Teaching technical communication from a rhetorical approach
Teaching on technical writing and communication as a rhetorical practice is strongly encouraged to defy the positivist view of knowledge.Much technical writing teaching maintains the legacy of positivist perspectives by focusing on style, organization, and tone; audience analysis in this perspective is mostly limited to adapting vocabulary of texts.his approach reinforces the view that scientists transmitted "physical realities" by writing (e.g., emphasizing the use of strategies as impersonal voice).Conversely, within rhetorical approaches, one of the subject matters must be "science as argument", which implies learners of technical communication become persuasive professionals embedded in rhetorical situations of scientiic and technological domains (Miller, 2004).
In this approach, learning experiences must include projects to interact with diferent audiences and conduct shared assignments (i.e., across disciplines, diferent degrees of expertise, academic and industry audiences, diferent types of stakeholders within and across organizations).In shared assignments, language assumes the function of satisfying a real need outside of the language classroom (Tatzl, Hassler, Messnarz & Flühr, 2012).However, this efort is challenging because of the heterogeneity of student population in classrooms in terms of their expertise and ield ailiations, especially in the case of BTC courses of general education requirement (McDaniel & Steward, 2011).Team teaching among researchers, practitioners, language instructors, and disciplinary instructors is acknowledged as a pedagogical strategy, but it is rarely implemented due to high costs.In these types of initiatives it is not enough to expose students to diverse audiences; even when they are immersed in an actual workplace setting and are assigned authentic writing tasks, students might not fully understand the implications of their work because they are accustomed to write for pleasing a single-person audience (the instructor) to earn a grade.herefore, students still need scafolding when writing for real workplace audiences (Quick, 2012).
Also, studies of communication skills required by workplace settings have called for curriculum reforms to meet needs of organizations (Reave, 2004).One of the goals is to design learning experiences that expose students to diverse communicative and writing practices according to diferent organizational positions that students could achieve in their professional future, which includes internships and interdisciplinary curriculum that teach about management and business reasoning (McDaniel & Steward, 2011).
Cross-cultural rhetorical studies of professional communication explore workplace literacies and organizational cultures.hatcher (1999; 2000; 2001) studied diferences in cultural expectations between U.S. and South-American professionals with respect to the context provided in oral and written communication, the abstraction or particularity, and the cultural functions of writing and orality.Such rhetorical similarities and diferences can be explained by cultural assumptions about authority, leadership, collectivism, individualism, and work relationships (hatcher, 2005).
Based on surveys, ethnographies, and discoursebased interviews of documents written in English and Spanish, hatcher (1999) claims that rhetorical preferences of every culture must be understood by communication professionals to anticipate challenges, such as: translating documents of intercultural companies, writing procedures and policies in diferent languages, and understanding diverse interpretations of regulations mediated by documents.hatcher's advocacy for intercultural rhetorical studies highlights research approaches in which U.S. models of rhetoric and communication cannot be used as means for cultural domination; instead, comprehensive and emic research methods beyond textual analysis of documents are suggested to comprehend rhetorical cultures.He advocates incorporating researchers from the regions that will be investigated and establishing a common ground in which to operationalize and compare the variables of both cultures in the intercultural context (hatcher, 1999; 2000; 2001; 2005).

Assessment agendas
Regarding assessment in technical communication programs, some scholars suggest institutional assessment of curriculum and learning outcomes according to institutional values of universities; this type of assessment can provide insights for planning (Allen, 2010).Concerning student performance and learning outcomes, assessment on "polymorphic literacy" (i.e., writing as a performance that involves both images and language) is also advised.Moreover, learning assessment of changes in students' performances across time is also recommended; for instance, through validated rubrics to be applied to students' writing samples (Coppola & Elliot, 2010). 11

Discussion
In Latin America there is no speciic ield equivalent to Technical Communication as developed in the U.S.; however, there is a body of emerging Latin-American writing initiatives and studies in Engineering.his section identiies shared features and diferences between the Latin-American endeavors and the U.S. programs by contrasting the results of the analysis of 22 publications on Latin American Engineering writing and the literature review on Technical Communication in the U.S. above.his section follows hatcher's call for conducting crosscultural comparisons by honoring local conditions pertaining to professional communication, higher education, and Engineering writing.
he analysis of Latin-American publications that report initiatives pedagogically-oriented suggests that the ield has emerged primarily focused on the approach "writing to learn"; however, designing writing initiatives that prepare students for workplace communicative practices (Russell, 2007) emerges as a topic of the conclusions, limitations, and implications of the publications analyzed.For instance, as part of the conclusion sections, some of the publications aimed at a) exploring if professional genres have been taught in college years (Natale & Stagnaro, 2015;Natale, 2015); b) diferentiating between professional genres and academic genres (Parodi, 2010a); and, c) collecting samples of professional genres from instructors in senior years (Añino et al., 2010).
Regarding limitations and implications related to professional genres, the publications mentioned, for instance, that there is a lack of descriptions of professional genres to inform curriculum design (Natale & Stagnaro, 2012); thus, further research about professional genres is suggested (Natale & Stagnaro, 2012;Stagnaro, Chiodi & Miguez, 2012).Moreover, incorporating professionallyoriented tasks from freshman years is also stated as an implication of the publications (Parodi, 2010a;Natale & Stagnaro, 2015;Natale;2015). he analysis of conclusions and limitations suggests that in the Latin-American case it is not visible, at least in this sample, tensions related to humanities, professional, and science communication approaches mentioned in the North American literature.
Furthermore, in the Latin-American case, interdisciplinarity (e.g., writing instructors and disciplinary professors or practitioners) is praised through topics of the conclusions (Añino et al., 2011;Gómez, 2014;López & Martínez, 2014;López & Molina, 2015;Natale & Stagnaro, 2015) and envisioned as a further implication (Añino et al., 2010).his Latin-American climate in favor of interdisciplinarity might be also associated with the most frequent type of pedagogical goal undertaken thus far: "writing to learn", since the type of writing assignments might count as low-stake writing assignments (i.e., summaries and weekly reports for solving problems in table 1 and 3) that do not necessarily introduce room for critical stances or contradictory systems of values either for students or instructors involved in the initiatives (for both, Engineering professors and writing advocates).Possibly, when teaching on professional and scientiic writing and communication is incorporated in the Latin-American region, diferent negotiations with disciplinary professors and practitioners might create spaces to start conversations about objectivity or rhetorical production of professional and scientiic knowledge in Engineering.
As happens in the U.S. scholarship, there is an interest reported by some of the Latin-American publications in pursuing research agendas for providing information about transitions and overlapping practices between industry and academia (Bernhardt, 2002;Parodi, 2010;Natale, 2015;Natale & Stagnaro, 2015).One of the Latin-American publications analyzed stresses as a limitation that teaching professional genres is artiicial (Natale, 2015), and in three cases the publications claim for bridging academic writing practices and professional writing practices (Parodi, 2010a;Natale & Stagnro, 2015;Natale, 2015). he U.S. cultural studies making visible and complicating tacit values and commitments of bureaucratic hierarchies, high technologies, and corporate capitalism embedded in the ield (hralls & Blyler, 2002;Miller, 2004) did not emerge from the Latin-American sample.Further analysis of Latin-American publications associated with organizational communication, for instance, might provide insights on this particular issue about critical studies on writing and communication practices within local companies.
he emphasis on writing to learn and the emerging call for further research on professional genres might suggest that in the Latin-American case the debate on what should be the goal of the writing courses in Engineering is not yet present (at least in the sample analyzed), such as the goal of increasing students' marketability (Selber, 2004).his conlict between professional or humanistic role of writing courses might be further traced in Latin-American publications that report studies or initiatives on freshman writing courses, since this is the most frequent pedagogic intervention in the region (see ILEES project at http:// english.ilees.org/).he overall analysis shows that research and initiatives on Engineering writing are advocating primarily for writing to learn and the tendency throughout the publications is to mention genres as individual texts to support student learning (i.e., writing assignments, summaries, computer laboratory tasks, reading mathematical texts, and weekly reports for solving problems with theoretical justiications).hese trends suggest that the Latin-American writing advocates in Engineering might broaden research scopes by incorporating theoretical frameworks for: a. exploring and understanding diferent roles of writing across time and curriculum in student learning and by Engineering subields (e.g., diferences over time among writing summaries, weekly reports for solving-problems, and lab reports in learning the discipline versus writing professional or research genres); and, b. exploring theoretical approaches to understand genres beyond individual texts to embed them as part of systems of activity 12 (i.e., genre repertoires and genre systems 13 ), which implies to rethink curriculum initiatives and studies under the assumption that students as further practitioners of their disciplines will be exposed to a spectrum of roles as genres users (either as readers or writers) and as part of complex overlapping activities impacted by issues of hierarchy and power within organizations.

Digital technologies
Regarding issues on computer literacy, the publications of the sample mentioned computers only in three cases, but they were related to the same Argentine experience (Añino et al., 2010a;2010b;2012;2013).In this case, computer literacy was not part of the teaching contents (Selber, 2004); instead, computer assignments are means to support students' learning (i.e., writing to learn).

Subject matter of the courses
Speciic experiences of research or pedagogical initiatives for creating data and evidence in scientiic writing in Engineering (Poe, Lerner & Craig, 2010) did not emerge from the sample.However, some Latin-American publications report initiatives in which verbal and mathematical systems are seen as articulated to support student learning, or in which research about Engineering texts implies adopting a multimodal approach (Parodi, 2010c).
In the U.S. scholarship, there is a debate about when and how to teach genres related to workplace cultures such as job-applications and cover-letters (Quick, 2012). he analysis of the Latin-American publications (table 3) suggests that these types of genres are not part of the initiatives/studies of the sample.
Despite the size and type of the sample (22 publications of a convenience sampling), this inding might be explained by features either of the higher education systems (by further analyzing to what extent in Latin-American Engineering majors, students are exposed to internships), or features of written genres embedded in job applications (by further analyzing written genres requested, if any, in Latin-American job markets).
he U.S. scholarship of teaching on science communication and research skills (Ford & Newmark, 2011) might be further explored in the Latin-American case by contextualizing what counts as scientiic knowledge production and to what extent this is related to higher education in general and to Engineering majors in particular.hese particular U.S. experiences for teaching genre practices that merge scientiic and professional audiences (e.g., literature reviews or oral presentations that are addressing simultaneously academic and industry audiences) (Ford & Newmark, 2011) continue nourishing conversations about the rhetorical nature of science and technology (science as argument) (Miller, 2004).In this regard, it is interesting to mention that in the Latin-American case, two pedagogically-oriented publications mentioned as limitation that students struggle in developing audience awareness (López & Ramírez, 2012;2014); this diiculty might be also associated with assigning writing activities that are exclusively addressing instructors (writing to learn).herefore, further research initiatives might collect data to compare how audience awareness is developed over time according to types and amounts of learning opportunities in which students have to address either interdisciplinary, academic, and industry audiences.

Assessment agendas
he U.S. scholarship has acknowledged the importance of conducting assessment of curricula and learning outcomes of the programs according to systems of values of the institutions and majors (Allen, 2010;Coppola & Elliot, 2010).In the case of the Latin-American publications analyzed, the writing advocates are already pointing out the need of conducting developmental research on students writing and genre awareness of faculty members who have been participants of the interdisciplinary writing initiatives in Engineering majors (Natale & Stagnaro, 2012;Stagnaro & Jauré, 2013).

Conclusion
his article aimed at exploring features of Latin-American writing initiatives in Engineering reported by publications (journal articles and oral communications) from Spanish-speaking countries to map programs pursued in the region and then provide a context to envision research agendas for Latin-American Writing Studies in Engineering and the development of Technical Communication Programs in the region.
he data suggest that the Latin-American movement might have started under the approach of writing to learn.Possibly, it might be expected that when these Latin-American initiatives and studies incorporate research and pedagogic interventions on professional writing and communication, novel debates will emerge particularly associated with tensions and goals of educating under humanistic and technical approaches of the courses and also regarding the rhetorical nature of science and technology; this climate might further allow integrating critical approaches in the advancement of the Latin-American ield.
Furthermore, the trends of the analysis reveal that the Latin-American writing advocates in Engineering might broaden research scopes by incorporating theoretical frameworks for a) exploring and understanding diferent roles of writing across time/ curriculum in student learning and by Engineering subields and, b) exploring theoretical approaches to understand genres beyond individual texts (genre repertoires and genre systems).
his analysis also makes visible the need of further exploring features of higher education systems and economic conditions under which science and technology are related to Engineering knowledge production as an important context of the emergence of technical communication programs and initiatives beyond the U.S. Additionally, the study conirms the importance of conducting research on development of writing and communication in Latin-American Engineering majors, in general, and in the actual initiatives already undertaken, in particular, by identifying regional disciplinary learning expectations on writing and communication over time.13.Cf.Spinuzzi, 2012;Bawarshi & Reif, 2010;Russell, 2010;Freedman, 2006;Tardy, 2009;Artemeva, 2006;and, Devitt, Bawarshi & Reif, 2003.

Figure 4
Figure 4 Engineering ields mentioned by the studies/initiatives

9.
What agendas are currently proposed on Engineering writing? he analysis of the topics of the conclusion sections suggests that the three most frequent topics mentioned throughout the publications are: a. Writing to learn is associated with improving student engagement (7 cases); b.Writing to learn is correlating with passing the classes (7 cases); c.Interdisciplinary work is an opportunity (6 cases).

Table 1
Relationship between the research questions and the analytical categories

Table 3
Occurrences of learning moments in which writing is incorporated by the initiatives pedagogically-oriented or genres that are studied in diferent learning moments Colombian Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Colciencias), Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (UAO), and University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).See the project at: http://www.utp.edu.co/vicerrectoria/investigaciones/publicaciones-lectura-escritura/ 6.In this section some fragments of the actual publications are used to illustrate the analysis.Since most of the original data is in Spanish, the cases were translated into English by the author.