What roles should midwives play within our healthcare system? Must they have certified degrees and be under the jurisdiction of a professional board? Do notions of gender create competition and erect barriers between the medical professions? The Rhetoric of Midwifery offers new insights into understanding these questions within the context of our present-day medical system.

As a point of departure, Mary M. Lay analyzes the public discussion over non-academically trained-or direct-entry-midwives within Minnesota. From 1991-1995, that state held public hearings about the...

The purpose of this cutting-edge collection of essays is threefold: first, it presents the principles of data collection and interpretation or the methodological distinctions of a particular method appropriate to technical communication research. Second, it discusses the foundational principles of the methodologies given the primary discipline in which they were created and applied. Finally, it reflects upon the process of importing and employing these methodologies into the research field of technical communication, and on how technical communication research has contributed to the...