Steve started teaching at Texas Tech in 2019 after working for six years at George Mason University. He earned his PhD in Rhetorics, Communication and Information Design from Clemson University in 2013. He currently teaches courses on ethics, social justice, technical writing, rhetorical history and theory, and digital rhetoric. Steve's general theoretical areas involve material rhetorics and embodiment. His previous publications have applied these theoretical paradigms to a variety of digital texts, including videogames, critical making, social media, and big data. Steve is currently working on projects related to non-Western virtue ethics as well as qualitative research on the ethics of inclusion and exclusion in social media content moderation. With collaborators, he is also combing through 20 years' worth of rhetoric, writing studies, and technical communication journals to code for patterns in how the terms “ethics” and “morality” are applied.

Steve also serves as the director of undergraduate studies (Fall 2020-present) for the BA in Technical Communication. In that role, he co-published the adopted Engl 2311: Introduction to Technical Writing textbook (Guide to Technical Communication, Top Hat) with Kellie M. Gray (2311 Program Coordinator) and TTU TCR PhD student contributors (Megalee Das, Michelle Cowan, and Danielle Feldman Karr). 

Awards

Steve's digital rhetoric and technical communication research enjoys national recognition, including Technical Communication Quarterly's 2018 Nell Ann Pickett Article Award, the 2020 Nell Ann Pickett Article Award, the 2021 Conference on College Composition and Communication's award the Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical or Scientific Communication, and the 2022-2023 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. 

Books

Steve is the author of Procedural Habits: The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice (Routledge, Fall 2017). This book explores philosophical and rhetorical conceptions of habit (hexis) as a lens to analyze the increasing alignment of habit and rhetoric in videogames, gamification, and algorithmic cultures in the present moment.  
  
With Jared S. Colton, Steve published Rhetoric, Technology, and the Virtues (Utah State University Press, Fall 2018), which engages past and contemporary approaches to virtue ethics for theorizing the rhetoric of social media.

With co-editor Michael J. Faris, Steve published Reprogrammable Rhetoric: Critical Making Theories in Rhetoric and Composition (2022, Distinguished Book award winner). 

Articles

Please click here for Steve's full CV 

• “The Ethics of Inclusion, Exclusion, and Protection in The Green Book,” with Jared S. Colton and Josephine Walwema. Technical Communication Quarterly (2023).
• Journal of Business and Technical Communication special issue: “21st Century Ethics in Technical Communication,” guested edited with Josephine Walwema and Jared S. Colton. Fall 2022.
• Computers and Composition & Computers and Composition online special issue(s): “Making Games Matter” guest edited with Rebekah Shultz Colby. Summer 2022.
• Edenfield, A., Holmes, S. & J. Colton. (2019). “Queering Tactical Technical Communication,” Technical Communication Quarterly. 28(3). Nell Ann Pickett and 4CsAward Winner.
• "From NoobGuides to #OpKKK: Ethics of Anonymous' Tactical Technical Communication," with Jared S. Colton and Josephine Walwema." Technical Communication Quarterly. 26.1 (2017): 59-75. Nell Ann Pickett Award Winner. 

Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the BA in Technical Communication
Technical Communication & Rhetoric

Email: steve.holmes@ttu.edu
Office: 487