Project-Oriented Web Scraping in Technical Communication Research

Abstract

This article advocates for web scraping as an effective method to augment and enhance technical and professional communication (TPC) research practices. Web scraping is used to create consistently structured and well-sampled data sets about domains, communities, demographics, and topics of interest to TPC scholars. After providing an extended description of web scraping, the authors identify technical considerations of the method and provide practitioner narratives. They then describe an overview of project-oriented web scraping. Finally, they discuss implications for the concept as a sustainable approach to developing web scraping methods for TPC research.