Frank R Smith Distinguished Journal Article Award for Daniel Hocutt, Nupoor Ranade, and Gustav Verhulsdonck, for the article “Localizing Content: The Roles of Technical & Professional Communicators and Machine Learning in Personalized Chatbot Responses” in the November 2022 issue of Technical Communication.

The Frank R. Smith Outstanding Journal Article Award and Distinguished Journal Article Award recognizes the authors of exceptional articles in the Technical Communication journal during a calendar year. The awards honor the memory of Frank R. Smith, who established Technical Communication as the flagship publication of STC and the profession during his 18-year tenure as the journal’s editor. The award was established in 1995, the year Frank R. Smith retired, and has been a mainstay of STC’s annual recognitions of excellence since.

This year’s winners of the Frank R. Smith Distinguished Article Award are Daniel Hocutt, Nupoor Ranade, and Gustav Verhulsdonck, for the article “Localizing Content: The Roles of Technical & Professional Communicators and Machine Learning in Personalized Chatbot Responses” in the November 2022 issue of Technical Communication.

The citation reads: For a cutting-edge case study that reveals the emerging roles of technical communicators in working with AI-driven chatbots and intelligent content. The authors educate readers about elements of conversational AI architecture, demonstrate the process of creating chatbots that provide localized microcontent, and articulate a series of recommendations for designing user-centered conversational agents.