Not many graduate students receive recognition for the work that goes into writing a dissertation. But then, not many graduate students wrote a dissertation quite like Christopher Toth, now an assistant professor of writing at Grand Valley State University. Earlier this year, Toth received the Association for Business Communication’s annual Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation on Business Communication.

“I was extremely excited and honored,” Toth said. “I spent a year and a half researching and writing my dissertation, so it’s great to be recognized for my scholarship. The Association for Business Communication is the only international organization dedicated to advancing business communication education and research, so to be honored by them is a great honor. The award adds validation that the larger community of scholars in business communication values the research I’m conducting.”

The dissertation, “Child’s Play: Investigating the genre of toy safety recall notices,” examines the effectiveness of toy safety recall notices. Toth wrote it as part of his doctorate of Philosophy in Rhetoric and Professional Communication at Iowa State University.

In 2007, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission issued recalls for 80 toys and affect millions of families, Toth said in his dissertation abstract. He found that many of the toy safety recall notices do not effectively communicate the risks posed by faulty toys.

He then became interested in the rhetoric of toy safety when he noticed a newsfeed that alerted consumers about the Thomas the Train?Ñ¢ wooden train set accessories.

“The Thomas the Train toy caught my interest because my 3-year old nephew received it as a holiday gift,” Toth said. “He loved this toy and played with it all the time. Using my nephew’s toy as a springboard, I started to examine the seriousness of the toy recall situation.”

Praise has been high for Toth in the GVSU Department of Writing, said Ellen Schendel, associate professor of writing and director of the Fred Meijer Center for Writing. After being hired last fall, Toth has already made several contributions to the department and helped to rethink the writing major, as well as new courses and curriculums, Schendel said.

“He’s very new to our department, but already we’re able to see his contributions,” Schendel said. “We all appreciate what he brings to the department, so of course we were excited that other people are also recognizing all that he’s been able to contribute. He’s looking at important kinds of communication that occurs in the business world that have real-world implications for health and safety. I think it’s great that he’d doing this kind of work. We need people who do that kind of work.”

According to the Association for Business Communication’s website, Toth received a plaque, a monetary award, a one-year membership with the association and the chance to be published in one of the association’s journals.

“(This award is) recognition that his research is going in the right direction and that he’s doing important things,” Schendel said. “It certainly is evidence that he is poised to make contributions important to the field.”

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