Offers suggestions and examples of how to write clear and effective notes, cautions, and warnings. (SR)

Details the "technical documentation process," a basic five-step process for managing technical documentation projects: assessment, analysis, design, development, and validation. (SR)

Describes the elements of an effective style guide. Presents methods and techniques required to develop a style guide tailored to the specific needs of an organization. Focuses on two critical steps in the development process that are often ignored or overlooked: (1) conducting the Requirements Analysis; and (2) promoting the style guide. (SR)

Discusses and illustrates how technical communicators can read and write complex documents dialogically by using a new/old strategy to help them in three activities: breaking down complex documents and data into components; solving problems by locating and describing causal components; and following and organizing sequences of components. (SR)

Discusses a proposal's executive summary: its purpose, how long it should be, what should be in it, when it should be started, who should write it, and how it should be reviewed. (SR)

Discusses four basic categories of restrictions within which the video script writer works: purpose, time, budget, and resources. Discusses how these variables work together to force creation of a document that can be produced. (SR)

Discusses how to get started in hypermedia, offering a springboard for beginning hyperdocument developers. Argues that the key is to transfer the familiar to the unfamiliar by adapting paper-document writing processes and by applying the appropriate, familiar page-design principles. (SR)

Presents an approach to document numbering, document titling, and process measurement which, when used with fundamental techniques of statistical process control, reveals meaningful process-element variation as well as nominal productivity models. (SR)

Identifies and discusses the effects of single sourcing on the writing process. Provides suggestions for incorporating the teaching of single sourcing into technical communication courses. Concludes that educating students about the process of single sourcing is important if they are to become effective technical communicators in the industry. (SG)

Discusses how to make better indexes for online documentation. (SR)

Makes suggestions for editing technical proposals. Discusses the marketeers, the hierarchy of hype, how to save days, managing story boards, expediting a laborious process, teaching engineers to write, writing incrementally, the art group, and the editing task. Argues that the best proposals come from starting to write early. (SR)

Argues that scientific style manuals provide much sound advice, but also pass along advice at odds with recently published literature regarding how scientists actually conduct research and write up their findings. Presents a revised model for the scientific article based on information in recently published research on communication in science.…

Shares practical information that technical writers can use when writing scripts for video presentations. Discusses the kinds of information needed for script writing, the steps involved in doing so, and the script's role in production and editing. (SR)

Maintains that magazine and journal articles can be a powerful marketing and education tool. Discusses planning an article, getting the most from the material, and working with editors. (SR)

Presents a history of the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard for preparation of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), and provides a section-by-section guide to preparing MSDSs that comply with the standard. (SR)