Lists some of the major typographic variables involved in structured abstracts (containing sub-headings). Illustrates how typography can affect clarity by presenting seven examples that illustrate the effects of these typographic variables in practice. Concludes with a final example of an effective approach. (SR)

Shows how students majoring in technical writing can use the professional vocabularies of their own disciplines (engineering, business, and computer science) to explain literature and gain fresh insights into how writers write. (SR)

Points out that desktop publishing is a metatechnology that allows professional writing students access to the production phase of publishing, giving students hands-on practice in preparing text for printing and in learning how that preparation affects the visual meaning of documents. (SR)

Suggests that cohesion is best understood as a general perceptual phenomenon rather than a purely semantic one. Discusses three types of structural cohesion based on an analysis of technical texts: cohesion produced through thematic progression, parallelism, and graphic devices. (SR)

Investigates the role that ethos takes in the scientific papers of American glacial geologists. Analyzes the rhetorical strategies of five articles spanning the time period from 1839-1988. Discovers a coherent evolution of rhetorical strategies over this time period. (HB)

Focuses on the nominal expressions in the discourse on management. Finds that these nominals recursively delete not only agent roles but also those of experiencer, object, and goal, and at the same time conflate the interests of researchers and managers. Suggests that management nominals are a particularly intense expression of modernity itself.…

Looks at a sample of instructional documents using Restricted and Elaborated Code and metadiscourse analysis to determine how easily users can read and understand the material. Suggests that the documents do not send a clear message to authors and editors and can be stylistically hard to understand and consequently, the approved standards…

Explores how participant characteristics affect the feedback collected during a reader-focused evaluation of brochures. Notes highly educated participants focused more strongly on the structuring of information. Suggests that it may be more fruitful to investigate the influence of more specific participant characteristics that are more univocally…

Discusses the typical form and content of 40 theoretical scientific papers chosen from the most-cited papers in the "Science Citation Index." Demonstrates that the form of these papers is similar to that of experimental and methods papers but that the content differs substantially. (HB)

Quantifies specific elements of technical writing style in five award winning technical manuals where combined averages for the style elements are calculated. Compares these results to common criteria of good technical writing. Claims that wide variations among these manuals show that defining "good" technical writing is difficult. (HB)

Investigates whether advance organizers facilitate the acquisition of subordinate information from text. Examines the influences of reader's background knowledge, advance organizers, relative importance of idea units, and idea units' position within a text structure on the recall of textual information. (SR)

Studies empirically the effects on reader performance of reduced text structure in technical writing texts. Reveals that removal of cues to local coherence produced reliable decrements in reader performance. Discusses results with regard to questions of information design. (HB)

Investigates the role of signaling (structural cues that announce or emphasize content or reveal content relationships) in helping good readers comprehend expository text. Finds that signals do improve a reader's comprehension, particularly comprehension two weeks after the reading of a passage and comprehension of superordinate and superordinate…