An experienced business and technical writing teacher outlines a one-semester writing course for science and business majors. (RB)

Summarizes the results of a conference at which program heads evaluated technical communications offerings. (RB)

Describes an exercise for a technical writing course on documenting a problem within a corporate environment, thus giving students experience in appropriate documentation to tackle some of the operational, political, and ethical problems common in the workplace. (SR)

Describes recent changes at Michigan Technological University from a heavily literature oriented freshman program to one that develops writing skills, especially technical and business English skills. (RB)

Describes a classroom project in which students prepare a complex collaborative document (assembled from subparts, each collaboratively produced). Enumerates advantages and problems that grow out of this complex collaboration in relation to overall goals for the teaching of writing skills. (SR)

Explains why the author, a staunch disciple of teaching writing as a process, teaches a primarily product-oriented technical writing course. Describes how he incorporates process theory into the course. Defends the emphasis on the process approach in graduate programs for writing teachers. (SR)

Identifies two developing trends in organizations which may influence technical writers and technical writing teachers: (1) increasing technology may result in an increasing need for a conversational tone in technical writing; and (2) an increasingly participative corporate structure may require technical writers to have greater participation and…

Proposes rejection of the traditional complex classification of correspondence (letter of inquiry, claim letter, adjustment letter) and the adoption of a simplified system of classification (direct versus indirect communication), addressing the genuine complexity of a specific rhetorical situations. Offers teaching suggestions involving…

Suggests that speech act theory can help researchers and teachers in professional communication to define indirectness more precisely and to determine when it is appropriate and can provide them with a means of analyzing texts and refining rhetorical principles. (ARH)