This article presents a reexamination of intercultural components in prominent, recent technical professional communication textbooks. This examination reveals the need for the technical professional communication field to establish a dynamic definition of culture as well as presents a possible definition, presents areas where textbooks have…

Notes that students new to technical writing frequently have difficulty grasping the essentiality of technical definitions and learning how to create appropriate definitions. Suggests that exercises centered around a term that is lapsing into obsolescence offer some productive solutions to this common instructional problem. (RS)

Since too many technical students do not get enough experience in problem definition, technical writing teachers can improve the training they provide by introducing their students to principles of tagmemic rhetoric, a problem-solving rhetoric that emphasizes the early stages of the inquiry process. According to tagmemic rhetoric, an adequate…

Describes a 10-stage process approach to teaching technical students "definition." Includes an assignment that encourages the use of the defining process. Discusses advantages of the approach. (PRA)

Scientific and technical jargon--specialized vocabulary, usually Latinate--plays a vital role in scientific and technical communication. But its proper use continues to be a point of discussion because of our concern with audience adaptation, rhetorical exigence, rhetorical purpose, and ethics. We've focused on teaching students--and on convincing…