Avon Murphy has been a college professor, a technical communications program director, a government technical writer, a freelancer, a contract editor at Microsoft and other firms, and owner of Murphy Editing and Writing Services. An STC (Society for Technical Communication) Fellow, he was for 17 years book review editor for "Technical…

This article examines the historical professional project that created the Institute of Radio Engineers' Professional Group on Engineering Writing an Speech (IRE PGEWS)--now called the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Professional Communication Society (IEEE PCS)--and recounts the group's early history in detail. It also traces…

The facts bear out that the odds are against most scientific researchers and scholars--especially those just starting out--in their attempts to win funding for their research projects through their grant proposals. In this article, the author takes a close look at some of the proposal-related problems and pitfalls that have historically challenged…

The advantages of peer feedback in business writing classes are clear in that feedback comes from different perspectives and sometimes carries extra credibility coming from fellow students. However, students also hesitate to criticise their friends and prefer praising in a general way rather than suggesting improvements, which requires…

Discusses the various arrangements whereby aspiring technical writers and editors receive training and work experience within the United States federal government. (RL)

Reviews typical software testing activities and then compares those activities to technical editing activities. Shows that by providing quality assurance through content editing, technical editors add value to the information development process and help give users the quality content they deserve. Concludes that product information must go…

Describes two software routines developed for authors of Navy training materials. SCAT (Systems for Computer Automated Typesetting) automatically composes and formats text, merging it with stored graphics, while CRES (Computer Readability Editing System) aids in writing readable text at the desired level. A six-item bibliography and eight…

Muses briefly on topics related to workshops attended at the 1993 Conference on College Composition and Communication including stylistics, editing practice, communication versus art, and where technical writing belongs in academia. (SR)

Reports students' perceptions of learning desktop publishing (DTP) systems. Finds that (1) students learned the foundations of DTP in under 60 hours of hands-on experience; (2) the incremental introduction of DTP functions and practice sessions before assignments were the most effective teaching strategy; and (3) use of DTP encouraged nonartistic…

Describes revision as practiced at a major scientific research and development laboratory. Shows how scientific authors, technical editors, colleague reviewers, and supervisors team up in a collaborative approach in which editors provide substantive revisions early in the collaborative review process. Argues that editors should become involved at…

Gives a case history of how one writing group devised a way to deal with the problem of author-created noun strings and long, indecipherable unit modifiers, satisfying both internal and external clients. Describes the development of an in-house usage guide. (PRA)

Discusses a method that reinforces and monitors "correct" writing and editing, reviews the rhetoric for "effective" writing, and demonstrates how specific technical writing tasks fit into an engineer's everyday writing. An example of a technical writing task used in sophomore engineering classes is included. (JN)

Describes technical writing as a career option, and delineates the most common technical writing positions in a large company: Technical Writer I and II, Senior Technical Writer, Copy Editors, Proofreaders, and Data Entry Operators. Entry requirements and potential for advancement are discussed. (TE)

Various aspects of the field of technical editing are discussed in this anthology. The 18 articles deal with the following topics: patterns for making editorial changes; the editor as generalist as well as specialist; training the editor beyond the acquisition of skills; criticism and creativity; a logical approach to editing proposals, reports,…

Describes the Service Manual Project developed by the author to teach his Technical Writing II class to interact with professional literature in a more sophisticated and useful manner. Once technical students begin looking at printed matter they work with day in and day out, they begin analyzing it and seeing it in a different light. They realize…