Discusses the process of writing usable instructions, relying on organization, formatting, and visual displays to aid comprehension. (JAD)

Establishes a practical model of the document-development process for writers in nonacademic settings. Pulls together and builds from recent research about writers and writing in the workplace. Reveals the process to contain both linear and recursive elements. Asserts that writers must be involved early in the process. (SR)

Research was conducted to test the assumption that technical writers compose as other writers do. Information was gathered through questionnaires and interviews surveying 70 writers--technical writing students, students working part-time in industry, university professors, and engineers and researchers working full-time in industry. The results…

Reviews the research literature to show that academics and practicing editors do not share the same view of the editing process: academics emphasize "intentional diagnoses," and practitioners perform "rule-based" editing. Discusses editing in the workplace, and notes that the editor can be of most service to the writer through involvement in the…

A study examined the written communication at the technical/professional and managerial levels in a "Fortune 500" corporation to determine whether managers/executives had different communications purposes and, therefore, used different rhetorical strategies and approaches than did professional/technical staff. Rhetorical analysis was conducted of…

Examines the processes an engineer goes through as he/she writes a routine and a non-routine document--processes that are strongly affected by the degree to which his/her company has previously accepted the claims he/she makes as given or as knowledge. Discusses the collaborative nature of work in an organization. (MS)

A study examined attitudes toward writing that affect productivity and the extent of their influence. Subjects, 160 engineers practicing in the Chattanooga, Tennessee region, completed a questionnaire concerning writing attitudes, including anxiety and confidence, and levels of productivity. Findings show that confident engineers produce…

Analyzes three examples of research in technical communication to illustrate the distinctions among modernism, antimodernism, and postmodernism. Suggests that antimodern rejections of the scientific enterprise within composition studies and technical communication are valuable in a culture in which science seems to have unlimited authority. (RS)

Discusses the adequacy of two modes of presenting information on a computer screen, the "alternating" (screen by screen) presentation and the "simultaneous" screen presentation (different information on one screen at the same time). Tests subjects performing writing tasks using one online document or two documents, using either…

Examines the writings of an engineer employed by a large manufacturing firm. Argues that the engineer's writing, although not the final product, is the essential means by which the product is created. Suggests that, because a report reflects final, agreed-upon knowledge about a product, the product and the document become one in the engineer's…

Relates problems of law text comprehensibility to the legislative writing process. Describes the drafting of three pieces of Swedish consumer legislation at different stages. Summarizes and analyzes the results in relation to rhetorical and sociolinguistic theories of writing. (SR)

Finds differences in writing practices (among employees participating in writing workshops) based on educational level. Finds that a large percentage of workers with graduate training write long reports, write to other experts in their field, and spend time revising. (SR)

Compares successive versions of research proposals prepared by two different biologists to show how, in revisions of their texts, they altered their personae and their relations to the literature of their fields. (FL)

Analyzes the writing processes of a businessman-engineer and discovers that not all of the generalizations about composing are borne out in the way the subject writes. (FL)

Proposes ethnomethodology as a theoretical approach for resolving the structure-agency binary and for treating the activities of writers in organizations as simultaneously embedded in and constitutive of organizational context. Illustrates the value of ethnomethodology with data from a study examining the social practices that surrounded the…