Since its release in late 2022, ChatGPT and subsequent generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools have raised a wide variety of questions and concerns for the field of technical communication: How will these tools be incorporated into professional settings? How might we appropriately integrate these tools into our research and teaching? In…

A graduate-level course focused on original research proposals is introduced to address the uneven preparation in technical writing of new chemistry graduate students. This course focuses on writing original research proposals. The general course structure features extensive group discussions, small-group activities, and regular in-class…

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

Investigates passive voice in scientific writing by examining whether changes in rhetorical role within 12 scientific texts are paralleled by changes in the relative number of passive and active structures. Finds passive structures more appropriate for expository purposes (describing procedures and presenting data), and active structures for…

Contrasts ideas of culture in social constructionist and cultural study research designs, addressing how each type of design impacts issues that can be analyzed in research studies. Explores implications for objectivity and validity in speculative cultural study research. Suggests how technical writing can be constituted as an object of study…

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)

Reports highlights from the first phase of a long-range study into the nature of the rhetorical principle "cover-your-ass" in technical communication. (SR)

Traces attitude shifts toward empirical research on writing since the 1960s, in light of changes in writing research, psychology, and rhetoric of science. Suggests postmodernist denunciations of scientific methods as immoral have Romanticist overtones. Finds critiques in technical communication suggest empirical methods should not be employed.…

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…

Notes that, although unillustrated text has changed from a string of unseparated words to the paragraph system, text-image relations present a continuous pattern of different degrees of interpretation and structuring for visual understanding. Suggests that human cognitive needs caused an adaptation in unillustrated text and that text illustrations…

Examines research favoring the use of active voice over passive voice verbs and the influence of active voice on sentence length and position and emphasis. Discusses the implications of this rule on technical writing. (HTH)

Distinguishes between the kind of reading practiced in schools--reading to learn--and the kind of reading practiced in the workplace--reading to do. Places computer tutorials in a third category--reading to learn to do. Suggests guidelines for designing tutorials and for designing assignments. (JAD)

Examines the frequency and discourse functions of 752 active transitive clauses in a 66,500-word corpus of 16 research articles in the physical sciences. Finds the overall rate of actives was only 34%, the choice of active voice was often dictated by the demands of information structure, and that the specific discourse functions of active clauses…

Discusses writing of United States Navy personnel to support the wide usefulness of the rhetorical concept of ethos. Shows how the concept is applied within a variety of naval contexts, from naval personnel evaluations to ship-repair reports. Discusses the Tailhook episode to show how lack of understanding of ethos can have adverse effects on the…

Explains and exemplifies terminal modifiers in the context of technical writing. Examines representative technical reports and finds that increased attention to terminal modifiers (especially the absolute, the summarizing appositive, and the nonparticipial adjective phrase) would significantly increase options for effective expression. (SR)