Argues that, if rhetoricians are to make significant strides forward in understanding writing that takes place both within and external to a single workplace culture, they will need to develop a much more expansive, complex, and sophisticated vision of collaboration across multiple organizational cultures. (SR)

Outlines a method of introducing technical writing students to Environmental Impact Statements, which can help students understand decision-making processes, heighten their environmental awareness, and generate class camaraderie. (SR)

Describes a useful training format with which virtually any process or operation can be reduced to a series of logical, clearly presented steps, key points, and recommended safe procedures. (SR)

Analyzes ambiguity as a factor in Japanese language and culture as they affect technical communication. Presents and interprets results of a survey of Japanese and U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists concerning the kinds of communication products they produce and use and their ideas of what should be taught in technical communication courses.…

Describe the specifically literary nature of engineering design and discusses preliminary evidence concerning how students of design engineering manage their literacy practice. (SR)

Notes that communication problems arise because of differences in world experience, in the amount of common knowledge shared within cultures, in the structure of societies and the workplace, in culturally specific rhetorical strategies, and even in differences in processing graphics. Suggests technical writing teachers find ways to incorporate…

Reports on an imaginary exercise in which five Standard General Markup Language developers created five different document type definitions for the literary magazine "The New Yorker." Illustrates the richness and complexity of document type definition development. (SR)

Discusses how to apply rules of cognitive theory to the writing of reference manuals to make them more user friendly. (SR)

Compares paragraph topic sentence use in technical writing with four other kinds of writing. Shows topic sentences used less often in technical texts. Investigates two textual factors influencing topic sentence variation. Shows topic sentence use constrained jointly by rhetorical genre and paragraph length. Offers pedagogical applications. (SR)

It is proposed that first year legal writing courses should include discussions of legal ethics, professional responsibility, and professional courtesy. This approach is illustrated in one specific writing assignment, the demand letter. Ethical issues that arise in other typical first year writing assignments are then summarized briefly. (MSE)

Describes the use of a personality assessment tool, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, to facilitate effective collaborative writing on the job and in the classroom. (PRA)

Argues for studying technical communication in the larger context of evolving science and technology, developing trends in technical education, and the oratorical tradition of broad learning. Suggests supplementing studies of the workplace with increased attention to humanistic questions of what a person needs to be and know to cooperate…

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)

Asserts that technical writing students can have creative fun in following a successful teaching strategy using Tinker Toys. (PRA)

Claims some technical professionals assigned to write reports or manuals interpret writing as a means of displaying data rather than as communication. Discusses specific weaknesses commonly found in such documents. Suggests that texts should convey precisely what is intended in a form readers will find acceptable. (NH)