Describes a classroom project in which students prepare a complex collaborative document (assembled from subparts, each collaboratively produced). Enumerates advantages and problems that grow out of this complex collaboration in relation to overall goals for the teaching of writing skills. (SR)

Explains why the author, a staunch disciple of teaching writing as a process, teaches a primarily product-oriented technical writing course. Describes how he incorporates process theory into the course. Defends the emphasis on the process approach in graduate programs for writing teachers. (SR)

Contrasts the presentational mode of industrial writing--its strategies and techniques--with the reflective mode of traditional academic essay writing. Details industrial writing techniques and the organizational reasons for such techniques. (SR)

Relates language research to policy work. Shows how two common formats for writing policy reports (bureaucratic and legal) can incorporate both product features and process knowledge. Suggests an alternative report format building on contributions from personal accounts of events. (95 references) (MLH)

Maintains that business writing students need to be prepared for the collaborative work and writing they will face in the workplace. Explores ethical problems with the collaborative approach in the classroom. Describes practical solutions to those problems. (SR)

Shows how training videos (expository and "how-to" tapes produced for use in business and industry) can help professional writers develop verbal skills important to the creation of technical and business documents. (SR)

Suggests ways for researchers in recent technical communication studies of historical medical texts to overcome specific problems. Discusses five steps for conducting sound historical research within the context of related fields of inquiry. (NH)

Studies empirically the effects on reader performance of reduced text structure in technical writing texts. Reveals that removal of cues to local coherence produced reliable decrements in reader performance. Discusses results with regard to questions of information design. (HB)

Investigates the 5 editions of John M. Lannon's "Technical Writing," a top-selling technical writing textbook for over 10 years. Claims that the text illustrates where the field has been and where it is going. Includes comments from Lannon concerning his book and how it responded to the social conditions of the 1980s. (HB)

Claims that the development process for computer software can be greatly aided by the writers of specifications if they employ basic iteration and prototyping techniques. Asserts that computer software configuration management practices provide ready models for iteration and prototyping. (HB)

Claims that complex noun phrases in technical writing materials present major comprehension difficulties for a variety of readers. Establishes methods for paraphrasing complex noun phrases into shorter and simpler structures. Applies principles outlined to a short legal text. (HB)

Suggests a method for modeling the characters of readers and writers as they are shaped in the process of writing about public policy issues. Uses this model to examine classroom oral presentations of four professionals. Integrates consideration of writing process, audience, ethics, and public policy issues. (HB)

Describes the technical writing class as a complex organizational unit. Argues that the need to define class goals and assumptions presents a richly problematical rhetorical situation. Suggests using memos in such classes as a means of allowing students to write themselves into an effective learning environment. (HB)

Argues that, given the expanding audience of non-native readers of English and the need to translate technical writing, technical writing should be unambiguous and predictable. Explains what syntactic cues are and why technical communicators should use them. Discusses integrating this approach into established documentation processes, and provides…

Examines the attitudes of United States and Japanese undergraduate students concerning manual formats that differ in their use of illustrations. Finds that both American and Japanese subjects preferred a combination of text and illustration, and believed that it would be more effective than the text-only format. (SR)