Frequently, government writing is filled with complex and obscure jargon, or "gobbledygook." This book was written for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees, in order to call their attention to the need for simple, concise writing. The first two chapters provide a formula for judging the difficulty of a piece of writing and show how writers…

In technical texts, verbal nouns are frequent, expressing phenomena, processes and procedures. With these occur "replacement" verbs, which serve as the verb of the clause. These may form free associations or firm combinations, as is shown in word lists. This difference must be reflected in the design of exercises. (Text is in German.)…

A content analysis was conducted of 17 technical writing textbooks published between 1911 and 1938 and of 3 texts published recently to determine if the early texts differ from the more recent ones in the way they define the purposes of technical writing and in their treatment of style and audience. Results showed that both sets of texts define…

A study examining the writing of adults who do not consider themselves professional writers but who must master a variety of types of writing in order to meet the day-to-day obligations of their jobs is described in this report. The introduction of the report offers an overview of the work and findings of the study, which was conducted at various…

It is often difficult for students in public relations writing courses to understand precisely how their various writing assignments are being evaluated. It is important, therefore, for teachers of these courses to develop a systematic method of evaluating all writing assignments. One method of doing this is to concentrate on elements common to…

Because the Texas Department of Human Resources (DHR) was demanding writing competency from its employees, and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) had a supply of competent writers in the form of undergraduate and graduate English majors, UTSA established a writing laboratory at the DHR. A three-credit course was developed to briefly…

This compilation of papers addresses the history, present status, and trends of technical and related writing. The first of the eight papers surveys the present environment of the technical report and assesses the effectiveness of the technical report format of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in transmitting information.…

A collaborative project in a college freshman technical writing class produced multiple benefits to those involved. The project, designed to be an experiential and investigatory writing assignment rather than a perfunctory one, challenged students to identify a campus problem regarding enrollment procedures and to work through the problem-solving…

Four activities of the Document Design Project (DDP) in its first year of operation are described in this report. The activities described are: (1) dissemination of information about the project; (2) creation of information services, including a library of more than 450 items; (3) development of a three-day course on document simplification, which…

A technical writing course required as part of an external degree program (EDP) offered to military personnel provides a profile of successful use of the noncampus classroom as a teaching environment. An understanding of the interests and attitudes of military students is essential, with pragmatism and idealism as the instructor's survival skills.…

Community college technical communication programs have not resolved the problems resulting from their unique design features, including their close working relationship with local industry, the two-year duration of their programs, their open door admissions policies, and the newness of their programs. To resolve some of these problems,…

The exploratory interview is one field method for studying how professionals write as part of their jobs that is also an effective device for preparing composition instructors to teach technical writing. This field research method is a loosely guided discussion in which the technical communicator ranges freely, widely, and in depth about personal…

This manual is written for those responsible for staff development in American-sponsored overseas schools (ASOS). Program management for staff development planning is divided into seven categories: (1) mission statement preparation; (2) needs assessment survey; (3) goal statements preparation; (4) staff objectives preparation; (5) activities…

By comparing the strategies involved in creating a poem and in writing a government report, this paper presents a model of reading and writing processes for exploring the relationship between literature and technical writing and for pointing out the similarities in the use of texts. The model assumes that the student approaches a piece of writing…

This book is a compilation of proceedings from the Twenty-fourth International Technical Communication Conference. Articles, abstracts, and reports from the conference are presented under the following general headings: computers and automation, education and development, graphics and production, writing and editing, and special sessions. (RL)