Describes a format for writing clinical investigator's brochures for the Food and Drug Administration summarizing information about a drug that is about to enter clinical trials. (SR)

Shows how accident reports in a large government agency fail to account for the multidimensional nature of accidents in tightly coupled technologies. Proposes a three-dimensional model of accident analysis to illustrate how underlying models of causality influence the structure of technical reports and the nature of the argument over…

Assesses the role of technical communicators in electronic data interchange (EDI). Argues that, as experts in information design, human factors, instructional theory, and professional writing, technical communicators should be advocates of standard documentation protocols and should rethink the traditional concepts of "document" to…

Argues that technical communicators cannot afford to ignore collaboration. Discusses eight characteristics of a project and its staff that help determine whether the collaborative effort will be successful. Offers examples of a successful and an unsuccessful collaboration. (SR)

Offers examples of what can happen when writers try to be impressive, and instead are vapid, grandiloquent, opaque, or absurd. (SR)

Discusses issues encountered in converting a booklet to electronic format. (SR)

Discusses the rhetorical elements of technical copywriting, including its shared communicative aims with technical writing; authorship considerations such as ethics, education, and professionalism; and the concerns of promotional strategy, audience analysis, choice of media and materials, writing strategy, and style. (SR)

Makes suggestions for editing technical proposals. Discusses the marketeers, the hierarchy of hype, how to save days, managing story boards, expediting a laborious process, teaching engineers to write, writing incrementally, the art group, and the editing task. Argues that the best proposals come from starting to write early. (SR)

Discusses, in the context of southern California's severe earthquake in January 1994, attitudes to technology and the information superhighway. Argues that technology should not be worshipped as a solution. (SR)

Offers detailed "instructions" on how to fail at multimedia: make it unintelligible, ugly, and big and slow; limit the number of users; assemble a dysfunctional team; violate copyrights; and make it noninternational. (SR)

Examines the amount and types of metadiscourse used by novice and expert writers in mechanical engineering design proposals. Finds that the expert took the stance of a member of a community of experts who added credibility by citing other work in his field, whereas students took the stance of agents talking directly to the reader. (SR)

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…

Outlines the relationship between the General Accounting Office (GAO) and various consultants as the GAO develops and provides extensive writing training for its employees. Maintains that the organization benefits by reconsidering its views and that the academics benefit by learning about the professional writing context. (SR)

Argues that the ethic of expediency in Western culture, which Aristotle first used systematically in the "Politics," was rhetorically embraced by the Nazi regime and combined with science and technology to form the "moral basis" of the holocaust. Suggests that the ethic of expediency enables deliberative rhetoric and gives…

Maintains that writers and editors are likely candidates for downsizing within an organization. Notes that centralization-decentralization factors are valuable in addressing downsizing, as is knowledge of corporate management's point of view toward its investment in writing and editing. Offers five self-assessment scenarios to help prepare for the…