Describes how the jigsaw puzzle may be used as an analogy and a technical aid in a technical writing class to illustrate the importance of several aspects of good writing. (SR)

Presents a 10-step procedure for selecting the computer software needed to author and deliver online documentation. (SR)

Offers a model of the elements and disciplines that contribute to the field of technical communication, and develops from the model a framework for a taxonomy that recognizes differing names for parallel processes. (SR)

Compares several technical reports written by students showing the influences of a writer's identification with a community on features of the resulting document. Finds that features most affected were personal and community references within the document, writer's stance toward the reader, and definition of the rhetorical problem. (RS)

Discusses four levels of awareness (from simple letter substitution to cross-cultural transfer of technology) in how product developers view producing national language versions of their products. (SR)

Maintains that the traditional plan of development, an essential element of the introduction to a formal report, invites boredom. Argues that an ideal plan shows not only the main divisions of the report, but also its challenges (problems, areas for further research, debatable issues) and items of special interest. (SR)

Focuses on Renaissance English technical writing, which includes how-to books and legal, educational, and medical publications. Asserts that how-to books along with religious, classic, historical, and romance texts were popular in all sectors of society. Discusses the development of format and illustrations and contains examples of extant works.…

Focuses on the widened perspective of network writing and offers ways to understand its value to the writing classroom. (MG)

Managers can coach employees in writing better reports by helping them through the following steps: audience and purpose, idea generation, organization, drafting, and editing for style, structure, and mechanics. (SK)

Addresses the need of technical communicators to become critical readers of empirical research. Presents simple definitions of selected research designs and statistical concepts. Accompanies these definitions with concrete examples related to the field of technical communication research. (SR)

Offers an introduction to multimedia, the computer-controlled interactive medium that integrates in real time external visual and audio inputs with computer-generated text, graphics, animation, and audio. Discusses the multimedia team, multimedia's advantages and disadvantages, and multimedia today and in the future. Offers an extensive glossary…

Reviews central issues in the high-definition television (HDTV) selection process, as a number of technologies contend to be the chosen standard. Discusses HDTV standards and the consumer, opportunities for industry and technical writers, basic issues of technology standards, procedures for deciding standards, problems with the process, and the…

Discusses several techniques used in the popular press which may be used in technical manuals to communicate more efficiently and, sometimes, to make the manuals fun to read. (SR)

Muses briefly on topics related to workshops attended at the 1993 Conference on College Composition and Communication including stylistics, editing practice, communication versus art, and where technical writing belongs in academia. (SR)

Discusses the way in which technical communication has achieved a complexity that reflects quality as well as quantity as it matures into a significant field of study supported by both an historical base and a developing theoretical framework. (NH)