The report details a study to identify vocabulary needed by Japanese students of English as a Second Language to function successfully in college computer science courses and research laboratory apprenticeships. The vocabulary was then to be taught in the first two semesters of freshman English composition. The study involved development of simple…

A study at Hong Kong University explored the use of the word processor as a writing tool in enhancing a process approach to writing instruction and the effect it has on writing performance, student attitudes to writing and revising, and the process by which students revise their scripts. A comparative analysis was done on a control group of 13…

This document consists of the four issues of "Notes on Linguistics" published during 1990. Articles in the four issues include: "The Indians Do Say Ugh-Ugh" (Howard W. Law); "Constraints of Relevance, A Key to Particle Typology" (Regina Blass); "Whatever Happened to Me? (An Objective Case Study)" (Aretta…

Two in-house communication training seminars--the first a two-hour seminar for transmission technicians and the second a six-week course for nurses and hospital technicians--were held to improve technical communication. In the first, service technicians were helped to analyze their audience--their manager and company engineers--as a motivation…

Two case histories, one in a business and one in an academic setting, demonstrated the potential for an interdisciplinary approach in teaching technical communication. Cooperation between a writer with little understanding of computer software and technicians lacking sophisticated writing skills resulted in concise, effective, and easy to…

The formulae developed to encourage the impersonal writing considered correct in academic disciplines have their roots in past gender-biased scientific writing in which "male" thinking and writing intervened to subjugate female Nature. Vestiges of this idea of a masculine order as a clearly superior state are present in the more…

The Master of Arts in Professional Writing (MAPW) offered by Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania) is designed for students who want careers as document designers in industry and government, where they will plan, write, and evaluate computer manuals and on-line documentation, training and instructional materials, technical reports, and a wide…

The entire process of legal writing would be shorter and more effective if writers would give as much attention to the politics of the rhetorical situation as they do to legal research. To do that requires the following considerations: (1) understanding the three dramatic elements in the rhetorical situation (audience, purpose, tone); (2)…

The "informal process" for writing reports, which incorporates the mechanics of textbook theory but emphasizes the composition process, may be more successful for teaching fifth graders how to write reports than the traditional approach. This process recommends a number of nontraditional teaching methods. Student choice of topic should…

Articles in these proceedings of a conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication represent the views of professional communicators and academicians who share a concern for providing breadth and quality of preparation for present and future technical communicators. Among the topics discussed in the 17 articles are…

Two sequential courses in scientific and technical French developed as a supplement to third- and fourth-year college French, in response to expressed student and industry demand, had as their objectives to develop a general familiarity with products of the large French industrial companies and their United States affiliates and to develop means…

A technique used in college-level accounting courses helped students to develop technical expertise and, at the same time, to improve writing skills. The approach was intended for classes that include both large groups of students learning English as a Second Language (ESL) and groups of non-ESL students. Student responses to exam questions were…

The results of a survey of technical writing and editing, as they are taught in academe and practiced in industry, are presented in this report. The introduction explains that the survey was conducted by the humanities department of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, as the principal research preliminary to the proposal of a…

Faithfully following a fixed set of procedures has long been standard practice in writing resumes. This process produces a passable document with a minimum of effort expended. There are, however, advantages to be gained from taking a conceptual approach to resume preparation. First, it can help provide a framework for these procedures, giving the…

This report is a statement of the tentative plans for an interdisciplinary program in document design (effective written communication of ideas to achieve social purposes) at Carnegie-Mellon University. It summarizes the current status of program planning in the following areas: the philosophy underlying the program, the structure of the program,…