Argues that reference to the term "real world" among technical writing professionals damages the field's pedagogical, political, and intellectual credibility. Supports replacing "real" with a more accurately descriptive term like "practical" to eliminate the pejorative meanings of the present usage. (MM)

Discusses how to prepare for written comprehensive examinations required in most doctoral programs and how to choose a dissertation topic and write the proposal. Cautions students to be careful to adhere to the specific requirements for the examination and proposal in their program. (JOW)

Describes how writing news releases can teach technical writing students audience analysis, formatting, conciseness, clarity, objectivity, editing, and style. (MM)

States that in addition to reflecting the social and power relationships between the writer and the reader, politeness strategies in administrative writing reflect the values of the organization. Offers a context-based approach to analyzing administrative writing, an approach that can be used to uncover discourse strategies in other organizational…

Presents an overview of principles and heuristics for designing minimalist instruction, with examples and theoretical or empirical arguments. Provides a starting point from which to create minimalist instruction to suit a variety of uses. (SR)

Presents 46 brief descriptions of books about the Internet published between 1993 and mid-1994. (SR)

Describes the 1991 formation and subsequent activities of the French chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. (SR)

Shows how and why errors get introduced into examples in computer software documentation and what actions technical communicators can take to minimize this occurrence. Proposes a method to test examples. Suggests that technical writers can avoid these sources of error by creating and implementing a good test plan, maintaining and updating the…

Suggests that technical writing is the most challenging profession in the world and sometimes the most boring. List 35 things that the field knows about technical communication (on such topics as audience, editing, writing style, graphics, and training). Suggests that there may be nothing left to invent in the field of technical communication. (RS)

Suggests that intricate situations occur naturally in the context of work where there is no clearly predetermined division of responsibilities about text production. Observes situations in which a technical writer and a software developer met to clarify specific concepts about the device to be documented, but interesting work in the text actually…

Suggests that editors resist the common urge to squeeze paragraphs together to save space. Discusses the difference between writing and editing paragraphs, topic sentences, connectives, levels of discourse, what paragraphs do for the writer, how long paragraphs should be, and the flexibility of paragraph structure. (RS)

Describes the main features of the educational situation of technical writers in Germany. Shows that professional education in Germany is still highly unstable. Discusses briefly the German system of professional education. (RS)

Discusses quality in end-user documentation for computer applications and explains four approaches to improving quality in end-user documents. Highlights include online help, usability testing, technical writing elements, statistical approaches, and concepts relating to software quality that are also applicable to user manuals. (LRW)

Presents results (in the French language) of a survey regarding French-language professional writing in Canada. Finds that the profile of the professional, the work done, the documentation used, and the requirements for employment varied significantly according to employer and public or private sector. (SR)

Explores some of the stylistic complexities of definitions and requirements in a Canadian provincial act. Generates and justifies 15 recommendations for creating a plainer legal language in acts. (SR)