Two studies were conducted in order to investigate the technical communication practices of Russian and US aerospace engineers and scientists. Both studies had the same five objectives: to solicit the opinions of aerospace engineers and scientists regarding the importance of technical communication to their professions; to determine the use and production of technical communication by aerospace engineers and scientists; to seek their views about the appropriate content of the undergraduate course in technical communication; to determine aerospace engineers' and scientists' use of libraries, technical information centers, and online databases; and to determine the use and importance of computer and information technology to them. Responses to a self-administered questionnaire that was distributed to Russian aerospace engineers and scientists at the Central Aero-Hydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) and to their US counterparts at the NASA Ames Research Center and the NASA Langley Research Center are presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Chaucer's 'A Treatise on the Astrolabe' despite its medieval roots, still serves as a model for incorporating coherent organization, appropriate content, accurate and precise descriptions, personable tone, effective metadiscourse, and varied sentence structure and length in modern technical writing. This article explores how Chaucer merged his logico-rational self (as exhibited in the work's deliberate organization and thorough content) with his humanistic self (as shown in his simple style and personable tone). This is shown to be an effective technique for humanizing and strengthening a technical document. By following the lessons learned from Treatise, modern technical writers can minimize the semantic and psychological noise of a document, while maximizing the accurate and comfortable transmission of its content.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

New technology has enabled the audience to shape a writer's message. Today, publishing technical information often consists of letting the receivers search the files, extract what they judge relevant, sequence and organize it any way they wish, and even print or display it to their own specifications. Often, the writer is not creating deliberately worded and presented messages but rather, feeding molecular articles to rhetorically neutral databases, from which readers may extract what they wish. Such technologies as SGML even further limit writers and deprive them of such basic presentation devices as deciding where pages will begin and end. The rhetorical implications of technology that empowers readers and enfeebles writers are reviewed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The ways in which technical writers can team up to make a video on a technical subject are discussed. The authors' experiences are described to illustrate methods for planning video and writing a script using visual and aural metaphors to represent technical concepts; the production process, and tips and techniques to enhance the presentation. The production of videos using in-house resources, the videotaping of live presentations, and video editing, packaging, and distribution are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Existing research on lecture comprehension and note-taking, and a course designed to teach nonnative English-speaking college students lecture comprehension strategies and note-taking techniques, are discussed. Nine listening strategies and eight note-taking techniques, focusing on both macro- and micromarkers in lecture discourse, are introduced. The strategies and techniques are taught progressively and are accompanied by specially designed listening tasks. Improved student performance is shown by a t-test comparing the pre-test and the post-test scores. Suggestions are made to native English speaking lecturers on how they may adapt their lecturing styles and methods of presentation to help non-native audiences cope with lectures successfully.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Professional communicators reporting the results of experiments often need to express the fact that the differences in the data were not statistically significant and that the null hypothesis could not be rejected. It is suggested that communicators may find it difficult to express these results partly because failing to reject a null hypothesis is not the same as accepting a null hypothesis. Writers may report failing to reject a null hypothesis in any of five ways: directly and briefly; directly with the exact level of statistical probability stated; directly with the confidence interval specified; directly with an explanation of not claiming causation; and directly with a discussion of possible reasons.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Two versions of a manual for the Intel SatisFAXtion faxmodem-the original manual shipped with the product and a proposed shortened manual-are compared. It is found using either manual improves performance over using no manual; there is little difference in performance between the group using the original manual and the group using the proposed shortened manual; and documentation cannot completely compensate for inadequacies in the user interface.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Communication at the human-computer interaction level, is discussed. The presentation layer, or user interface, to computer programs acts as a shield to a far more complex array of processes. Using simple navigational and functional commands, the user can manipulate a computer program and achieve desired results quickly. This is not always the case, however, and deficiencies in both usability and information access continue to plague ordinary computer users. With increasing public reliance on computer-generated information, powerful computer applications must be amenable to nontechnical users. The most commercially viable and prominent of these efforts are explored, with particular emphasis on the evolving role of artificially intelligent technologies.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The early planning of a project organization and process is critical to the eventual success of a large, complex project. Beth Israel Medical Center, a 1180 bed teaching hospital in New York City, embarked in 1991 on a plan to implement clinical information computer systems throughout its facilities. This project is described. The project manager considered the unique cultural and organizational aspects of Beth Israel in order to develop a strategy for the project. Strategy objectives included promoting broad educational awareness, establishing quick project momentum and visibility, gaining the approval of a competing organizational department, and developing a productive and effective project team. The start-up phase of any project can make or break the project. If one does not set the correct tone and build the correct organization, one can easily doom the project before it has ever had a chance to develop.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The technical communication literature contains many articles and books providing advice on how scientists and engineers can improve their skills at communicating research results. The journal articles and book chapters the authors felt offered sound advice on fifteen topics relevant to writing original research results for publication are briefly discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The paper takes the European media revolution as its starting point and traces the history of the European Community's (EC's) first major legislation on audiovisual internationalization and deregulation-the 'television without frontiers' directive on broadcasting. Specifically, the aims of the EC's audiovisual policy are characterized as tenuously resolving two conflicting models of broadcast regulation-the trusteeship model and the marketplace model. An evaluation of the 'television without frontiers' directive on broadcasting highlights the politics of compromise at play in the EC's regulation of its audiovisual sector.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Communication during tough economic times necessitates continuous response. A case study conducted over a six-month period that focuses on an internal communications process improvement (CPI) initiative called 'Toward Better Two-Way' that was carried out in a manufacturing division of a Fortune 100 company is presented. The initiative developed an active, two-way communication channel in a setting where exchanges between managers and employees had been infrequent and ineffective.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The socio-technical system, which views production systems as being composed of both technological and social parts, is discussed. Socio-technical systems theory became the foundation of self-directed work teams-a way of working also known as 'autonomous,', 'composite,' and 'self-regulating.' Most literature on the subject suggests using a process approach to implementing any change to a self-regulating work style and phasing in the process over a period of from two to five years. However, it is shown how one factory prepared its workers for such a change in a much shorter period of time.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Professional educational philosophers C.A. Bowers and D.J. Flinders (1990) describe the classroom as an ecology comprising interrelated linguistic and cultural patterns that determine how information is communicated in the classroom. their classroom ecology model centers on the observation of three interconnected areas: the metaphors that the teacher and the textbook use to introduce students to the formal and informal curriculum, the manner in which the teacher frames student expertise and classroom relationships, and the nonverbal communication between teacher and students. Using Bowers and Flinders' model, a technical writing class taught by a teacher who emphasizes relationships, understanding and acceptance, and collaboration was studied. The teacher's metaphorical language, framing of instruction and student relationships, and nonverbal language are shown to reflect a rhetorical approach to technical writing, a caring approach to teaching, and a supportive, community environment for learning. This ethnographic study provides a snapshot of how one teacher defines technical writing and how he answers the question of how is should be taught.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

A mentor guides a protege in the direction which will best assist the protege in learning his or her job. When men and women act as mentors and proteges, they take several risks to achieve the rewards that come from mentoring. The author describes the rewards and focuses on the risks of such mentoring, which include the potential for sexual tension and involvement, misunderstandings stemming from different communication and management styles, coworkers' misperceptions of the mentoring relationship, resulting in negative office gossip, and the potential for sexual harassment. The author concludes by summarizing steps organizations can take to encourage beneficial mentoring between men and women.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Modern tools for sending the written word across distances have given communicators new ways to reach audiences within organizations and across organizational boundaries. The ways in which communicators must now rethink the sources of information available for their messages, the way they create messages, and the networks through which they distribute their messages are discussed. The steps that the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service went through when it created a unit to distribute information on public opinion to its managers in more than 900 field offices nationwide are outlined.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The author examines the relationship between leader behaviors and engineering team performance. Data were collected for 18 engineering teams (nine research, nine nonresearch) from manufacturing and aerospace organizations located in Rocky Mountain, Midwest, and East Coast regions of the United States. Results indicate that both team members and leaders believed that providing autonomy and initiating structure were important leader behaviors; however, neither of these behaviors was significantly correlated with team performance as evaluated by managers external to the team. Members also believed that leaders should exhibit personal commitment to the team goal and show consideration for team members. Specific leader behaviors were significantly correlated with team performance only for those teams with a research purpose. For such teams, public relations activities performed by leaders were important.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The authors discuss a case history of technology transfer from a government laboratory to industry, to other laboratories, and to universities. The technology transferred is a computer program named KIVA that simulates air flow, fuel sprays, and combustion in practical combustion devices such as a automobile and truck engines, gas turbines that power jet aircraft, and industrial furnaces, heaters, and waste incinerators. The success of the transfer process derives not from presenting a finished product, but rather from working closely with KIVA users at every stage of development. By making the original source code available to a broad user community, a second avenue of transfer occurs as university engineering departments prepare students to enter industry.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Academic engineers must write frequently on the job. But unlike others in academe, academic engineers have some writing problems that justify their receiving various kinds of writing support. The writing problems unique to academic engineers are that they often have little knowledge and experience in writing; they must produce a variety of documents, some of which affect not only their professional standing but also the academic standings of their engineering colleges; and some lack fluency and confidence in their writing because English is not their native language. The best solution for addressing the writing problems of academic engineers is to provide adequate writing training for engineering students. But given the already compacted curricula of engineering colleges, this solution is not realistic. The author presents some second-best solutions that can ease the writing problems of academic engineers.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Those involved in journalism and communication programs recognize the need to teach students interviewing theory and techniques. Technical communicators rely on interviews for a significant percentage of the information they need to do their jobs. Interviewing techniques are ranked in the top ten topics that technical communicators think should be taught in technical writing programs. The author describes a course with a general focus on interviewing skills and a particular emphasis on the challenges technical communicators face in the interview situation.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The author discusses two books that relate technology transfer to professional communication. Stephen Doheny-Farina (Rhetoric, Innovation Technology: Case Studies in Technology Transfers, MIT Press, 1992) builds an argument for a rhetorical perspective on technology transfer; Frederick Williams and David V. Gibson (Technology Transfer. A Communication Perspective, Sage, 1990) describe the current technology transfer process from a communication perspective. In both books, the reinterpretation of technology transfer suggests enhanced roles for professional communicators.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Do university writing experiences prepare students for future job-related writing tasks? If not, how can we create a smoother transition from the academy to the workplace? The author analyzes the differing discourse communities of academic writing and technical communication which may limit the transfer of skills from one arena to the next. The discussion considers the ways process, collaborative learning, writing across the curriculum, and language theories can form the foundation for constructive communication among disciplines. As the focus of academic writing moves from an emphasis on the individual to social context and wider audiences, it bridges the gap between disciplines and can ease the movement from the classroom to real-world settings.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The inclusion of a course in gender issues in a technical communication curriculum affords students the opportunity to confront objectivist and rationalist paradigms still found in the discourse of technical communication. The theoretical and practical foundations of a course that examines feminist inquiry into the production and dissemination of knowledge, as well as the language practices associated with professional writing and communication, are discussed. Issues of gender roles within organizational collaborative work groups, as well as issues related to gendered assumptions in science and technology, are also integral parts of the course design. A description of objectives, assignments, and tests for the course, as well as a full syllabus, are included.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The author analyzes two reports describing a now abandoned MagLev (magnetic levitation) rail system that would have run from Ontario, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada. Unlike traditional technical reports, the Budd Company Transit Division's MagLev reports appeal to utopian visions of futuristic technologies that would solve America's social and economic problems of the 1980s. The writers of these reports employ economic and political rhetoric such as risk modeling, market projections, appeals to the American dream and new frontier mentality, as well as xenophobic Japan-bashing, and downplay technical constraints on rail corridors. An analysis of these reports reveals the ethical and rhetorical dilemmas that writers face when the companies they work for seek funding for untried and untested visionary designs.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is argued that speechmaking is an art, not a science, and requires action and imagination; the successful speaker participates in the speechmaking process as an active, artistic, imaginative agent. The article is intended to help free readers from the restraints of overly practical approaches to public speaking by promoting the involvement of the imagination in the speechmaking process at every point, from invention to delivery.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

To measure how technical communicators can improve an organization's return on investment, reductions in calls for support, increases in customer satisfaction, or increases in workers' productivity may be measured. The authors describe a project funded by the Society for Technical Communication in which they are studying how technical communicators add value by increasing an organization's return on its investment. A project questionnaire is included.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Starting with the premise that there are two different ways of viewing readers, as empirical subjects and as rhetorical participants, the author presents a taxonomy of roles that readers play within technical documents. Even though these roles are shaped by distinct, often contradictory, theoretical traditions, they take on an independent existence during the reading process. Actual readers can assume a variety of roles, depending on the nature of the document and the willingness of each particular reader. Further, the author argues that this taxonomy is not complete, but subject to changes and additions as new technologies are developed requiring new roles to be played. It is concluded that researchers and teachers should encourage this more fluid view of audience in usability testing labs and classroom settings.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is pointed out that writers and editors have powerful formatting and typographical tools available in word processing and desktop publishing software that can be applied to headings to visually reveal or signal the structure of text, and thus the author's perspective. Results of studies are presented which suggest that (1) visual discriminations among headings are easier for a reader to make when headings vary on fewer rather than more formatting and typographical dimensions, (2) size is the most powerful visual cue to a heading's hierarchical position, (3) relative size differences among different levels of headings of about 20% are more discriminable than are absolute size differences, and (4) formatting cues are perceived by readers consistently but not necessarily conventionally.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

For pt.I see ibid., vol.32, no.2, p.83-93 (1991). The authors explore the two-year Danish CIM/GEMS project in computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) at the Technical University of Denmark to show how writing is an act of technology and knowledge representation, a vehicle of their transfer to a user community, and, if successful, an accommodation of technology to its users. They address creators and users of system documentation who need documentation for CIM implementation. The authors argue that documentation is often better for representing and explaining a CIM system than the actual system itself, and they recommend that documentation production be viewed not as a separate, end-of-project activity but as an integrated part of technical development. Planned and regular documentation production can in fact be a stimulus and aid to technical development, possibly even shortening the project life cycle.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Two recent books that extend the claim that scientific inquiry is rhetorical are compared and contrasted: Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society by Bruno Latour, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987, and The Rhetoric of Science by Alan G. Gross, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990. Latour argues the importance of social networks in science: claims become facts when numerous resources and allies are gathered to support them. Gross applies rhetoric as defined by Aristotle to scientific texts and argues that the claims of science are solely the products of persuasion.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The author examines three of the most important factors that affect readers' and writers' perceptions of clarity: precision, document accessibility, and corporate language context. Each factor is defined and examined in terms of its influence on clarity. The result is a better understanding of the multiple factors that need to be considered before one passes judgment on a document's clarity.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The authors describe and classify different hypertext documentation approaches by surveying a number of existing systems. They comprehensively list features of each system but do not numerically compare systems because of the subjective nature of evaluation. Instead, the data provided should be used as a basis for local comparisons by the reader. The classification breaks systems down according to publishing type, i.e. those designed for both publishing and accessing hypertext, either publishing or accessing documentation, and those that use general-purpose hypertext systems for document production and presentation. These categories are further subdivided according to functionality and specific system information.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The authors describe scenario-based task help, a design approach for online task help that attempts to assist new users in accomplishing useful work quickly and to provide quick-reference task information for users familiar with a product. The main idea of this approach is to understand the user's goals and associated tasks, to construct scenarios reflecting these tasks, and then to map the tasks to user interactions with a product. The authors describe this approach and a prototype that demonstrates the approach.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is noted that computer users often do not take advantage of system shortcuts; instead they rely on familiar but less efficient methods for getting their work done. The authors examine a system that incorporates system-initiated online help to advise users of shortcuts for menu navigation. Subjects received either no advice messages or one of three advice message types, varying in timing and specificity, and subjects were assessed on their subsequent use of shortcuts. Results revealed that users who receive system-initiated advice take greater advantage of shortcuts and are able to complete their work more quickly than users who receive no system-initiated advice messages. Further, a majority of users reacted positively to the messages, finding them helpful in introducing shortcuts.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

A three-stage design analysis that can be added to a prewriting strategy to produce a more efficient and portable computer user manual is presented. The three stages are: preliminary analysis, defining who the audience is, what they presently know about the subject, what they need to know, and how they will react to the information presented; needs assessment, a systematic effort that gathers opinions and ideas from a variety of sources regarding performance problems or new systems and technologies; and design for learning, which moves from gathering information to analyzing audience needs, defining learning objectives and designing the manual itself. It is shown that the three-stage process justifies a writer's work by citing specific cost factors and casts the writer in the role of a communication analyst who is capable of finding motivational, environmental, and cost issues in the organization.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The rationale behind teaching native English speakers to be sensitive to the cultural differences they will find when they communicate with nonnative speakers in the classroom and in the professional marketplace is considered. A teaching strategy that technical writing instructors can use in their classrooms to foster cultural awareness is described in detail. It is concluded that such an educational strategy is important for a future in which interaction with multicultural colleagues becomes inevitable and essential for business success.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Communication professionals face ethical dilemmas daily, although in many instances the ethical aspects of their decision making are unconscious or deliberately ignored because of the communicator's lack of understanding of how to judge the ethical dilemma. For communicators, the ethical dilemma ranges from judgment of personal behavior to the ethical appropriate- ness of designing communication programs with one ultimate objective: to change the behavior of a target audience. This paper suggests an Ethical Dilemma Decision Model that practitioners can use as a disciplined guide to evaluate decisions influenced by the Ecosystem. The Ethic Ecosystem is a dynamic part of the organization's decision-making framework. Decisions made in the Ethic Ecosystem judge prospective behaviors as acceptable under constraints imposed by internal predisposition to judge goodness or badness (the moral judgment), acceptable under constraints imposed by external cultures at multiple levels (the franchised judgment), and acceptable under the constraints im- posed by the formalized rules of behavior defined by society, the organization, or the cultural group (the empowered judgment).

The application of work force diversity and business ethics to advance employee growth and satisfaction while improving production and profits for corporations is described. An ethics/diversity synergy model that involves accommodation of change and assimilation into the organizational environment is discussed. A comprehensive, targeted corporate communication program combining consistency, continuity, and content that serves as a vehicle for the ethics/diversity synergy model is described. Activities and communication channels that enhance the ethics/diversity synergy model are examined.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

A method for developing an online information system that provides employees with access to company information is presented. The method integrates knowledge from many areas of expertise: systems analysis (software development), instructional design, human factors, information science, visual design, user interface design, and technical communication. A case example illustrating the operation of a developed information system is presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The steady stream of new scientific and technical terms and expressions is a major source of difficulty for those whose task it is to translate technical literature from English into Chinese. The problem is the greater because of the effective division of the Chinese language territory into two separate domains: mainland China and Taiwan. Between these two domains practices differ greatly in respect to the translation of recent scientific and technical terms. Such differences and their implications are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Electronic communication systems, such as a fiber-optic and telephone-delivered videotext service a videoconferencing capability, and a fax network, that have been used to improve the speed and quality of communication to 15000 employees dispersed throughout the state of Florida are described. The ways in which foreseeable changes in the state's demographics, the company's business environment, and emerging media technologies will interact to affect the evolution of the company's employee communication are described.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Specific quality assurance techniques used in corporate environments that help communication professionals meet the communication challenges of today's quality revolution are discussed. These quality control techniques stress the necessity of identifying the customer's needs and ensuring that products meet those needs. It is shown that the quality control process is similar to the communicator's concern for the audience, for ensuring that communications address the needs of the audience.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is argued that, because markets are becoming increasingly global, international readers who are familiar with English and comfortable with the standard ratio of equal parts of white space and text must be distinguished from domestic readers whose international exposure may be limited and whose requirements can be better addressed by creating a document which conforms to their cultural perceptions of space. Anthropologists have shown that perceptions about space and man's relationship to it vary from culture to culture and consequently it is dangerous to make assumptions about a local audience based on experience with international audiences. Edward Hall's work on proxemics (1969), the perceptions concerning spatial relationships, and examples of technical document designs in England, Japan, and the Middle East are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Technical books written for women in the English Renaissance are shown to provide a rich source for furthering knowledge of the literacy of women, particularly middle-class women, and the roles these women assumed. These show that Renaissance women assumed active roles, were generally as literate as men, and needed books to help them execute major responsibilities in home medical care, home and estate management, animal husbandry, cooking, and gardening. They also show that women's literacy increased rapidly by the end of the Renaissance and that the increase in the demand for books was most certainly due in part to demands by women for technical and other forms of how-to books. The effectiveness with which Renaissance technical writers adapted content and style for women readers is cited as a reminder to the modern technical writer of the value of gender considerations in designing content and style.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The legal and ethical issues raised by the ability to use desktop scanners to convert images into digital data for manipulation, enhancement, and eventual incorporation into a publication are discussed. Potential legal problems involve copyright infringement and libel, both of which are familiar concerns to technical writers, although they tend to be associated with text rather than graphic images. Ethical issues raised by the available technology include concerns about enhanced advertisements. To maintain public confidence in digitally processed images, technical communicators in academia must provide guidelines for their students, both US and international, who will encounter many of these legal and ethical issues in the workplace.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

US government and industry attitudes toward mine safety and health, articulated in the instruction manuals and training guides published by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, are seen to reflect an engineering perspective based on the concept of a rational man, a perspective that undermines the ability of miners to take responsibility for their own education and ultimately obstructs effective risk management and assessment in the nation's mines. It is argued that to improve miner training and education, technical communicators must understand how underlying gendered assumptions about male rationality influence the construction of knowledge in a large government agency.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is shown that the state of the art in proposal preparation makes available a wide array of techniques and devices to help make the proposal compliant, clear, convincing, and appealing. The techniques discussed are modular format, topical outlining, topic thesis sentences, required figures for topics, graphics oriented (GO) charts, figure enrichment, expanded figure titles, phrased topic titles, action topic titles, key issues visuals and lead topics, topic level storyboards, group wall review of storyboards, proposal manager's win strategy worksheets and customer's requirements worksheets, section level win strategy worksheets, compliance control system and worksheets, and early red team reviewing. In particular, the Sequential Topical Organization of Proposals (STOP) system, which introduced the modular format and topical storyboarding, is described.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The author compares 1970 and 1990 versions of the US Army publication PS: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly. it is seen that visual communication becomes dated even more quickly than does textual communication. The later version of PS offers a visual design that has been toned down, tamed, subdued; what had been a visual rhetoric with clear (in hindsight) sexist assumptions has yielded to a rhetoric with more professional, more inter-racial, and more neutral assumptions that reflect the changed demands of contemporary culture. Nevertheless, it is asserted that a rhetoric of visual attractiveness will probably continue to exploit gender, and that attempts to neutralize gender bias are likely to fail (to some extent), for only the distance of time allows sexism to be seen.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is argued that foreign students, who spend four or more years studying at US universities, often do not realize how much their years in America have changed them. Nor do they realize that these changes will have a profound effect on them when they return to their native cultures. The difficulty they will have upon returning to their home countries has been called cultural reentry shock. The professional writing classroom seems a good place for educators to make foreign students aware of cultural reentry shock. Teachers can define the various problems associate with this phenomenon, lead students in discussion of the problems, and propose ways to ease the severity of the problems. Writing assignments may be structured in such a way as to allow students to do self analysis of the changes they may have undergone during their years in the US. The students can be encouraged to design their technical documents using their native environments as the source of data, examples, and issues to write about. These documents can also be written for an audience in the native culture, rather than to an American audience.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Drawing on recent studies of visual design and current feminist theory, and based on a research project in which males and females were asked to create visual representations of factual information, a feminist theory of design is posited. Three primary positions relevant for technical communicators are argued: (1) social constructionism is a feminist perspective; (2) technical communicators need to eliminate the hierarchy of visuals and text and represent information by balancing both; and (3) technical communicators need to emphasize the rhetorical, contextual situations in which visuals and texts co-mingle.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>