s of research papers in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication are available in languages other than English: Arabic, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Russian , and Spanish. You can find them on the journal's website, which is linked (under "Publications") to the website of the IEEE Professional Communication Society: http://www.ieeepcs.org .

This tutorial presents a workshop aimed at developing persuasive writing skills among lay practitioners with limited literacy who are required to write reports for professionals in a social-service delivery context. Drawing on Ong's distinction between the communication patterns of oral and literate culture, the workshop was designed to utilize participants' existing oral communication patterns as the underpinning for developing rhetorical strategies appropriate for their professional audience. The workshop consisted of a four-phase process of iterative questioning: identifying audience, defining project goals, formulating feasible outcomes, and assembling relevant evidence and support.

Distributed work is an increasingly common phenomenon in a number of technical and professional settings, and the complexity of this work requires high degrees of knowledge sharing and integration that move beyond assembly-line approaches to collaboration. Since participants in distributed-work settings rely almost exclusively on written and spoken language to mediate their collaborative relationships, professional communication faculty need educational approaches that empower students with language practices designed specifically to support effective teaming in these complex environments. To address this need, we employ discourse analysis and Speech Act Theory to identify these language practices in a case study of two cohorts of distributed, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural student teams. The findings show correlations between language practices and successful collaboration. These correlations have significant implications for teaching and practice.

How might the rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos play a mediational, intervening role in the successful administration of online surveys? What are the general costs and benefits of conducting survey research? Based on the activity of administering an online survey ( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> = 334) testing knowledge and understanding of US copyright law among digital writers (both students and teachers) in US technical and professional writing (TPW) programs, I blend Rhetorical Theory with Activity Theory by conducting a rhetorical analysis within an Activity Theory paradigm. I posit that a rhetorically informed heuristic mediates between the researcher and potential participants when the researcher attempts to recruit individuals to respond to an online survey.

s of research papers in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication are available in languages other than English: Arabic, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Russian , and Spanish. You can find them on the journal's website, which is linked (under "Publications") to the website of the IEEE Professional Communication Society: http://www.ieeepcs.org .

The authors assemble an easy-to-read account of research methods in technical and professional communication, provide previously published examples of research in the field, and analyze those examples to demonstrate the relationship between theory and practice. This is an overall good resource for educators, students, and practitioners who wish to perform, systematically and methodologically sound research in technical and professional communication.

Talking to the media often becomes part of the job description for subject matter experts (SMEs) who can discuss an organization's research or new products. Media training can prepare SMEs for media interviews by helping them identify major points to discuss and showing them how to present that information to the reporter. Prior research in professional communication supports the need for media training for scientific or engineering SMEs based on the public's increased interest in these areas. As part of this media training tutorial, I introduce eight guidelines based on my own experience as a public relations counselor and on research conducted in an organizational setting with SMEs in health information technology.

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> Standard in many professional communications classrooms is the teaching of the general business letter and sometimes, more specifically, the complaint letter. This tutorial draws upon the scholarly research from professional communication, education, and business to address the methods of how to teach a response-to-complaint letter. I recommend a theory-based tutorial for the undergraduate professional communication classroom. This tutorial complements existing teachings on standard form-letter writing and could serve as a supplemental component to a marketing or management course. </para>

The assessment of engineering products and services is central to the work of engineering, but the evaluation of human communication and its development in engineering and other technical professions has not yet received enough attention in IEEE research and publications. This special section begins to remedy this situation by calling for more research in the assessment of professional communication skills and training programs as well as in the development of better assessment tools and procedures. It features four new articles on the topic in the hope that these will inspire even more research related to the assessment of human communication in scientific and technical professions.

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the coauthors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.

The information economy is based on the collection and the exchange of data and ideas. We all either contribute to or use materials from the information economy in most aspects of our everyday lives. Few of us, however, understand all of the nuances of the information economy or the communication factors that affect its operations. This special issue of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication seeks to "open" this economic model through articles and tutorials that examine the connections between communication technologies and the products, practices, and services that constitute the information economy.

Technical and professional writing pedagogies have traditionally understood collaborative writing as an aggregate, cooperative venture between writers and subject matter experts. In contrast, this tutorial argues that Web 2.0 technologies offer technical and professional communication pedagogies more advantageous conceptions and practices of collaborative writing. The tutorial analyzes how new media technologies create a different collaborative writing environment and then discusses how these environments help collaborative writing methods create an alternative writing situation. The study concludes by examining the outcomes of student Web 2.0 research projects and by offering technical and professional writing instructors new pedagogical strategies for teaching collaborative writing.

When the primary aim of global, professional communication expands to include rapport building in addition to information sharing, basic parts of the communication process must be reevaluated. Such an assessment was conducted through a case study of a team that adapted a US training seminar for a Japanese audience. The team's strong emphasis on the communicative aim of relationship building illustrated how traditional conceptions of rhetorical invention, packaging, delivery, and feedback collection might be revised. For practitioners and educators, the findings of this case study prompt a reevaluation of the rhetorical abilities that are required in global professional communication contexts.

Web logs, or ldquoblogs,rdquo are fast developing in diverse social and business contexts as influential sources of discourse, knowledge, and community development. In this paper, we investigate an aspect of blogging highly relevant to professional communication: the fast-developing world of ldquotech blogging.rdquo Tech blogs are blogs that focus on information technology innovation and the high-tech industry. We examine nine months of blog entries gathered by an internet aggregator site dedicated to technology news and commentary. Our analysis provides insights on the discourse of tech bloggers and an elite subgroup (ldquoA-list bloggersrdquo), on the discursive practices of this virtual community, and on issues of identity and legitimacy. Our findings hold implications for tech bloggers as well as for managers who need to navigate the expanding blogosphere and for technical communicators who can benefit from using the information that tech bloggers produce.

Instant messaging (IM) has the potential to be a powerful collaborative workplace communication tool. As this information and communication technology (ICT) becomes more diffused at work, it is important to consider how the workers will cope with yet another communication option. Using a cost-minimization perspective, this proposition-building piece links three types of costs associated with IM use, delay, access, and error, with two salient workplace concerns, productivity and communication overload. The delay costs associated with IM use are considerably lower than with other ICTs. While increased use of IM can enhance productivity, it might also lead to perceptions of overload. IM access costs include organizational access, interruptions, user experiences, user differences, and generational differences-variables that influence one another and can lead to either outcome. Error costs come in two forms: single-channel factors and message quality issues. These likely lead to increased communication overload and decreased productivity. Combining IM with other ICTs is a likely moderator in this relationship and might help overcome the single-channel factors. The resulting eight propositions and theoretical model provide a predictive framework to focus future workplace IM use studies.

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the co-authors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.

Acknowledgements Preface The Writing Process Research and Information Management Style and Effect Business and Technology Journalism Writing for the Digital Media Reports and Proposals Critical Thinking Business Document Formats Working in Teams Job Applications Writer's Reference A Final Note... References Bibliography Index

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> Instant messaging (IM) in the workplace has become an important topic for research as IM applications have proliferated in the corporate context. However, much of the work done to date has examined IM use from the consumer perspective, leaving us with little guidance as to its use in the office. This special issue addresses this shortcoming in the literature, providing several important studies on workplace IM use. One paper examines the use of IM in resolving differing points of view among coworkers. Another paper studies workplace communications costs and the role IM has in contributing to them by increasing communication volume. Two papers in the issue examine workplace IM in an international context, considering both cross-cultural and demographic issues that impact IM use. </para>

Communication researchers have helped frame understandings about disciplinary and professional writing. But often they are outsiders looking in. To complement that research, this study focuses on insider perspectives of engineers in academic and industrial contexts at diverse career stages. Qualitative data are analyzed using phenomenological research methods. Findings indicate that participant perspectives fall along a rhetorical awareness continuum at points spanning from denial and acknowledgment to an accentuation of rhetoric as critical to individual and organizational success. Participant perspectives along the continuum also vary in terms of writer and reader roles, writer identity, career stage/organizational role, and objectivity. Implications for practitioners are discussed.

As is true for engineering communication programs nationwide, at MIT curricular and pedagogical reforms have been driven by changes in the kinds of problems that engineers solve and the associated skill sets that engineers must now have in communication and teamwork. This article presents three case studies from communication-intensive classes at MIT that intend to help students develop the advanced communication skills required of professional engineers today. Highlighting classes in biological engineering, aeronautics/astronautics engineering, and biomedical engineering, we explore the following questions: What does it mean for educational practice if professional communication competencies and tasks are the goals? How can students and technical faculty best create the conditions for students to learn to be skilled team members? How can engineering students move from mere display of data to making skilled visual arguments based on those data? The importance of helping students meet the target competencies of professional practice, of teaching effective teamwork and collaboration, and of teaching students to understand and argue with visual data are recognized as widespread needs, and these case studies attest to the possibilities and challenges in meeting those needs.

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> This paper describes a new cross-curricular design for an engineering communication course based on four themes: (1) ethics, accountability, and professionalism; (2) intellectual property; (3) design, creativity, and invention; and (4) globalization. It is believed that the thematic structure creates both dynamic and contemporary contexts for writing and research along with enough freedom to pursue individual student interests. The result is a higher degree of intrinsic motivation for the assignments. The course is a collaborative effort between an English department and a school of engineering designed to both improve curriculum and provide more assessment data for engineering accreditation. Among the criteria from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is the “ability to communicate effectively.” Along with satisfying this criterion, the course discussed in this paper details how to capture data in support of an additional four of ABET's criteria known as “a–k.” After highlighting these ABET criteria and giving an overview of the structure of the course, the paper details each theme, including their respective readings and assignments. This new course was taught for the first time in the 2006–2007 academic year, and the paper closes by weighing the outcomes and implications of adopting a similar format. The current version of the syllabus and reading list for this course are included in this paper. </para>

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> Engineering teams are often globally distributed and comprise participants from multiple disciplines and cultures who rely on professional communication support. Companies, organizations, and institutions increasingly embrace these virtual teams and use a variety of information and communication technologies to support synchronous and asynchronous team interaction (e.g., chat, videoconferencing, email, group support systems, instant messaging, and forums). More and more, communication takes place without being face-to-face. Students should be prepared for such a workplace. However, it is difficult to emulate the specifics of real-world projects in a 100-hour university course. One way to bring the real world into the classroom is by combining the efforts of 100 students into a 10,000-hour project. This paper describes the Hong Kong-Netherlands project (HKNet) as an example of an integrated learning activity among multiple international institutions that brings the reality of engineering management with professional communication into educational contexts. Virtual teams comprising students from different parts of the world build websites on specific software topics that are then integrated into a single product. HKNet has entered its tenth year, and over 1000 students have participated. </para>