This study employed a listening effectiveness inventory to measure perceived listening ability among managers who were leaders in a professional management association in the United States and Canada. Analysis of variance results revealed statistically significant differences for training and gender. Those who had taken more than one listening training seminar or course scored higher on the inventory than did those who had had no listening training. Females perceived themselves as better listeners than males did. No statistically significant differences were found for age. On the whole, the inventory developed in this study may provide another dimension to measures of listening effectiveness.

Recommendations to the developer of an undergraduate desktop publishing course are given concerning scholastic level and prerequisites, purpose and objectives, instructional resources and methodology, assignments and evaluation, and a general course outline. By using desktop publishing, students gain experience in preparing documents that are professional in form and content. After students master the hardware and software, instructional emphasis shifts to page layout and graphic design principles that students apply to the development of documents commonly prepared in the workplace.

At the urging of managers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on the night before the fatal launch of the Challenger, the managers at Thiokol reconsidered their judgment not to launch the next day. Although there were no new data, and although their engineers still objected, the Thiokol managers took off their “engineering hats” and put on their “management hats” and decided to launch anyway. The urging of Marshall management and pressure from other sources intimidated Thiokol management and at least one Marshall engineer to do what their superiors wanted them to do. Four conditions created the intimidation: (a) a fear of retaliation, (b) a lack of justice, (c) Marshall's tradition of discouraging the reporting of bad news, and (d) an objectionable act, that is, overruling the engineers on a life or death technical decision.

Previous research in computer-mediated communication in both the classroom and the workplace has found that patterns of interaction may differ between individuals communicating face-to-face versus communicating via a computer network. This present study, using a case study methodology, sought to analyze and compare the language of groups of business writing students as they communicated both face-to-face and on a real-time computer network. The study found that during network meetings, participation was more equal, responses tended to be more substantive and text specific, and students were more willing to offer direction than during face-to-face meetings. In addition, students reported a more positive evaluation of their network sessions.

As in the fields of composition and technical writing, the emphasis on hierarchical organization of texts in business writing has led to a devaluation of narrative, perhaps because the kind of knowledge that narrative creates has been insufficiently understood. By elucidating the special properties of narrative as a mode of discourse and as a cognitive instrument, this article argues for the potential power of narrative in many common business writing situations.

This study provides descriptive analysis of a 20-hour training program to prepare peer tutors to work in a writing lab. The subjects included 20 first-year MBA students who demonstrated proficiency in writing and interpersonal skills. Nine students chose to participate. The analysis includes conversations, actions, and reflections of peer tutors during the training period. The process involved instructors with peer-tutor training experience, a selection procedure that incorporated a student-centered philosophy, several general meetings to orient and deal with concerns about tutoring, and a number of simulated sessions that moved the tutors from sentence- to discourse-level concerns.

Severe icing on the space shuttle Challenger's launch pad should have halted the launch on the morning of January 28, 1986. One Rockwell International manager told his subordinates to be sure NASA knew that Rockwell thought a launch was not safe. When the Rockwell subordinates spoke directly to NASA managers, however, they used politeness strategies like those enumerated by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson to blur the directness of the Rockwell manager's message. The NASA managers interpreted the politeness of the Rockwell subordinates as meaning it was safe to launch. The Rockwell subordinates did not mean it that way, but the Challenger was launched.

This study is the result of personal interviews with 17 writers in four departments at a major insurance corporation. The writers, most of whom began as journalists, share their frustrations and challenges in working for a large corporation. They explain why they rarely collaborate, why they do not need written standards for each department's writing, and their document approval process. Because these writers may have an audience of 50 million readers at a time, the experiences they share about writing in the workplace should be of interest to anyone who teaches professional writing.

This article uses a computerized style checker—RightWriter® 4.0—to analyze 14 direct-mail letters used to market books to a middle-class female audience. This study outlines methods for correlating stylistic traits with sales success. For this product and audience, letter effectiveness is enhanced by lowering readability levels, as well as by limiting the use of negative words and modifiers. In addition, writers for this audience should avoid words that are too easy or too difficult. However, no correlations emerged between success and letter length, strength of style, sentence length, or percentage of prepositions.

Despite intense research efforts by both advertising and communication researchers, there is no definitive answer to the question of what makes a print advertisement successful. Yet, common wisdom contends that lexicon, syntax, and text layout have much to do with how readers perceive advertisements. This study, an extension and refinement of two of our previous studies, tests this assertion by assessing reader reactions to a broad range of lexical, syntactical, and text layout conditions, both in isolation and interactively. Our results suggest that in affecting readers' perceptions, the role of each of these elements independently is not quite as critical as perhaps assumed. Nonetheless, this research does suggest that certain perceptions are significantly affected by specific lexical, syntactical, and layout combinations, which indicates that creating effective advertisement text requires tailoring the copy to the target audience and thinking of the text as a synergy of both language and text layout elements.

This article explores the problems and prospects of incorporating ethics education into the MBA curriculum and the business communication classroom. Although ethics is generally recognized as a crucial area of study, there is little agreement about how it should be included or taught. Moreover, these disagreements often reflect deeply different perspectives on basic pedagogy, the role of business schools, and the links between business and other disciplines. The author argues that literature provides a useful means of restructuring course work to provide ethics instruction and to forge needed links between business and the humanities.

On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez struck a reef, releasing 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. This study examines Exxon's communication efforts in the wake of that disaster and identifies communication practices on Exxon's part that damaged the corporation's credibility, antagonized the public, and contributed to the public perception of its corporate arrogance.

As more business writing instructors begin implementing collaborative writing and learning in their classrooms, few descriptions exist that show how collaboration might work in the context of an entire course. This article describes a course that integrates individual and collaborative group assignments while requiring students to work through multiple drafting processes involving teacher and peer intervention. The course was designed to encourage students to become self-reflective, flexible writers who can make themselves aware of their writing processes and then adapt them to both individual and collaborative writing tasks. Along with outlining specific assignments and the rationales behind them, we address issues such as establishing collaborative groups, analyzing group dynamics and writing processes, and the roles teachers might play in a collaborative classroom.

Rhetorical categories can and should be developed by scholars of professional writing to identify how values held within professions constrain the ways discourse is interpreted in organizational settings. Empirical research (conducted by the author and others), discourse theory, and pedagogical practice in professional writing strongly suggest that at least three categories of professional writing exist: engineering, administrative, and technical/professional writing. The author demonstrates this claim and distinguishes the characteristics of these three categories. Engineering writing is shown to respond to professional values of scientific objectivity and professional judgment as well as to corporate interests. Administrative writing reflects the locus of decision-making authority and promotes institutional identity. Technical/professional writing aims to accommodate audience needs through complying with professional readability standards. Future research should focus on defining the characteristics of these varieties more precisely. Articulated definitions of these three varieties of professional writing can help scholars and practitioners better understand how discourse is framed and interpreted in organizational settings.

Most technical writing textbook assignments are artificial. They do not force students to deal with writing problems in the same way they will be called on to deal with them in the workplace. Technical writing instructors can provide their students with realistic writing alternatives. Alternatives for two assignments that are almost always artificial—writing instructions and definition—and the benefits of these a alternatives are discussed.

To help students enter a professional discourse community, teachers must assess how accurately they both understand the community's discourse practices. Our research investigated how job recruiters seeking to fill positions in mechanical engineering or marketing were influenced by the quality of writing in student résumés. The résumés varied in elaboration, sentence style, mechanics, and amount of relevant work experience. The recruiters rated the résumés to indicate their willingness to interview the students. We found that recruiters in the two fields—engineering and marketing—valued quite different writing features. When we subsequently asked students in business writing and technical writing classes to rate the same résumés, we found that they underestimated the importance of various writing features. Generally, however, students' ratings resembled those of the recruiters in their respective disciplines. This study documents how students can improve their résumés and provides insight into the variations of discourse practices in professional disciplines.

Business communication arose from the practical nature of the ars dictaminis and the merging of process-oriented humanistic epistolography with the medieval formulaic dictamen in writers such as Erasmus. Like the Italian church leaders and businessmen, medieval English gentry soon grasped the value of correspondence. English letter-writing guides and model books, which began to appear in 1568, mirror both Erasmus and the rigid models of the ars dictaminis. The increasingly utilitarian English commercial society of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries ultimately led to the demise of the rhetorical tradition that originally surrounded English letter-writing guides. Today's tendency to use a product (formulaic), rather than process (rhetorical), approach in developing business letters obscures the rich tradition surrounding the rise of epistolary method and reduces the effectiveness of the final product.

This article raises questions about the social, cultural, and political assumptions embedded in the concept of authorship. The discussion occurs within the framework of social-constructionist theories and is based on a feminist critique of science and composition. This critique challenges us to remember that we and our students operate within a culture, that we and our students are located within gendered categories and along class and race lines, and that each of us has a history and a system of beliefs or worldview. Additionally, the author suggests strategies for infusing personal understandings with professional/academic writings.

This article presents an overview of research and unanswered questions related to gender issues in technical communication. Specific issues affecting our profession, our research, and our pedagogical philosophies and assignments are presented. The article addresses the consequences of the feminization of technical communication, the avenues for research on gender differences in communication—specifically those differences that affect technical communicators—and the means for encouraging a more gender-balanced view of business and industry within our technical communication classrooms by giving students a chance to practice writing about gender-related issues.

Modes of collaboration are gendered in the sense that they define power relationships among members of a group. In this study, the authors define three collaborative modes: dialogic, asymmetrical, and hierarchical. Dialogic and asymmetrical modes are emancipating and characterized by flexibility, open-ended inquiry, and concern for the growth and development of the individuals involved. Hierarchical modes are oppressive and are characterized by rigidity and suppression of the voices of others in the group. Two collaborative writing groups in a chemical engineering design course exemplify these modes. The first, composed of two women and two men, was primarily dialogic, and the second, composed of two women and three men, exhibited characteristics of all three modes.

This study is an empirical investigation to determine if gender has an influence on academic performance and scholarly writing. A stratified random sample of faculty from 21 midwestern universities was selected to complete a 20-item survey. One variable revealed gender differences: Men were more likely than women to perceive children and family responsibilities as constraints on their ability to do scholarly writing. A second variable approached significance: Women were more likely than men to identify themselves as doing theoretical work. Although the women and men in this survey reported to have published similar amounts, women were less likely to be associate and full professors than were men. This study suggests that the organizational culture and structure of academia privileges men.

A script-based semantic theory is used to examine selected professional writing textbooks published during the 1930s through the 1950s to show how they reflect and perpetuate sexual stereotypes. In these textbooks women are portrayed as subservient, emotional, and frivolous. Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as decisive, logical, and strong. These stereotype-based scripts suggest that men are more suited than women for positions of authority within the business world and have played an important role in relegating women to low-level positions.

Because women are now the largest group entering the labor pool, it is important to know how sex and gender differences relate to communication, job satisfaction, and work performance. This research assessed how 800 organizationally experienced and work-oriented women and men rated the importance of the eight characteristics of effective work teams. Responses to the survey instrument were examined for gender differences. It was found that women rated the importance of (a) team members' job knowledge; (b) competent, respected, and fair leadership; and (c) team members' liking, trusting, and helping each other significantly higher than did men.

To study the possible impact of feminist theory on technical communication, this article discusses six common characteristics of feminist theory: (a) celebration of difference, (b) impact on social change, (c) acknowledgment of scholars' backgrounds and values, (d) inclusion of women's experience, (e) study of gaps and silences in traditional scholarship, and (f) new female sources of knowledge. Three debates within feminist theory spring out of these common characteristics: whether to stress similarity or difference between the sexes, whether differences come from biological or social forces, and whether feminist scholars can avoid reinforcing binary opposition. The article then traces the impact of these characteristics of feminist theory and debates within feminist theory on the redefinition of technical communication in terms of the myth of scientific objectivity, the new interest in ethnographic studies of workplace communication, and the recent focus on collaborative writing.

The study demonstrates the language skills value added by business writing instruction. Descriptive Tests of Language Skills of the College Board (DTLS) covering sentence structure and usage were administered as a pretest/posttest assessment to students enrolled in two business writing courses. Instruction in business writing resulted in improved language skills as measured by the DTLS.

People need clear, direct feedback about their performance if they are to improve their communication skills. This need is as true for students as it is for employees. Unfortunately, many evaluators—including classroom instructors—find it very difficult to provide such feedback. This article briefly discusses a performance appraisal system specifically designed for classroom use, including a discussion of communication techniques appropriate for providing feedback about students' performance.

Although the number of comprehensive studies that outline methods for incorporating collaborative writing into the professional writing classroom has increased, most studies discuss only one or two assignments throughout the term. This article describes an entire course focused on shared-document writing. Over a four-year period, students indicated that they valued the time allowed to coordinate groups and to understand and complete assignments. Structuring such a course necessitates assigning work that is related to a single topic and providing students with choices, including a voice in group formation and evaluation.

Many teachers believe that lecture combined with individual writing assignments is the best method for teaching written business communication. In contrast, a second teaching method is the random assignment of students in written communication classes to cooperative learning groups. The author recently completed a study at Oklahoma State University comparing the effectiveness of straight lecture and cooperative learning group methods of teaching junior and senior college-level written business communication. Comments on diary sheets by students in cooperative learning groups indicated maturation in the area of interpersonal relationship skills—an unanticipated aspect of the study. The cooperative learning group method is recommended for teaching written business communication because it provides students an opportunity to learn to work cooperatively and share ideas in groups. No attempt is made to present the study, but suggestions and procedures for effectively structuring and implementing cooperative learning groups, including copies of handouts, are provided to encourage instructors to foster cooperative learning in written business communication.