Technical communication professionals have been considering the value of faculty internships in technical communication. Whether professional societies, or industry, will fund such internships on any large scale is still in question. I believe that faculty internships are a superb option for professional development and that the benefits to the profession of technical communication accruing from them justify their support. This article reviews the debate about this topic and then describes some benefits derived from a faculty internship I served in 1991.

This study concerns the relationship between agent, author, and matters of fact in the doctrine and practice of classical empiricism. More particularly, it aims to provide a tentative answer to the following questions: how were empirical facts originally considered the principal object of scientific research and communication? What were the images of human conduct and the ethical codes which accompanied the rise of the fact as the prime object of human understanding? What rhetorical sources were originally deployed for the purpose of the communication of scientific factual knowledge? The historical study of empiricism provides a critical perspective on positivism on the one hand, and social constructivism on the other. It yields important insights into the linkage between experience and intentionality and its role in establishing trust in collective processes of learning.

The problems in technical communications are related more to logical structure than to language. Structure problems occur at document, section, paragraph, and sentence levels. Editing is most effective if it deals with structure first. Structure deficiencies can be detected by applying a range of logical analysis criteria to each text part: looking at the nature and quality of its content and the use of the appropriate discourse sequence. The nature of the content determines where the text part belongs in the section or elsewhere in the document structure. Sufficient definition eliminates vagueness. The correct discourse sequence determines the internal structure of the text part. Lists, headings, classifications, and organograms must comply with the laws of categorization and relevant logical criteria, including some arrived at by lateral thinking.

In using a community model of communication based on consensus, we adopt a double-edged notion that encompasses both harmony and coercion within the community. But the possibility that any one of us might engage in coercion and/or terror when we intend to create harmony is something we would rather not acknowledge. So we use the metaphor “community” only in its benign aspect, in its possibility of harmony, to describe communication. This article explores how ideas of harmony and coercion play out in the metaphor of community and suggests four dimensions as continua along which communities could be described: choice/chance, time/space, abstract/concrete, affinity/proximity. If we break up the clearly bounded, either/or approach to modeling community, we can better accommodate the ambiguity we intuitively understand as an important part of communication.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that using a restricted language called Simplified English (SE) to write procedural documents is the best method to accommodate specific audiences. Providing empirical data to prove or disprove this hypothesis is the point of the experiment reported here. This study examined the effect of document type (SE versus non-SE), passage (Procedure A versus Procedure B), and native language (native versus non-native English speakers) on the comprehensibility, identification of content location, and task completion time of procedure documents for airplane maintenance. This research suggests that using SE significantly improves the comprehensibility of more complex documents. Further, readers of more complex SE documents can more easily locate and identify information within the document. For the documents tested in this experiment, the SE and non-SE documents took essentially the same amount of time for subjects to read and complete the test. Finally, while the difference between native and non-native English speakers could not be tested statistically because of extremely different cell sizes, the comprehensibility and content location scores for the native and non-native speakers appear to be quite different, with the non-native speakers benefiting from SE more than the native speakers.

Acquaintance with the writing of nurses would help instructors design assignments for nursing students who enroll in basic technical writing courses. Based on secondary research, samples of nursing documentation, and interviews with seventy-six bedside nurses, thirty nurse managers, and five nurse consultants, this study discusses the importance of writing tasks for nurses and describes the most common documents nurses generate. Good writing skills for nurses improve healthcare delivery and promote empowerment in a predominantly female profession. However, most of the bedside nurses and all the nurse managers and consultants believe nurses have significant writing problems. This article suggests instruction in six communication principles and several types of assignments that would help prepare nursing students in technical writing courses for future writing activities.

Competent writers usually avoid ambiguity, but there are some types of writing tasks such as advertising in which a writer might actually want to create ambiguous wordplays. Among the most interesting of the wordplays are those which involve structural ambiguities. In the natural course of brainstorming, advertisers will occasionally generate structural ambiguities, but a more conscious understanding of the structure of a language could make the generation of such ambiguities easier. The English language contains some characteristics and patterns which contribute significantly toward creating structural ambiguities. And if ad writers know where to focus their attention, structurally ambiguous wordplays can be generated more from design than happenstance. This article examines some of the structural features of the language which could prove useful to advertisers who wish to create deliberate structural ambiguities.

There is much debate and confusion about the use of the passive voice in texts in general, and in computer manuals in particular. For example, it is often stated that the passive should be avoided, but on the other hand, it may also have a clear function in a text. The aim of this article is to provide clarity by presenting a straightforward principle for the use of the passive voice in computer manuals. This “alternation principle,” in which active voice is used for user actions and the passive voice for automatic computer, is backed by results from recent functional and cognitive linguistic research. It is illustrated by means of fragments from several computer manuals, including some (apparent) counter-examples.

Recently, a new operatorial perspective on language has emerged [1]. As a result, a specific, analogical solution within such an approach is being developed [2]. This article describes that position briefly and sketches how such a perspective can lead to a theoretical justification of selected elements of established technical writing practice.

Several recent journal articles, especially the one by Charles Sides [1], have questioned the form and function of technical communication. Based on actual experience with three organizations in Oregon, this writer proposes a need to rethink what we teach our technical writing students and how we go about designing assignments that“… simulate the reality of a work environment” [2]. This article will explore the types of technical writing skills which are increasingly in demand and then will offer several strategies for teaching these skills at the college level.

In 1917 Frank Aydelotte, an English professor at MIT, became AT&T's first outside writing consultant. Because many of its older, better-educated male employees had been mobilized to fight World War I, the company found itself with numerous young, poorly-educated employees. Drawing on the humanistic approach to writing instruction that he had developed at MIT in his book English and Engineering, Aydelotte created a year-long program at AT&T that taught employees to think and write about issues important to their work. The course is important for two reasons: first, it offers insight into the kinds of early consulting work that English professors did, and, second, it shows that Aydelotte's humanistic approach to technical communication worked as well in business as it did in academic settings.

This study examines General Beauregard's inability to communicate with his readers in his orders for and report of the First Battle of Bull Run. His orders lack vital pieces of information and are ill-suited to his inexperienced subordinates. In fact, Beauregard's success is due to the initiative of his junior officers, not to any carefully thought out plan of his own. Beauregard also fails to consider the political ramifications of certain statements he makes in his report of the battle. These statements offend President Jefferson Davis and lead to Beauregard's demotion and banishment to the West.

Organizational values, as a subset of organizational culture, provide behavioral guidelines for employees in organizations. This article proposes that metaphorical imagery can heighten the usefulness of corporate values as guideposts for behavior. The concepts which govern thought also govern everyday action. Metaphor can dominate thought by positioning perception, causing individuals to see some things to the exclusion of others. Managerial implications for the implementation of change are noted, and a process for change is suggested.

To study the affective states of technical communicators, we administered a survey to examine three areas: first, the traditional facets or aspects of job satisfaction; second, any possible differences between male and female technical communicators in job satisfaction; and third, any influences on job satisfaction such as job stress that might be unique to the technical communication profession. To ensure the reliability and validity of the measures, the survey included the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), the most widely used measure of job satisfaction in the world. The sample from the Society for Technical Communication's (STC's) membership list yielded 323 usable responses. Our analyses included: a comparison of our subjects' responses to national norms for all occupations, an examination of male and female differences on satisfaction measures, and the use of various appropriate statistical procedures to select only the most significant results for discussion. The results indicate that technical communicators are satisfied with their compensation and opportunities for promotion, but they are dissatisfied with the work itself, their supervision, and their co-workers. No significant gender differences occurred. Implications are discussed.

Recent advances in graphing software and output devices have given new tools to graphic artists and have enabled writers and technicians to compose graphs that rival those of professional artists. The products of both professionals and novices suggest, however, that the users of such software either intend to distort data and manipulate their readers or that they do so out of ignorance. This article describes and illustrates seven types of distortion in graphs, explains the mechanisms of distortion, and recommends methods for the avoidance of distortion. The seven types include manipulations of scale ratios, of the second dimension, of the third dimension, of color, of composition, of symbolism, and of affect.

One of the primary objectives of studying theory and practice relating to technical reports is to define what constitutes report writing as genre and to place this genre within a social context. Report writing always involves the investigation of an ill-defined problem and occurs within the auspices of an organizational context. This investigative and reporting function implies a high degree of ethical and social responsibility on the investigator to interpret and report the significance of the facts, making the conclusions explicit, and forming the basis for additional interpretations. Drawing on Susan Wells' conventions for commissioned reports, this article analyzes how the Tailhook Report, which was commissioned to investigate the charges of sexual misconduct by naval aviators at the Tailhook Symposium, omits answering two of the three questions Wells establishes as necessary by precedence in the genre in order to avoid making conclusions that might necessitate actions that would alter the male-dominated power structure of the U.S. Navy.

This article reports the results of survey research designed to determine how students feel about peer assistance and group writing. In general, the results are quite favorable, although more problems surface regarding fully collaborative projects than peer criticism. Statistical analysis of both objective and open-ended items yields suggestions for design and management of collaborative projects in technical communication classes.

This study surveys scientific and technical communicators to determine their perceptions of their role as interviewees in the performance appraisal interview. The results reveal that interviewees think the appraisal process is unreliable and invalid, that managers do not stimulate growth and development in the appraisal interview, and that subordinates have little influence concerning what goes on in the department. Other results are discussed in the article.

Advanced planning and thorough documentation is required to prepare winning proposals. This article shares, with all persons involved in responding to the U.S. Government's Requests for Proposals, suggestions for preparing better proposal documentation, from the foundation, the Capture Plan, to the final proposal product—all with a goal of increasing the number of contract wins.

Evaluation of Samuel Chandler Earle's 1911 presentation to the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education demonstrates Earle's role as a key player in the shift of a technical writing course which combined both the goals of an engineering curriculum with the ultimate, real-world needs of the graduated engineer. Earle's Tufts Experiment, discussed in his paper, “English in the Engineering School at Tufts College” [1], would not only provide the impetus for a decade of discussion among engineering and English educators, but would provide, in part, the impetus for the Committee on English, a committee Earle would chair, charged with studying engineering English offerings in the United States.

Time and money limitations normally make it impossible to do usability testing on every document, particularly by the method of controlled observation of users performing set tasks. I describe approaches that are intended to make the feedback from testing useful to more writers than just those who wrote the tested documents, and that gradually improve the corporate wisdom available to writers. Methods of approaching these goals include judicious selection of what to test and how, special empirical studies on issues of general importance, improving the quality of a company's prescriptive rules, and better ways of making new knowledge known and available to writers.

This study compares two community newspapers, through content analysis, for indices of elaboration identified through various theoretical sources. The object of the study is to trace the relationship of economic development and technological growth to use of elaborative elements in text describing science and technology. One community was ascertained by census and other data to be developing; the other community was determined to be stagnant; indices for depth and breadth in coverage, use of visualization in figures of speech, and other indices were compared. Copy from the developing area showed strong correlations of all indices for breadth and depth; coverage from the other area, while containing elements of visualization, showed fewer correlations.

This study examines the effect on mail survey response rates of variations in questionnaire color and format. A follow-up mail survey to a corporate incentive program was sent to more than 3,500 participants. Monitoring response rates by questionnaire version showed that a user-friendly format, followed by a two-color design, significantly increased response rates. Question wording and sequencing remained the same across questionnaire versions while format and color varied. A literature review revealed three issues addressed by past studies—structural, functional, and incentive—that impact response rates. Previous studies have found no response rate increases due to altering the color of a questionnaire. However, this study found that a user-friendly format, and to some extent color, was valuable for increasing mail survey response rates. Implications for writers of all forms of communication are drawn.

Research and writing often begin with a play of determinacy and indeterminacy, or “in-determinacy” Do. Other disciplinary levels include invention and presuppositions D1, formal findings D2, and technical and media products D3. This rhetorical approach leads, here, to identifying levels and relationships; tracing cross-disciplinary information and dominant influences; applying the results to specific cases in science, literary criticism, ethics, and technical writing; thus, suggesting a typology for furthering such dialogue.

Litigation rooted in disputes over the interpretation and sufficiency of technical documentation is increasingly common as a number of suits have been filed in state and federal courts. This article describes the matter of Martin v. Hacker (83 NY2nd 1, Nov. 23, 1993), a recent case in which New York's highest court analyzed a technical writer's prose in the context of a lawsuit over a drug-induced suicide.

Examining the history of science from the perspective of metaphor suggests that there are few differences between the literal and the metaphorical in scientific discourse. The central role of metaphors in science seems to ensure that science is open-ended, suggesting that conceptions of reality will always be open to change and interpretation.

Although there is much literature that describes collaborative writing projects in undergraduate courses, little is reported about such projects for graduate students. This article reports the results of a collaborative writing project in a graduate course in usability testing. Because the graduate students were sophisticated practitioners in career positions in technical and professional communication, the instructor made the assumption that the normal requirements of journal checks, conferences, and self- and group-assessment tools would not be needed. The results proved otherwise. An analysis of the two teams' efforts—both product and process—establishes the need for structure and guidance for graduate collaborative writing projects, regardless of the audience's professional experience.

Recent theory views technical communication not as a “transmission” of a message from sender to receiver but as a complex process involving an articulation of meanings, in which the technical communicator serves as a mediator. Ethnographies composed by practicing technical communicators demonstrate ways in which this mediation takes place. As such, the mediation casts the work of technical communicators in new light, allowing us to understand their work as “authorship.” This article draws upon practitioner research to present some of the facets of such authorship.

Two groups of university students, approximately half with work experience, read one of two versions of the same case study narrative—a traditional, printed version or a computer version. Afterwards, both groups selected from a list of paragraphs to compose a memorandum needed to resolve the conflict in the case, and, two days later, completed a questionnaire to determine retention of the narrative. The researchers hypothesized that the subjects using the computer version would perform better and rate their version as more realistic because of this version's visuals and decision paths. The subjects using the computer version did perform somewhat better at selecting the correct final memo paragraph, but overall, the results did not show either method to be superior. The subject's previous off-campus work experience, however, did produce an impact on both the results and acceptability of the case method.

This article is a case study of a small controversy involving a 1983 government research report on gender biases in naval officer fitness reports. The research at issue indicated that male commanding officers customarily wrote differently in naval fitness reports about women than in fitness reports they wrote about men, and the researchers concluded that the commanding officers needed to change their writing habits. But the objectivity of the researchers was soon challenged. In this survey of the controversy, the writing of several groups—male commanding officers, female naval officers, male newspaper editors, and female personnel researchers—is both illustrated and critiqued. The main focus here is rhetorical credibility in professional communications when gender is the issue at hand.

For three years, the School of Business explored writing across the curriculum (WAC) approaches for developing written communication skills of undergraduate business majors. In selected classes, instructors stressed links between understanding concepts and being able to write clearly about them, improved design of assignments, and improved feedback to students. Instructors participating in this study concluded that a WAC approach improved the quality of student writing and the applications of course concepts. They also concluded that these improvements carried over to subsequent courses. Students reported using more care in revising drafts and more attention overall, to writing in certain settings. Their attention peaked when the instructor emphasized writing. A minority of students maintained, however, that writing should be evaluated only in writing classes taught by English faculty and that evaluation of writing should not be used to determine the grades they receive on assignments or for the course itself.

This study examines the way side effects information is presented in patient information leaflets about drugs. In a field experiment, we tested the effects of two attempts to improve a side effects paragraph in a leaflet about a nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drug. First, a short introductory passage on the nature of side effects was added. Second and more importantly, we changed the frequency descriptors (FDs) for the side effects. A preliminary study had shown that the frequencies associated with common Dutch FDs are much higher than the writers of patient information leaflets and package inserts mean to convey. In our experiment we replaced the original FDs by lower-assessed FDs. For instance, soms (sometimes) was replaced by zelden (seldomly). Replacing FDs led to lower recall for the side effects mentioned in the leaflet. It also decreased the number of side effects experienced. Contrary to our expectations, lower FDs did not significantly increase the confidence in the safety and effectiveness of the drug, nor did they increase therapy compliance; incompliance was extremely rare in our sample of patients. Adding an introductory passage on the nature of side effects lowered FD interpretations. It did not significantly affect any of the other dependent variables.

Designing a good quick reference guide is a complex rhetorical act. To motivate software users to read a quick reference guide, writers must “prove” to readers that it is not just an abbreviated user's manual in disguise, but a different rhetorical form entirely, one visually structured to allow readers to move about the text easily and effectively. Such a structure provides readers with a sense of progress: as they need fewer visual cues to find pertinent information, they demonstrate an “advance” in their skill and knowledge as users. Professional writers from Bell Northern Research, enrolled in the University of Waterloo's Language and Professional Writing Program, successfully attempted to meet this rhetorical challenge. They designed a quick reference guide for in-house use, and then provided a theoretical framework to ground and explain their visual design choices. This article is a teaching case: it offers a summary of the students' quick reference project, as well as the instructor's theoretical reflections on how visual design can motivate readers to read and use documentation.

La rédaction professionnelle en français au Canada n'ayant encore fait l'objet d'aucune étude approfondie, nous avons mené une enquête auprès de divers employeurs et rédacteurs indépendants du Canada pour savoir dans quelles conditions s'exerce cette profession. Nous présentons ici les résultats de cette enquête qui révèle certaines différences qu'explique le contexte géo-politique de la profession. Nous avons relevé, selon les employeurs et les secteurs (public et privé), des divergences significatives en ce qui a trait au profil du rédacteur, aux tâches qui lui sont assignées, à la documentation qui lui est fournie ainsi qu'aux compétences exigées au moment de son recrutement. Notre article fait enfin le lien entre les données fournies par l'enquête et la formation donnée actuellement au Canada francophone dans les établissements qui offrent des cours ou des programmes de rédaction.

The location, extent, and focus of technical writing programs at Canadian colleges and universities is largely unknown, as least in a systematic way. This article reports the results of one survey of English-language programs. These programs are identified and representative ones are described in more detail. In the light of these findings, we discuss the need for more programs and the focus of these programs.

This select bibliography highlights research on technical communication published by, for or about Canadians. It classifies Canadian research by form (books and articles) and by subject (translation studies; technology studies; graphics studies; historical studies; studies of the profession; specialty studies; genre studies; and linguistics/stylistic analyses).

This article examines the frequency and discourse functions of 752 active transitive clauses in a 66,500-word corpus of sixteen research articles in the physical sciences. The overall rate of actives was only 34 percent; the rates were lowest in the Methods (12%) and Abstracts (27%), higher in Introductions (41%) and Results (40%), and highest in Discussions (44%) and Conclusions (52%). The active was often required because of the principle of end-weight. Throughout the research article actives with “real world” grammatical subjects were used to state “scientific truths.” The most prominent other functions tended to vary from section to section and to correlate somewhat with the semantic subcategory of the grammatical subject. Active clauses with human subjects were used to cite research and to introduce metadiscourse, while ones with discourse subjects were used to introduce graphics, and ones with research process subjects and research product subjects were used to make evidential statements about results.

The prescriptive principles often used to improve writing in general genres have little relevance to the very complex legal prose found in acts or other technically legal documents. This article explores some of the stylistic complexities of definitions and requirements in a Canadian Provincial Act, and generates and justifies fifteen recommendations for creating a plainer legal language in acts. The recommendations range from orthographic presentation, referencing, and sentence arrangement to complex listing, clause separations and punctuation. Although only the English language version of the Act is studied in detail, reference is made to the French version where that is helpful.

As trade becomes global and technology allows more of the production of documentation to be done in-house, the difference between the roles of technical writers and translators is narrowing. The assumptions underlying the training of technical translators and notions of quality in technical language do not yet reflect this change. Quality implies standards, and that has recently come to mean international standards. The concluding part of this article will look at some of the implications of the standardization of text conventions for communicating procedures across languages and cultures.

In earlier centuries, authors of medical works intended for popular readers defended their use of the vernacular against potential criticism from their learned colleagues. Scholars have shown that by the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries such defence reflected rhetorical posturing more than political reality. This article examines self-help medical literature in 19th-century Canada, revealing that authors adopted a similar stance in writing for the public. Not only did this rhetorical convention continue, but it also did not assure adoption of the plain style advocated. Moreover, a comparison of their style with that of medical textbook authors reveals few real differences.

Documentation can be designed specifically to help people perform physical tasks. Research in computing, motor learning and in music and sports instruction suggests that documentation is more effective when it takes into account how people think about physical tasks.

An online advisory system is described which offers guidelines and recommendations for text writers. The system tries to meet two essential requirements: easy switching from the text processing software to the online advice, and optimal access which enables the user to find relevant materials as easy as possible. The authors describe some studies with prototypes of the system. An analysis of information-seeking behavior yields some fundamental issues to be investigated in order to improve the usefulness of the system in the future.

The results of our recent survey of the membership of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, Associated Writing Programs, and the Council of Writing Program Administration indicate the relative health of undergraduate writing programs (major, concentration, or certificate programs, not service courses) in American four-year universities and colleges. During the past five years there has been a significant increase in the number of undergraduate writing programs, including technical and professional writing. But responses to our survey also suggest that while undergraduate technical and professional writing programs comprise the second largest group of programs (behind creative writing) they are not increasing as rapidly as a new kind of undergraduate writing program—a broad-based program that students can complete by taking a wide range of creative writing, composition, journalism, and technical and professional writing courses. The future seems unclear for traditional undergraduate technical and professional writing programs, and faculties need to examine their options in designing or redesigning their programs.

How can Technical Writing teachers better prepare students for their careers? Corporations suggest that they want employees who can work together on teams, solve problems, and communicate. This requirement is due to the changing nature of business which is no longer industrial, employing a top-down managerial hierarchy. Today's businesses focus on information and employ a horizontal management which leans heavily on the employee who works in inter-organizational teams. First, we show our students how writing is a problem-solving activity. Next, we emphasize this point by assigning numerous short and long team projects which require problem solving and communication.

Why are technical writers needed to “translate” the work of technologists into accessible communication? This article looks briefly at the situation that creates the need for technical writers and then argues for a change in that situation so technologists can communicate for themselves. The argument is based on Martin Heidegger's philosophy of meaning, language, and communication. It recommends greater, active involvement of technologists with the “real world” in which their technology will be used, including involvement with people with whom and for whom the technology is being developed. Key concepts presented are that meaning lies in socially-agreed relations among things in the world, not in words or in the relations between words and things; that language actually manifests rather than represents reality; and that technical writers are incapable of fully appreciating and communicating the meaning of what technologists do because they come from a different discipline which constructs meaning differently. It argues that a change in technology practice will engender a new attitude and approach to technical communication that can make technical writers unnecessary except as communication teachers who help develop the communication skills of technologists.

This research project focuses on the nature of oral presentations given (and produced) by scientific, technical, and managerial professionals working in business and industry. Our findings are survey-based; they reflect responses to a range of “issues” about technical/professional presentations, including these: 1) frequency; 2) target audience(s); 3) objectives; 4) types; 5) lengths; 6) data/information base; 7) use of visuals; 8) equipment; 9) obstacles; and 10) training. Our results indicate that presentations are frequently used in business, industry, and government and involve a wide variety of managerial audiences within organizations. Primary objectives of presenters surveyed are to inform (“sharing information”) and instruct/train.

The customary approach to classifying multiple audiences for written discourse is to recognize primary, secondary, and immediate audiences, and, in some cases, gatekeeping audiences. Based on findings from an ethnographic case study of engineering authors in an R&D setting, this article suggests that authors should also attend to watchdog audiences as they write. A watchdog audience pays close attention to the written transaction between the author and the primary audience. Authors must direct their discourse toward the primary audience, but they must also keep the motives and purposes of the watchdog audience in mind as they write and revise. The watchdog audience in my case study, while it had no direct leverage or other organizational power over the authors, still influenced the authors extensively as they revised their text. Evidence indicates that, beyond the apparent and traditional sources of power, there are more contextual, hidden, socially mediated power relationships equally capable of shaping written discourse.

Evaluation of five editions of John M. Lannon's Technical Writing (1979–1991), one of the top-selling technical writing texts available to educators today, demonstrates not only where technical communication has been, but also where it is going. Lannon's book (and his comments in an interview) begins to shed some light on how one man's textbook on technical communication responded to social conditions in the 80s.

This article describes the design and evaluation of a formal writing assessment program within a technical writing course. Our purpose in this base-line study was to evaluate student writing at the conclusion of the course. In implementing this evaluation, we addressed fundamental issues of sound assessment: reliability and validity. Our program may encourage others seeking to assess educational outcomes in technical writing courses.

This study investigates The Treatise on Fishing with an Angle from The Book of Saint Albans to determine how a fifteenth-century author approached the problem of writing accurate, technical prose on angling, a subject never before treated in a written work. The examination reveals that many of the rhetorical features are similar to the practices of modern technical writing. For example, the treatise makes a determined effort to relieve user stress about the new technology it introduces. It also makes its information easier to understand by forecasting its organization and by using common, concrete, and consistent terminology. Finally, the treatise includes illustrations that supplement the text in ways similar to modern illustrations.