Technical communication is being integrated into the pre‐college curriculum at an accelerating pace. However, few curriculum materials have been developed for the pre‐college level. This annotated bibliography is a partial attempt to address this lack. The entries have been divided into two categories: Pre‐College Level Material and Adaptable Post‐Secondary Material.

In a world of interlinked economies and communication networks, the translation of pragmatic documents is prevalent, important, and increasingly costly. This article treats concepts and practices of pragmatic translation, summarizes interviews with translators and professors of translation conducted in Morocco in the spring of 1994, and makes recommendations regarding language study for technical communicators and the teaching of translation in professional and technical communication programs in the United States.

Advancing technology, demands for cost control, and world‐wide expansion in distance education programs challenge technical communication teachers to find ways of delivering quality technical writing courses by distance. One distance platform, described here, is working successfully at Texas A&M University. Examining, applying, and testing existing distance theory in developing distance versions of technical writing courses is an emerging research field in technical communication.

MA students in professional writing and editing researched technical writing in specific workplace cultures. Their research is interpreted in light of recent theory on authorship as a cultural rather than individual phenomenon. Students' constructs for understanding their own writerly selves are discussed, as are constructs that emerged for the interpretations of selves and others in workplace cultures. Teaching technical authorship meant addressing such constructs, implicating issues of status, affect and effect, representation, and expertise.

Humanistic Aspects of Technical Communication. Ed. Paul M. Dombrowski. Amityville, NY: Baywood, 1994. 239 pp. Part of Baywood's Technical Communication Series, Jay R. Gould, ed. Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom. Ed. Gary A. Olson and Sidney I. Dobrin. Albany: State University of New York. 1994. 360 pp. Publications Management: Essays for Professional Communicators. Ed. O. Jane Allen and Lynn H. Deming. Amityville, NY: Baywood, 1994. 251 pp. Designing and Writing Online Documentation: Hypermedia for Self‐Supporting Products, 2nd ed. William Horton. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. 439 pp. with index. On‐the‐Job Learning in the Software Industry: Corporate Culture and the Acquisition of Knowledge. Marc Sacks. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1994. 216 pp.

Technical communication scholars have argued that communication skills can be used to promote and enhance ethical uses of technology. This essay articulates a related view: technical communicators should remain cognizant of the ways that technologies can inhibit ethical communication practices. The author proposes a framework for evaluating the degree to which communication technologies promote ethical communication. This framework's applicability is then demonstrated in an explication of the ethical problems associated with “Caller Identification.”;

One meaning of postmodernism is the recognition and inclusion of the previously excluded and suppressed. Recent developments of a generally humanistic nature in technical communication—the rhetoric of science, social constructionism, and feminist and ethicist critiques of science—are instances of such recognition. These developments deflate some traditional assumptions about and privileges associated with scientific and technical knowledge and practice, while they elevate previously denied aspects. Thus, surprisingly, postmodernism reveals itself in technical communication as the resurgence of humanism.

Drawing on arguments by Carolyn Miller, Steven Katz, and others, this essay claims that teaching ethics is particularly important to technical writing. Next, the essay outlines a classical, sophistic approach to ethics based on the theories and pedagogies of Protagoras, Gorgias, and Isocrates. This sophistic approach emphasizes the Greek concept of nomos, internal and external deliberation, and responsible action or articulation. The final section of the essay discusses possible problems and pedagogical applications of sophistic ethics in the contemporary technical writing classroom.

Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition. Lester Faigley. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1992. 285 pages. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. Cynthia L. Selfe and Susan Hilligoss, eds. New York: MLA, 1994. 387 pages. Dazzle ‘Em with Style: The Art of Oral Scientific Presentation. Robert R. H. Anholt. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1994. 200 pp. The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers. 14th ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. 921 pp. Science and Technical Writing: A Manual of Style. Philip Rubens, ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1994. 513 pp.

With over 150,000 environmental educators and communicators in the United States, environmental communication has become one of the fastest‐growing areas within scientific and technical communication. Environmental communicators are frequently called upon to facilitate or otherwise participate in deliberations about environmental policy in which the role of the public is a central concern. This article poses four models for public participation and presents a case study of the application of one model to regional deliberations about environmentally sustainable development.

Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise: Reading, Writing, and Knowing in Academic Philosophy. Cheryl Geisler. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994. 354 pp. Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and Ethical Dilemmas in Computing. 2nd ed. Tom Forester and Perry Morrison. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. 347 pp. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Joseph S. Dumas and Janice C. Redish. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993. 412 pp. Managing Your Documentation Projects. JoAnn T. Hackos. New York: Wiley, 1994. 629 pp. Hypertext in Hypertext. George P. Landow. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 242 pp. Available in either MS Windows or Apple Macintosh versions on two 3.5 inch diskettes.

This article analyzes the ideological assumptions that have driven the conception and development of hypertext, demonstrating how it has developed from an apractical romantic viewpoint that remains a very strong driving force. The article argues that technical communicators must critique and subsequently design hypertexts that are rhetorically sound, refiguring hypertext as user‐centered, historically situated, and practical.

By examining computer‐related courses and faculty rationales for offering such courses, this article broadly examines how and why we commonly use computers in technical communication classrooms, and in what ways our current instruction may or may not move beyond skill building to include literacy and humanistic issues. It then broadly outlines three pedagogical challenges that lie ahead as we use computer technologies to support our teaching efforts over this decade and during the next century.

The Construction of Negotiated Meaning. A Social Cognitive Theory of Writing. Linda Flower. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1994. 334 pp. Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing: Rethinking the Discipline. Lee Odell, ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993. 329 pp. Audience and Rhetoric: An Archaeological Composition of the Discourse Community. James A. Porter. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992. 185 pp. Approaches to Computer Writing Classrooms: Learning from Practical Experience. Ed. Linda Myers. Albany: State U of New York P, 1993. 225 pp. The Digital Word: Text‐Based Computing in the Humanities. Ed. George P. Landow and Paul Delany. Cambridge: MIT P, 1993. 362 pp. Electronic Quills: A Situated Evaluation of Using Computers for Writing in Classrooms. Bertram C. Bruce and Andee Rubin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993. 232 pp. The Tech Writing Game. Janet Van Wicklen. New York: Facts on File, 1992. Marketing Yourself with Technical Writing: A Guide for Today's Professionals. William M. Vatavuk. Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 1992. Technical Writer's Freelancing Guide. Peter Kent. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 1992. 160 pp.

Technical communicators are becoming increasingly involved in product development, often playing important roles on design teams. This shift brings with it the possibility for technical communicators to play more critical roles in balancing gender biases in technology. Feminist critiques of technology offer a range of perspectives for both educators and practitioners. Because discussion of feminism and technology in relation to technical communication is relatively new, the possibilities for applications of these theories are broad.

In critiquing the sexually loaded metaphors in James Paradis' analysis of the problem of expert knowledge in technical operator's manuals, this essay demonstrates how professional discourse formally embodies images of violence and domination that may also interfere with the responsible control of a dangerous technology. Describing the relationship between logos and ethos in professional discourse, this essay demonstrates how a feminist perspective can help technical communicators understand the pragmatic consequences of unarticulated sexual codes in scientific and technical discourse.

This study focuses on the means by which women convey authority in their scholarly publications. After analyzing a selected sample of women's scholarship in technical communication journal articles, the study explores whether traditional authoritative writing features conflict with traits more frequently characterized in feminist research as “women's ways of making meaning.”; Findings point to a need for more research into how scholarly writers develop a voice of authority; such research may challenge how we define and teach scholarly writing in technical communication.

Drawing on gender theory and research and on audience theory and research, this essay suggests that although earlier studies would lead us to believe that women would be better at considering audience during a writing task, little difference exists between males and females as they constructed a verbal and visual set of instructions.

Understanding Scientific Prose. Jack Selzer, ed. Wisconsin UP, 1993, 388 pp. A History of Professional Writing Instruction in American Colleges: Years of Acceptance, Growth, and Doubt. Katherine H. Adams. Dallas: Southern Methodist UP, 1993. xi + 192 pp. Technical Writing: Contexts, Audiences, and Communities. Carolyn R. Boiarsky. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1993. 652 pp. Technical Communication. 3rd ed. Rebecca E. Burnett. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1994. 742 pp. Technical Communication: Problems and Solutions. Roy F. Fox. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. 610 pp. Communicating Technical Information: A Guide for the Electronic Age. Donald Pattow and William Wresch. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993. 600 pp.

Because technical communicators are expected increasingly to participate in environmental communication, technical communication practitioners, researchers, and teachers should be aware of current practices in public environmental debate and related reform movements. This essay uses a controversial case in which a Mohawk community clashes with the Environmental Protection Agency 1) to explore how alternative worldviews affect environmental remediation efforts; and 2) to serve as a template for the development of a feminist perspective on how communicative practices in environmental policy making should be reformed.

The instructor and students in a technical writing class constitute a complex organizational unit with an array of interests, needs, values, and agendas. The need to negotiate and define both shared and conflicting goals and assumptions presents a richly problematical rhetorical situation. In this context, we can use the old standard organizational genre, the memo, in ways that are both rhetorically and pedagogically rich, helping students to write themselves—and their instructors—into a more vital, satisfying, and effective learning environment.

Human factors Is an important discipline for technical communicators to explore, but an examination of its historical bias toward the technological system and away from the user should be part of this exploration if we are to effectively use human factors methods in print and on‐line document development. Beginning with the advent of formal human factors in the early twentieth century, this essay reviews moments in the history of human factors that are especially relevant to technical communicators. The essay concludes with a discussion of human factors research that is most applicable to technical communications, specifically qualitative usability research, minimalism, and human activity interface design.

Signs, Genres, and Communities in Technical Communication. M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Michael K. Gilbertson. Amityville: Baywood, 1992. 272 pp. Sociomedia: Multimedia, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Knowledge. Ed. Edward Barrett. Cambridge: MIT P, 1992. 580 pp. On Line Help: Design and Evaluation. Thomas M. Duffy, James E. Palmer, and Brad Mehlenbacher. Norwood: Ablex, 1992. 260 pp. The Professional Writer: A Guide for Advanced Technical Writing. Gerald J. Aired, Walter E. Oliu, and Charles T. Brusaw. New York: St. Martin's P, 1992. 426 pp. Techniques for Technical Communicators. Ed. Carol Barnum and Saul Carliner New York: Macmillan 1993. 368 pp.

Although assessment has been the focus of many recent discussions about our technical communication programs, little work has been done to outline the kinds of issues we should address in a valid assessment. In this essay, the author notes the kinds of assumptions and ensuing questions that will surround a thorough assessment of our programs, classes, teachers, and students.

Recent advances in computer technology make networking an essential skill for the technical communicator. Particularly, the development of local, national, and international computer networks has created a collaborative writing environment. At the heart of the Internet network is the UNIX operating system. The open architecture of UNIX makes it a superior tool for collaborative writing, in the classroom, across the campus, or internationally. Central to the open system is UNIX's mode of allowing users to set file access permissions, restricting some files while allowing others to be open to the public.

A Rhetoric of Doing: Essays on Written Discourse in Honor of James L. Kinneavy. Ed. Stephen P. Witte, Neil Nakadate, and Roger D. Cherry. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992. 376 pp. Professional Communication: The Social Perspective. Ed. Nancy Roundy Blyler and Charlotte Thralls. Newbury Park: Sage, 1993. 292 pp. Business & Managerial Communication: New Perspectives. Linda Driskill, with June Ferrill and Marda Steffey. Fort Worth: Dryden, 1992. 810 pp. Business and Administrative Communication. 2nd ed. Kitty O. Locker. Homewood: Irwin, 1992. 775 pp. Contemporary Business Communication: From Thought to Expression. Joan Vesper and Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 565 pp. Impact: A Guide to Business Communication. Ann Fischer and Margot Northey. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‐Hall, 1993. 247 pp. Teaching Technical Writing: A Pragmatic Approach. Rev. ed. John S. Harris, St. Paul: ATTW Anthology Series, 1992. 191 pp.

New Visions of Collaborative Writing. Ed. Janis Forman. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1992. 197 pp. (Inter)views: Cross‐Disciplinary Perspectives on Rhetoric and Literacy. Ed. Gary A. Olson and Irene Gale. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991. 269 pp. Constructing Rhetorical Education. Ed. Marie Secor and Davida Charney. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992. 452 pp. Nineteenth‐Century Rhetoric in North America. Nan Johnson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991. 313 pp. The Interpretive Turn. Ed. David R. Hiley, James F. Bohman, and Richard Shusterman. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991. 322 pp. Technical Writing: Student Samples and Teacher Responses. Ed. by Sam Dragga. St. Paul: University of Minnesota, Department of Rhetoric/Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, 1992. 326 pp.

The workplace is becoming increasingly diverse in ways that are changing our understanding of who our readers are and how we can make effective communication choices to bridge the gaps between us. Communication problems arise because of differences in world experience, in the amount of common knowledge shared within cultures, in the structure of societies and the workplace, in culturally specific rhetorical strategies, and even in differences in processing graphics. Most textbooks provide little information on these topics, so the technical writing teacher needs to find ways to incorporate issues of international and multicultural communication into the classroom.

Through language and presentation of information, technical writers have the power to influence the perceptions and values of others. However, our students may not know how to wield this power with full awareness of its ethical implications. They may not understand that they have considerable control over how a reader perceives the writer, the message, or the context of the message. Learning how to use language and information ethically should be the focus of discussions of language choices and presentation of information in technical communication classrooms. By studying the power of communication to affect values and judgements, our students will realize the fundamental ethical responsibilities they bear as writers. This essay discusses current research on ethics and technical communication, examines specific methods that writers may use to manipulate language and to present information unethically, and suggests questions designed to teach students how to analyze situations that may involve such manipulation and misrepresentation. The essay closes with two case studies to illustrate such situations.

As teachers integrate social theory into the technical communication classroom, it is clear that they interpret the connection between writing and culture in different ways. The result is a range of socially based pedagogies rather than a single paradigm for writing instruction. This essay describes four of these social pedagogies—the social constructionist, the ideologic, the social cognitive, and the paralogic hermeneutic—distinguishing them by their pedagogic aims and classroom practices. The essay closes by discussing the implications of the differences among socially based pedagogies for both _ teachers and programs in technical communication.

With the formation of the European Economic Area in 1992, the demand for good technical communicators has grown rapidly. To satisfy that demand under specifically European conditions, courses in technical communication must have high status, be flexible, use distance‐learning techniques, and meet the needs of in‐service communicators. Such courses should concentrate on four skill areas: composition, text‐handling, elicitation (including foreign languages), and specialized technical areas. Courses must also make use of experienced practitioners and be validated by the appropriate professional institutions.

Technical communication curricula vary because faculty use a variety of approaches to develop them. This essay suggests guidelines for curriculum and program development in technical communication based on a review of the relevant survey literature on the professional roles played by technical communicators, a review of academic literature on technical communication programs, and a review of the relevant demographic data on technical communicators. It then discusses the implications of the above for designing technical communication curricula and programs.

Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) provide college students with hands‐on experience working with genuine technical documents from the working world, an overview of the writing process, and the strategies and tasks encountered in technical writing. Using EISs can help students understand decision‐making processes, heighten their environmental awareness, and generate class camaraderie. This essay details one method of introducing students to EISs and reports the benefits and problems encountered in doing so.

Rhetoric, Innovation, Technology: Case Studies of Technical Communication in Technology Transfers. Stephen Doheny‐Farina. Cambridge: MIT, 1992. 279 pp. Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America. M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UP, 1992. 312 pp. Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization. Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991. 212 pp. Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Richard Rorty. Cambridge UP, 1991. 226 pp. Color for the Electronic Age: What Every Desktop Publisher Needs To Know About Using Color Effectively in Charts, Graphs, Typography and Pictures. Jan V. White. New York: Watson‐Guptill Publications, 1990. 208 pp. Eye on the News. Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark. St. Petersburg: The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 1991. 86 pp. Looking Good in Print: A Guide to Basic Design for Desktop Publishing. Roger C. Parker. 2nd ed. Chapel Hill: Ventana, 1990. 371 pp. The Makeover Book. Roger C. Parker. Chapel Hill: Ventana, 1989. 278 pp. Graphic Design for the Electronic Age: The Manual for Traditional and Desktop Publishing. Jan V. White. New York: Watson Guptill, 1988. 212 pp. Technical Editing. Joseph C. Mancuso. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1992. 191pp.

Frank Aydelotte's English and Engineering (1917) is one of the first anthologies in technical communication. Developed at MIT, this book attempted to broaden the education of undergraduate engineering students by using the tenets of the thought movement. This movement, which Aydelotte first articulated while directing Indiana University's first‐year English program, modified for universities in the United States the education that he had received at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Rather than emphasizing matters of form and correctness, the thought approach required engineering students to think and write about issues important to their education and future careers.

Over the past decade researchers, instructors, and people in industry and academia have begun to understand the value of teaching people how to collaborate. This selected annotated bibliography compiles some of the theories and research on collaboration from disciplines such as small group management, composition, scientific and technical communication, computer science, speech communication, and rhetoric. It also includes relevant sources from the popular press.

Although collaboration in technical communication is not a recent phenomenon, the attention it is receiving is new. This recent attention has generated an increasing number of well‐designed and provocative studies that are concerned with collaboration in technical communication contexts as well as with the processes of collaboratively conceptualizing, creating, and producing technical texts. Much of this research, which is forcing a reexamination of theories that affect the pedagogy and practice of collaboration, draws on a broad interdisciplinary foundation and utilizes an array of multi‐methodological approaches, both quantitative and qualitative.

Although different writing courses exist because of the different forms and purposes of writing they teach, some continuity between composition and business/technical communication would allow students to move more readily from one course to the next, while clarifying for them that writing is primarily a system of options based on analyses of situations, readers, obstacles, and goals. In this article, I call for that kind of continuity not only in pedagogy but also in research. Explaining the value of connections in pedagogy and research between composition and professional communication studies, I conclude with various questions and avenues for further research.

Technical writing programs housed in geographically isolated universities face great challenges in regard to getting students career‐related work experience. A course in desktop publishing can provide students at rural schools with experience equivalent to internships. In the desktop publishing course I taught at Murray State University, in addition to learning principles of layout and design, students faced many challenges like those that will confront them in the workplace. They worked on projects that entailed real financial constraints and deadlines; they were required to modify their work after receiving reviews from several different individuals. In addition to providing students with experience, the course provided benefits to the university in terms of services and public relations.

Business and technical writing grows out of a need to “build bridges” between ourselves and others. With today's diversifying readerships and increasingly global marketplace, business and industry face a new challenge that is reshaping our conception of business/technical writing and the metaphors of the genre. The metaphors of “selling” and “reader‐centeredness” demand especially to be recast and subordinated to a new metaphor of interculturalism/ internationalism—"ourselves among others.” Grounded in a social theory of language and communication, this new metaphor signifies that “bridge‐building” across differences will be the key in contexts becoming at once more heterogeneous and global.

In my technical writing class, I examine two “meanings” from the Challenger disaster to illustrate the social contingency of meaning even in science and technology. These instances are the “anomalous” charring of the O‐rings and the reconceptualized assumption of flightworthiness the night before the launch. The social contingency of these meanings shows that the “object” of technical communication is not the material object as a pre‐existent isolate but in its social interpretation, significance, and meaning. Ultimately, technical communication is about people communicating about and to the interests of other people.

Structured Document Processors (SDPs) guide and control composing processes for specialized writing, such as procedures and regulations. SDPs integrate word processors and various writing aids in a controlled writing environment that prompts writers for particular kinds of information, automatically formats document design features, and provides context‐sensitive help on how to write within the required document structures. This article describes a range of SDPs now used in industry, and explores their implications for the practice and teaching of technical writing.

Teachers of technical writing typically have limited knowledge of the principles of effective pictorial communication. Goldsmith's rhetorically oriented theory of illustration offers the necessary guidelines. This theory is easily accessed through a practical 12‐question heuristic that directs the technical writer's composition and evaluation of pictorial images.

This study suggests an approach for expanding and integrating research to produce a history of technical writing. The study defines problems that reside in writing such a history, suggests research premises and questions, and then applies these questions to technical writing as it existed in the English Renaissance, 1475–1640.

Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1990. 285 pp. Shared Minds: The New Technologies of Collaboration. Michael Schrage. New York: Random House, 1990. 227pp. Collaborative Writing in Industry: Investigations in Theory and Practice. Ed. Mary M. Lay and William M. Karis. Amityville: Baywood, 1991. 284 pp. Cooperative Learning: Theory and Research. Ed. Shlomo Sharan. New York: Praeger, 1990. 314 pp. The Methodical Memory: Invention in Current‐Traditional Rhetoric, Sharon Crowley. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1990. 169 pp. Balancing Acts: Essays on the Teaching of Writing in Honor of William F. Irmscher. Ed. Virginia A. Chappell, Mary Louise Buley‐Meissner, and Chris Anderson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991. 199 pp. Reclaiming Pedagogy: The Rhetoric of the Classroom. Ed. Patricia Donahue and Ellen Quandahl. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989. 179 pp. Editing: The Design of Rhetoric, Sam Dragga and Gwendolyn Gong. Amityville: Baywood, 1989. 232 pp. Technical Editing, Carolyn D. Rude. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1991. 430 pp. Interviewing Practices for Technical Writers. Earl E. McDowell. Amityville: Baywood, 1991. 251pp. Internships in Technical Communication: A Guide for Students, Faculty Supervisors, and Internship Sponsors. Ed. Bege K. Bowers and Chuck Nelson. Washington, DC: Society for Technical Communication, 1991. 85 pp.

Classical rhetoric's ability to inform and empower the teaching of technical writing has been for the most part ignored in technical writing textbooks. This absence is curious, given the enormous body of scholarly material affirming classical rhetoric's usefulness for that purpose. While teachers wait for textbooks with explicitly classical roots, three key concepts can provide the basic framework for incorporating classical rhetorical theory into contemporary technical writing studies.

This article discusses John Dewey's transactional epistemology and Louise Rosenblatt's transactional view of reading and writing as they apply to teaching technical writing. A mental merger of the private and public aspects of both knowledge and communication, transaction is a meaning‐making process, variable and unique, although similar situations lead to similar transactions. Because English classrooms do not encourage transaction, they are not the best places to teach technical writing. However, four maxims bring the spirit of transaction to our teaching.

Ideological questions (that is, theoretical questions about the way in which language shapes our perceptions) are often ignored in technical writing classes. This essay explores how conventional classroom approaches to the discussion of the organization and theory of information can be expanded rather easily into full‐scale explorations of the ideology of the language of scientific and technical writing. Technical descriptions from biology, engineering, and physics are used to provide hands‐on examples of this ideological approach.

Developing alliances with industry may be one of the primary factors in creating a technical communication program that blends sound rhetorical theory and pedagogy with the discourse knowledge of technical communication practitioners. Creating an Advisory Board is one way to forge this alliance. This article describes how such a board was created, the influence it had upon program development, and the insights both industry and academia gained from this alliance. Although industry and academia are not the same, both had overlapping goals: to develop a symbiotic relationship that would provide students and faculty with the technological expertise practicing technical communicators could offer, but, at the same time, to provide a construct true to the missions of a liberal education.