Government writing has often been called gobbledygook—vague, windy, and pretentious prose thrust on unwilling readers [1]. Nowhere, it seems would a writing course hold such rich promise as in a state or a federal agency. While many of these programs have been conducted [2], there is little in print on designing them or on dealing with the management or course development problems unique to them.1 This case study will document the effort to design and conduct such an in-house writing program. It will provide resource materials and strategies for those who, in the future, will be faced with developing and delivering such courses.

A brief overview of methods relating language education to psychological theories and models is provided. Strengths and weaknesses of behaviorist and mentalist approaches are surveyed, followed by an outline of a recently developing cognitive-process approach. The approach is then illustrated with an individual case study from the University of Florida writing program, with special consideration of the concerns of technical writing on the topic of automobile repair instructions. It is argued that specific tendencies carry over from speech habits that are partly supportive and partly contrary to success in learning the skills of technical writing. Consequently, appropriate training should be able to alleviate the contrary tendencies, provided we take into account the operations of writing.

Communication systems serving the needs of modern organizations are complex. In a bureaucratic, hierarchically structured organization, the typical communication system will be a closed one. In a democratic, egalitarian organization, the communication system will tend to be an open one.