In this introduction, I review the topic of the special issue, distributed work: coordinative, polycontextual, cross-disciplinary work that splices together divergent work activities (separated by time, space, organizations, and objectives) and that enables the transformations of information and texts that characterize such work. After reviewing the literature on distributed work, I introduce the articles in this special issue.

Abstract This article presents findings from a recent study of mediated writing in a technical writing firm to examine distributed work conditions and how they affect the practices of individual technical writers. Distribution of labor, texts, and technologies for producing documentation creates complex information environments that writers must negotiate. In doing so, they practice two kinds of expertise central to technical writing as a profession—technological and rhetorical skill. This article examines how those skills are affected by distributed work.

We've all heard of how outsourcing practices are continually expanding in India. Well, this expansion now involves technical communication. The article is based on the author's personal experiences working as a technical communicator in India. Over the last decade (1997-2007), the demand for technical communicators in India has increased exponentially. Today, there are approximately 5,000 professionals in this field in India. The purpose of the article is to describe the evolution of Indian technical communication teams and to provide an insight into the future of the profession in India

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> This tutorial introduces issues regarding dissemination of information and texts that can affect international intellectual property rights. Four areas of concern for technical communicators include: (1) US and international rules about the disclosure of ideas and inventions; (2) corporate policies about confidentiality; (3) the complexities of international enforcement of intellectual property; and (4) principles of keeping records, including laboratory notebooks, that show ownership (including ownership of business methods). The training approach stresses a multipart program that includes understanding the patenting process; understanding and supporting corporate policies; and participating in dialogue about situations involving dissemination of information. This training should prepare technical communicators to evaluate or to recognize when to seek help from counsel in evaluating whether information should be disseminated. </para>

Communication metaphors have been applied extensively to understand the managerial performance and organizational behavior of a single firm. However, fewer attempts have been made to apply communication metaphors to understand the dynamics of interfirm relations, or offshore partnerships. While all outsourcing contracts pose well-understood challenges, offshoring partnerships are often further complicated by culture and maturity/capability differences. Our analysis employs the results of a case study to delineate the different conversational metaphors that emerged from four discrete phases of offshore information systems development. Offshore success is contingent upon successful technical communication which is mediated through communication metaphors-in-use between vendor and client. In instances where management cannot directly dictate emergent conversational styles, it can determine organizational structure, coordination processes, contract and device incentives, and task allocation in order to cultivate a communication metaphor-in-use most appropriate to the specific phase of the offshore partnership, thereby mitigating many of the complications posed by culture and maturity differences

This book addresses a wide spectrum of issues in technical communication, ranging from specific visual elements to the entire research process, from brief memos to formal proposals. Part I, "Communication in the Workplace," starts with how to prepare an effective technical document and deliver the essential information. In Part II, "The Research Process," the author outlines both the procedural and the inquiry stages of the research. Part III, "Structural and Style Elements," focuses on strategies for organizing and conveying messages that users can follow and understand: partitioning and classifying, outlining, storyboarding, paragraphing, sequencing, chunking, and creating an overview. Part IV, "Visual, Design, and Usability Elements," further enhances the discussion in Part II about technical documents. The author talks about the rhetorical implications of graphics and page design so that readers can learn to enhance a document's access, appeal, and visual impact for audiences. Part V, "Specific Documents and Applications," is a rich "think tank" of applications in technical communications. The author offers instructions on almost all the writing styles you can think of - from memos, instant messages, and webpages, to resumes, letters, and proposals. The last part, "A Brief Handbook with Addition Sample Documents," has three appendices that once again address the writing process, editing, and research findings documentation. Readers can also find a wealth of resources on the book's companion website: www.alongman.com/lannonweb. This book presents a panorama of technical communication, providing readers with a look at every aspect of this profession. It is not only a comprehensive textbook for classroom teaching, but also a valuable reference book for instructors and working professionals.

The rapid evolution of digital products has given birth to a revolution in the way we communicate. As the international audiences for our software, hardware, and portable digital products expand, the amount of time and money that we invest in translating, localising, and internationalising our products for multiple languages or audiences increases dramatically. In doing so, one tactic to reduce the word count and maximise usability is to produce highly graphic information - using pictures in accompaniment with (or in replacement of) words to help communicate our product information or end-user instruction. Although the professional communications industry is only beginning to consider the importance of localising graphic information, it is a fundamentally necessary step in producing effective information, and an important consideration for developers of information products

Almost all IT, engineering research, financial analysis, and manufacturing industries are confronted with a question: to outsource or not? The outsourcing and offshoring trend is inspired by success stories of huge cost savings, decreased time-to-market, and better quality. Simultaneously, outsourcing-gone-bad stories highlight how hidden costs exceed benefits, cross-cultural problems impact quality, and intellectual property risks shadow project lifecycles. Managers in companies are presented with a confusing picture for which there are no easy answers. Companies, vendors, and policymakers need a framework to understand the outsourcing phenomenon and plan implementation strategies for outsourced projects. At present, many companies go with the gut based on the experience of others and media reports. But very rarely are two technical documentation tasks alike and never are the concerns of two technical communication tasks the same. This tutorial presents the twelve driver framework and the driver-model percentage matrix to assess the benefits and risks of outsourcing a technical communication task. In the end, qualitative decision-making will determine an organization's decision about outsourcing, but the use of such a framework and related metrics will greatly enhance the quality of the final choice.

This research article investigates new developments in the representation of the intercultural component in textbooks for a service technical writing course. Through textual analysis, using quantitative and qualitative techniques, I report discourse analysis of 15 technical writing textbooks published during 1993–2006. The theoretical and practical elements of intercultural teaching have been expanded in recent years, but this progress is quite slow. This article provides some directions in which the textbooks can be revised. Such an analysis may be of interest to textbook writers and educators.

Localization includes translating, explaining, and adapting a document for use in a specific culture. This article presents the case of a form for reporting the findings and decisions of pre-production meetings held during development of electronic products. The need to localize such a document may seem less obvious or critical than the need for sales documents like manuals, but this case demonstrates the same cultural requirements and, furthermore, the requirements of corporate differences. To meet local needs, the comprehensive preparation that localization requires should follow specific methods in each step of a process corresponding to the general writing process, like the stages defined in common technical writing texts. The deliberate use of an effective writing process to localize documents will improve results.

A common aphorism in the halls of education is that the writing skills of Americans decline over time. Compared to the “golden age of letters,” so the argument goes, each subsequent generation of writers is worse than the last. Although contemporary readers and educators commiserate over encounters with bad writing, a fair comparison of 18th century American exemplars to modern American exemplars reveals a significant advance in clarity, an advance that technical communicators can be proud of. To demonstrate the advances in expository writing over the past two centuries, the author compares what the authors of the U.S. Constitution did with their limited resources to what modern professional communicators do with their abundance of resources. Many of the communication problems that were pervasive when the U.S. Constitution was created have since been remedied by insights emerging from the fields of linguistics, human factors, and cognitive psychology, among others.

In this article, we present a usability experiment in which participants were asked to make intensive use of information on an intranet in order to execute job-related tasks. Participants had to work with one of two versions of an intranet: one with an organization-based hyperlink structure, and one with a task-based hyperlink structure. Efficiency and effectiveness were measured in terms of execution time and task accuracy, respectively. After the task execution, participants were asked to evaluate the task as well as the intranet. The results show that participants perform more efficiently with the organization-based structure, which is probably due to their familiarity with this structure. A post hoc analysis revealed, however, a learning effect in the task condition, which suggests that once users are acquainted with it, a task structure is at least as efficient.

In this article, we argue that mentoring of technical communication students must occur within the classroom. In our survey of students, we found that most students felt they had not been mentored. In our ethnography, we found that although students could define the term “mentor”, many were conflicted about its value. This confusion made students less likely to seek out or recognize mentoring opportunities. Students recognized mentoring practices that teachers implemented; however, they did not necessarily identify those practices as “mentoring”. We conclude that confusion arose from students' ambiguous views about mentoring and the lack of standard mentoring practices in the humanities. Therefore, teachers who intend to mentor in the classroom must (a) be more explicit in implementing elements that distinguish mentoring from teaching (e.g., intent and involvement), (b) extend an invitation to students to be mentored, and (c) help students develop a professional identity.

Abstract Abstract This article reports on classroom research designed to answer questions about authority—how institutions and disciplines, broadly conceived, influence teachers' ability to abnegate authority and how students' experiences influence their perceptions of authority in a business writing and a first-year composition class. The theoretical framework is derived from research about institutional and disciplinary influences on these two areas of study. This framework and our results lead us to speculate about the ways in which our students' experience of the institution and expectations of the classes and their intentions for using the material taught in the classes may have thwarted our attempt to share authority in our classrooms. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We gratefully acknowledge the help of our undergraduate and graduate associates, MO and JB. They not only attended every one of our classes but also conducted our interviews. This particular study would not have been possible without them. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJean LutzJean Lutz, also an associate professor of English, directs two technical communication programs at Miami University. She is coeditor of The Practice of Technical and Scientific Communication. She has published in collections and journals, including College English and Research in the Teaching of English.Mary FullerMary Fuller, associate professor of English and Director of the Ohio Writing Project, has coauthored Literature: Options for Reading and Writing and published essays in collections and journals, including National Middle School Journal, Writing Program Administrator, and National Writing Project Quarterly.

Globalization is radically transforming technical communication (TC) both in the workplace and in higher education. This article examines these changes and the ways in which TC programs position themselves amid globalization, in particular the ways in which they use emerging global partnerships to prepare students for global work and citizenship. For this purpose, the authors report on a Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication-supported exploratory study of current partnership initiatives in TC programs. The study indicated a high level of activity, planning, and interest in global partnerships and revealed a range of creative and innovative partnerships that systematically integrate new opportunities for experiential learning, collaborative international research, and civic engagement in a global context into programs and their curricula. Partnerships also emphasize cultural sensitivity, equal partner contribution, and mutual benefit, thus offering alternatives to emerging global trade visions of higher education. The article also identifies key challenges that partnerships face, suggesting implications for programs and the field as a whole to facilitate successful partnerships.

Globalization is radically transforming technical communication (TC) both in the workplace and in higher education. This article examines these changes and the ways in which TC programs position themselves amid globalization, in particular the ways in which they use emerging global partnerships to prepare students for global work and citizenship. For this purpose, the authors report on a Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication-supported exploratory study of current partnership initiatives in TC programs. The study indicated a high level of activity, planning, and interest in global partnerships and revealed a range of creative and innovative partnerships that systematically integrate new opportunities for experiential learning, collaborative international research, and civic engagement in a global context into programs and their curricula. Partnerships also emphasize cultural sensitivity, equal partner contribution, and mutual benefit, thus offering alternatives to emerging global trade visions of higher education. The article also identifies key challenges that partnerships face, suggesting implications for programs and the field as a whole to facilitate successful partnerships.

Technical communication textbooks tend to address visual rhetoric as two separate units, usually a chapter on document design and then a chapter on graphics. We advocate teaching a unified system of visual rhetoric that encompasses both text and graphics within a common visual-language system. Using C. S. Peirce's three-part theory of rhetoric and his ten categories of sign, we offer an integrated semiotic system, interpreting in one model the effectiveness of graphics, document design, and formatting, all considered as subtypes in this proposed visual rhetoric, organized around three primary communication goals: to decorate, to indicate, and to inform. Thus, any evaluation of visuals, either textual or graphic, must be made with reference to rhetorical contexts in which audience needs and graphic/textual media choices should align with authorial goals

This soft-cover text provides an interesting look at technical communication around the world on a country-by-country basis. The authors generally follow the same sequence of questions, but not always. Deviations from this sequence can cause some problems when the reader is trying to compare two or more countries' laws, educational programs, or salary structures. The volume would have been more convenient as a reference text if the editors had merged the individual reports into a sequence of chapters covering the material. There is a recurring theme of educational requirements for the technical documentation writer and the fundamental lack of formal education of this type in most of the countries discussed. Even with its noted drawbacks, the book is informative and a good read for those who have chosen technical communication as a career path.

This short paperback book is divided into 14 chapters and 2 exhibits. The book is designed to provide answers to two key questions - First, how do we reduce the number of emails we find in our mailbox each day, and ,second, how do we teach others to present information in the most effective manner? The solution, according to the authors, is simple: bottom line. In simple terms, it means bringing the subject to the front of the e-mail so that the reader finds the answer to the question "Why should I be interested? quickly. The authors develop a number of approaches that are suitable for most e-mail communication. The authors extend the concept to other business writing as well, but they admit there are circumstances that may require different approaches. The takeaway message is a good one for engineers, technical communicators, and managers alike. The book is an excellent addition to one's reading list and the local library's reference shelf.

This historical case study of a non-rule policy document (NPD) adopted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management describes an emerging genre in environmental discourse. The NPD standardizes environmental public policy for land disposal of foundry sand, a solid waste. The collaborative writing process took six months with industry input, and the NPD was presented to two environmental boards. Two contrasts, in process and format, distinguish NPDs from rules. The NPD is an entirely new kind of writing which includes guidance for implementing statutes. The writing process in the case involves government writers and industry representatives, although it does not include other public input such as public hearings. Instead, the staff of the pollution control agency simply presents the NPD to the appropriate environmental policy boards and arranges for its publication. This article adds to the body of knowledge about technical writing in government, specifically environmental policy and non-academic genres.

While the importance of “expressive writing,” or informal, self-directed writing, has been well established, teachers underutilize it, particularly in technical writing courses. We introduce the term expressive/exploratory technical writing (XTW), which is the use of informal, self-directed writing to problem-solve in technical fields. We describe how engineering students resist writing, despite decades of research showing its importance to their careers, and we suggest that such resistance may be because most students only see writing as an audience-driven performance and thus incompletely understand the link between writing and thinking. The treatment of invention in rhetorical history supports their view. We describe two examples of using XTW in software engineering to plan programming tasks. We conclude by discussing how a systematic use of XTW could shift the technical writing curriculum, imbuing the curriculum with writing and helping students see how to problem-solve using natural language.

Over the past two decades, studies have examined how social contexts influence the composition and production of workplace documents. But much remains to be known about what happens when writers move from one social context to another—from the academy to the workplace, for instance. This article demonstrates that students in scientific and technical communication classrooms learn what they are taught about composing. They take this knowledge with them to the workplace, where they apply it, practically and theoretically, and improve their understanding of it with repeated use.

Technical communicators should be prepared to take on challenges that are beyond their daily tasks. The author took on such a challenge when she was asked to develop and implement a company's content-management system. This article addresses the different phases of designing and implementing a unified content-management system. The article also offers suggestions for any content developer faced with developing and implementing a content-management system or for any technical communication instructor who wishes to learn more about this process to help meet the academic needs of upcoming content developers.

Online access and interest in technical communication are increasing on a global scale. The time is therefore right for instructors to consider offering online courses to students located around the globe. Providing effective online courses for such a diverse audience, however, is no simple matter. This article provides an overview of the global market in online education. It presents information and approaches that can help with the development of online courses for international delivery as well as the training and professional development of the instructors, U.S.-based or otherwise, who teach them.

Instead of focusing on technologies of online delivery, specific course design, or reporting on the successes or lessons learned of an online or distance education course, in this essay I focus on the readiness of technical communication teachers for teaching in online settings. Using ideas gleaned from cultural geography, specifically the concept of reading and interpreting landscapes, I develop a framework for instructors to determine their willingness, readiness, and preparedness to teach online. The final section of this essay provides an example of using this framework based on my explorations into my readiness to teach online. I find that self-selection for online instruction is a critical step in developing powerful instructional settings and allows technical communication teachers to cross or remove existing boundaries within their own pedagogical practices.

Instead of focusing on technologies of online delivery, specific course design, or reporting on the successes or lessons learned of an online or distance education course, in this essay I focus on the readiness of technical communication teachers for teaching in online settings. Using ideas gleaned from cultural geography, specifically the concept of reading and interpreting landscapes, I develop a framework for instructors to determine their willingness, readiness, and preparedness to teach online. The final section of this essay provides an example of using this framework based on my explorations into my readiness to teach online. I find that self-selection for online instruction is a critical step in developing powerful instructional settings and allows technical communication teachers to cross or remove existing boundaries within their own pedagogical practices.

Online access and interest in technical communication are increasing on a global scale. The time is therefore right for instructors to consider offering online courses to students located around the globe. Providing effective online courses for such a diverse audience, however, is no simple matter. This article provides an overview of the global market in online education. It presents information and approaches that can help with the development of online courses for international delivery as well as the training and professional development of the instructors, U.S.-based or otherwise, who teach them.

This paper focuses on the interaction between teams of participants in the constructive interaction (CI) method. We analyzed transcripts and video recordings from five CI sessions in order to determine the types and frequencies of communicative acts performed as well as their usefulness to usability testers. In addition, we examined the contribution of the individual team members to the interaction and investigated whether the interaction took place according to a pattern of cooperation. Our analysis showed that team interaction in the CI test is highly task-oriented and hardly descriptive. For the most part, the five CI sessions contained communicative acts that are (potentially) useful to usability testers. The contribution of the team members to the interaction was largely similar in terms of types/frequencies of communicative acts, but the teams' cooperation pattern revealed that this equal contribution was no immediate guarantee for successful cooperation. To address this issue, we suggest several ways to improve the CI method.

This article uses Aristotle's concept of ethos, the audience's perception of a speaker's character, to analyze a set of documents relating to a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This analysis shows how the features of a successful persuasive ethos remain consistent through several genres, including scientific articles, reports, and press releases. Three major elements of a persuasive ethos include discussions of the practical implications of technical information, consistent efforts to make information accessible to the public, and a forthright representation of scientific uncertainties associated with complex technical information. By incorporating these elements into their texts, technical communicators can craft more persuasive documents dealing with controversial, high-stakes issues

The reviewer states that "A Concise Guide to Technical Communication" is an excellent reference text and worthy of being on the library shelf of anyone involved in technical communications - a handy guide for the quick search and easy read.

By drawing on the in-class work of an ongoing literacy outreach project, this paper explains how well-chosen technical writing activities can earn a place in high school science courses by enabling underperforming students (including English as a second language [ESL] students) to learn science more effectively. We adapted basic research-based text-design and usability techniques into age-appropriate exercises and cases using the cognitive apprenticeship approach. This enabled high school students, aided by explicit guidelines, to build their cognitive maturity, learn how to craft good instructions and descriptions, and apply those skills to better note taking and technical talks in their science classes

Case studies are evocative narrative descriptions of a specific, real-world activity, event, or problem. Case-based learning is well established in professional education (e.g., law, business, medicine) and rapidly expanding in many other disciplines. We use cases as an instructional resource in our own teaching of usability engineering. In this paper, we analyze the proposition that cases can be a minimalist-information design technique-that is, as a design technique that (1) orients information to facilitate user action, (2) anchors information in activity, (3) prevents, mitigates, and leverages error, and (4) develops user autonomy. We discuss the next steps in a research program on case-based learning and speculate on other applications of cases as minimalist information design

We all have a vision of what might be. For some of us, this vision involves a strong emphasis on rhetoric and writing; for others, it en compasses a sustained commitment to literary study and analysis. Still others might argue for the merits of communications technologies and the inclu sion of new-media-based forms of reading, writing, and speaking into the curricu lum. Regardless of these emphases, most would agree that English should foster an understanding of how human beings use language aesthetically and rhetorically in ways that matter for culture, civic society, and meaningful human existence. Lacking from most discussions of college English, though, is how students learn to make the connection between this humanities-based understanding of language and the world of work, which is often unfairly harnessed to utilitarian images. It's true that many departments have sought to alleviate this gap by encouraging internships for stu dents, but there's little agreement on how these internships should be supervised and what guidance should be provided for students. At the heart of internship initia tives is the attempt to make English curricula directly relevant to workplace situa tions. Much research exists in professional and technical writing on the role of

Over a period of 10 years, we have developed a sustainable process of online portfolio assessment that demonstrates both reliability and validity, using both qualitative and quantitative measures. The sustainable cycle is that, each semester, we assess a random sampling of the students' work that they have posted, as per our instructions, in an online portfolio. During the reading, the faculty score the documents for 11 variables, including writing, content, audience awareness, and document design. We achieved validity by a modified online Delphi that led to a redefinition of the construct of technical communication itself; we achieved reliability by adjudication resulting in adjacent scores. The results of our assessment meet the requirements of ABET and result in a continual cycle of improvement for our technical communication curriculum. Results from three semesters show an improving correlation between the course grade and the overall, holistic portfolio score.

One way to resolve some of the conflict in English studies and technical communication over their diminishing cultural capital is to recognize the place of instrumental discourse in communication studies. Instrumental discourse is individually verified social agreements to coordinate and control physical actions. One purpose of literary works is to voice new concerns about social inequities. A purpose of rhetoric is to persuade others of the validity of those concerns. Instrumental discourse registers agreements about those concerns and brings them to temporary closure in laws, instructions, contracts, and constitutions. Instrumental discourse is the culmination of a process that often begins with a literary monolog, is continued in many rhetorical dialogs, and ends, for a while, in a chorus of approval. Each phase of this communication process—monolog, dialog, and chorus—has a place in English studies. If more English studies faculty would recognize the need to study the communications that promote dissensus and consensus, then they might contribute more to global discussions about social justice, cooperation, and sustainability, and they might gain more cultural capital and social influence.

Current localization practices suffer from a narrow and static vision of culture resulting in usability problems for IT product and design. To address this problem, this article compares user localization efforts of mobile messaging technology in two different cultural contexts with a new methodology of cultural usability. It calls for expanding the scope of localization practices and linking user localization efforts to the IT product design cycle.

This paper describes the development of the AntConc corpus analysis toolkit, originally designed for use in a technical writing course at Osaka University, Japan, but now adopted in institutions throughout the world as an easy-to-use, freeware, multiplatform alternative to the many commercial concordance programs. First, I will explain how the software was originally tailored to the needs of students in the Osaka writing course and later to a general audience through the requests and feedback from teachers and students around the world. Then, I will give an overview of tools in the most recent version of AntConc and explain their value using examples from the classroom. Finally, I will discuss some of the software's limitations and future developments, and suggest applications in professional communication

The author has taught a distance education version of the undergraduate technical communication service course at Boise State University since 1997 and shares the strategies he has found to decrease the time instructors spend teaching online, thereby enabling them to use the time they do have to enhance their students' online experience. These strategies are distributed among four areas: management of collaboration, presentation of course material, grading, and interaction with students. For each one, the author presents the problems that may occur and approaches to resolving them. The article addresses a number of concerns expressed in the scholarly literature on distance education and is informed by surveys given to five sections of the author's course taught between 2001 and 2003. Interspersed through the article is an overview of some of the current research and commentary on distance education of particular interest to those teaching the technical communication service course via the Internet.

Previous research has indicated that engineering faculty do not follow best practices when commenting on students' technical writing. However, it is unclear whether the faculty prefer to comment in these ineffective ways, or whether they prefer more effective practices but simply do not enact them. This study adapts a well known study of response in composition to ask whether engineering faculty prefer authoritative, form-focused comments, or whether they may prefer to write different sorts of comments. We asked ten civil engineering faculty to comment on a sample paper and then rank their preferences for provided versions of comments on the same paper. One provided version emphasized comments on content, one emphasized comments on form, and one was balanced. Comparisons of the respondents' preferences and practices suggest that the engineering faculty recognize and value content-focused, non-authoritative responses, but generally do not write comments that conform to these values. We consider the implication of these findings for research on response to technical writing as well as for technical writing faculty in their own course. While recognizing the need for more research, we also discuss ways in which writing professionals, including WAC administrators and technical writing professors, can encourage engineering faculty to enact their preferences for response styles that reflect best practices.

This study analyzes the performance and attitudes of technical writing students in PowerPoint-enhanced and in non- PowerPoint lectures. Four classes of upper-level undergraduates ( n = 84) at a mid-sized, Southern university taking a one-semester technical writing course were surveyed at the beginning and end of the course about their perceptions of PowerPoint. Of the four sections, two classes were instructed using traditional lecture materials (teacher at podium, chalkboard, handouts); the other two sections were instructed with PowerPoint presentations. All four classes were given the same pre- and post-test to measure performance over the course of the semester. Traditional lecture or PowerPoint presentations consisted of at least 50% of the course, with the remaining time spent on exercises and small group work. Results reveal that while most students say they preferred PowerPoint, performance scores were higher in the sections with the traditional lecture format.

We present a user-centered database query language called QBT (Query By Templates) for user communication with databases containing complex structured data, such as data stored in the Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML has revolutionized data storage as well as representation and transfer methods in today's internet applications. The growing popularity of XML as a language for the representation of data has enabled its use for several applications involving storage, interchange, and retrieval of data. Several textual query languages have been proposed for XML retrieval, including the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) recommendation of XQuery. Native XML database systems have been implemented, all of which provide methods for user communication with the database, although most communication methods use text-based query languages or form-based interfaces. QBT, the language presented here, is one of the first attempts toward a generalized alternative language that is based on human factors of familiarity. It is ideal for documents with a simple yet highly recognizable layout (e.g., poems, dictionaries, journals, etc.). We present the QBT language and report results from an initial usability test that shows promise for this type of an interface as a generalized user-database communication method.

This case study focuses on the role of language in managing organizational change. We examined the campaign and rhetorical strategies used by a major US airline to persuade customer service employees not to vote for Teamsters Union representation. The company's anti-union campaign documents included internal memos, letters, and emails. If included in a professional or technical communication course, these documents provide a powerful case for students to explore the role of written communication within a changing organization. We situate the case in the context of relevant literature and provide background information. We also include learning outcomes, methods, and implications.

In this paper, we first develop a framework of user-database interaction. Based on this framework, we then provide a discussion on how notable human factors influence various dimensions of user-database interaction. Following that, we propose using cognitive mapping techniques to overcome some cognitive and behavioral biases during user-database interaction. Three popular cognitive mapping techniques-causal mapping, semantic mapping, and concept mapping-are introduced as techniques to elicit an individual's belief systems regarding a problem domain. Through an example database application, we demonstrate how to use these cognitive mapping techniques to improve user-database interaction. Finally, we discuss the implications of this research for technical communicators during user-database interaction analysis and design.

This article explores the transfer of U.S. technologies to three maquilas, or joint U.S.–Mexican manufacturing facilities in northern Mexico. Drawing on case study methods, it focuses on the rhetorical strategies that Mexican engineers and manufacturing personnel used to translate U.S. technologies and corresponding documentation for their Mexican contexts. It also suggests ways U.S. technical communicators can adapt their documentation to be more effective for these U.S.–Mexican intercultural rhetorical contexts.

Carolyn Miller's oft-cited “Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing,” published in 1979, tries to give technical communication faculty more cultural capital in English departments controlled by literature professors. Miller replaces a positivistic emphasis in technical communication pedagogy with rhetoric. She shows how technical knowledge is produced by individual activity and social affirmation and not by objective descriptions of sensory impressions. Her “Rationale” is an attempt to change institutional and discursive structures by persuading literature professors that technical communication can have as much distinction in the academy as literature.

The purposes of this study are to determine the current status of scholarship published in five major technical communication journals about women and feminism and to identify changes in focus that may have occurred over the last five years. We begin with a discussion of the frequency of publication for articles whose titles have keywords relating to women and feminism. After identifying 21 articles, we consider the thematic patterns in the narrowed corpus. We conclude that scholarly publication about women and feminism in technical communication has moved from a moderate or radical concern for inclusion to a postmodern concern for critique of visual, verbal, and mechanical “technologies,” which previously were not considered political.