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.

Because of the work of Francis Christensen, sentence-terminal modification was emphasized in college composition from about 1965 to 1980. The structures emphasized included absolutes, restating and summarizing appositives, participial phrases, non-participial adjective phrases, adjectival clauses and prepositional phrases, and adverbial clauses and phrases. This emphasis, however, had little effect on technical writing, in spite of the practical utility of terminal modifiers. This article, therefore, explains the terminal modifiers and exemplifies them in the context of technical writing; it then examines the texts of representative technical reports to determine the extent to which terminal modifiers are currently used. The findings—generally that the report writers do not take full advantage of terminal modification—indicate that increased attention to terminal modifiers, especially the absolute, the summarizing appositive, and the non-participial adjective phrase, would significantly increase the options for effective expression by technical writers.

Writing assignments for a graduate course in technical writing should develop students' technical backgrounds, their familiarity with reference materials, and their peer editing skills, as well as their writing skills. Also, the assignments should encourage students to write for publication. The three assignments described here—on a scientist, a topic in science, and a topic in technical communication—can help students achieve these objectives. Students write the first two articles for publication in general-audience newspapers or magazines, and the third for the same general audience or for a technical communication conference or journal.

The rationale behind teaching native English speakers to be sensitive to the cultural differences they will find when they communicate with nonnative speakers in the classroom and in the professional marketplace is considered. A teaching strategy that technical writing instructors can use in their classrooms to foster cultural awareness is described in detail. It is concluded that such an educational strategy is important for a future in which interaction with multicultural colleagues becomes inevitable and essential for business success.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A method for developing an online information system that provides employees with access to company information is presented. The method integrates knowledge from many areas of expertise: systems analysis (software development), instructional design, human factors, information science, visual design, user interface design, and technical communication. A case example illustrating the operation of a developed information system is presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

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.

Richards on Rhetoric, Ann E. Berthoff W. Ross Winterowd Balancing Acts: Essays on the Teaching of Writing in Honor of William F. Irmscher , Virginia A. Chappell, Mary Louise Buley-Meissner, and Chris Anderson Sam Watson A Sense of Audience in Written Communication, Gesa Kirsch and Duane H. Roen Chris M. Anson Beyond Communication: Reading Comprehension and Criticism, Deanne Bogdan and Stanley B. Straw Sandra Stotsky The Writing Center: New Directions, Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson Muriel Harris Writer’s Craft, Teacher’s Art: Teaching What We Know, Mimi Schwartz Wendy Bishop Teaching Advanced Composition: Why and How, Katherine H. Adams and John L. Adams Richard Jenseth Textbooks in Focus: Creative Writing: Creative Writing in America: Theory and Pedagogy, Joseph M. Moxley Released into Language,Wendy Bishop Writing Poems, Robert Wallace What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter The College Handbook of Creative Writing, Robert DeMaria Chuck Guilford Textbooks in Focus: Technical WritingTechnical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach, Paul V. Anderson Designing Technical Reports: Writing for Audiencesin Organizations, J. C. Mathes and Dwight W. StevensonTechnical Writing and Professional Communication, Leslie A. Olsen and Thomas N. Huckin Technical Writing: A Practical Approach, William S. Pfeiffer Technical Writing: Principles,Strategies, and Readings, Diana C.Reep Design of Business Communications: The Process and the Product, Elizabeth Tebeaux Carolyn R. Miller

It is argued that, because markets are becoming increasingly global, international readers who are familiar with English and comfortable with the standard ratio of equal parts of white space and text must be distinguished from domestic readers whose international exposure may be limited and whose requirements can be better addressed by creating a document which conforms to their cultural perceptions of space. Anthropologists have shown that perceptions about space and man's relationship to it vary from culture to culture and consequently it is dangerous to make assumptions about a local audience based on experience with international audiences. Edward Hall's work on proxemics (1969), the perceptions concerning spatial relationships, and examples of technical document designs in England, Japan, and the Middle East are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The legal and ethical issues raised by the ability to use desktop scanners to convert images into digital data for manipulation, enhancement, and eventual incorporation into a publication are discussed. Potential legal problems involve copyright infringement and libel, both of which are familiar concerns to technical writers, although they tend to be associated with text rather than graphic images. Ethical issues raised by the available technology include concerns about enhanced advertisements. To maintain public confidence in digitally processed images, technical communicators in academia must provide guidelines for their students, both US and international, who will encounter many of these legal and ethical issues in the workplace.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

US government and industry attitudes toward mine safety and health, articulated in the instruction manuals and training guides published by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, are seen to reflect an engineering perspective based on the concept of a rational man, a perspective that undermines the ability of miners to take responsibility for their own education and ultimately obstructs effective risk management and assessment in the nation's mines. It is argued that to improve miner training and education, technical communicators must understand how underlying gendered assumptions about male rationality influence the construction of knowledge in a large government agency.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Drawing on recent studies of visual design and current feminist theory, and based on a research project in which males and females were asked to create visual representations of factual information, a feminist theory of design is posited. Three primary positions relevant for technical communicators are argued: (1) social constructionism is a feminist perspective; (2) technical communicators need to eliminate the hierarchy of visuals and text and represent information by balancing both; and (3) technical communicators need to emphasize the rhetorical, contextual situations in which visuals and texts co-mingle.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Strategies for improving stylistic efficiency of technical writing are presented. The strategies, in contrast to the myriad of advice on how to improve sentence style, create sentence flow and give the prose a character that propels readers along. Improvements in stylistic efficiency come from aligning word order with readers' expectations so as to restrict the reader's interpretive latitude. >

It is asserted that immediacy communicates approachability and availability, and that interpersonal relationships are crucial to job effectiveness and satisfaction for technical communication professionals. Increased concern about sexual harassment in the workplace, however, creates a paradox; while immediacy behaviors can establish a positive workplace environment, sexual harassment policies can serve to inhibit such behaviors. As a result, technical communication professionals in the arenas of training policies and procedures construct training programs that provide both male and female perspectives and prevent the slanting of materials inappropriately in one direction over another. Immediacy behaviors that are appropriate within the context of sexual harassment policies in the cross-gender workplace are addressed, with emphasis on the above paradox.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A course design and the material for implementing a course in which students explore the status of women and minorities in the scientific and technical professions and the possible reasons for that status are presented. The course is offered as a model for the integration of intercultural and gender issues into the technical communication classroom. Since cultural and gender issues are neither scientific nor technological but humanities issues, core readings for the course are humanities texts. By working in teams of culturally and gender-diverse colleagues, students explore the intercultural concerns and gender issues in the field of technical communication. Students conduct personal interviews, study published reports, obtain policy statements and current statistics, analyze data, draw conclusions, and submit a comprehensive technical report to audiences who might act on those findings, such as the National Science foundation.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

There are differences of vocabulary, grammar, and usage in American English and British English. As international interchange of information increases, we must alert writers and editors to these differences, and encourage them to find forms of expression common to both versions of English. If they do not, their texts may create difficulties, not only for readers using English as a foreign language, but also for native speakers of American English or British English.

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

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

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.

Traditional textbook rationales for the technical writing course locate the essence of technical writing in objectivity, clarity, and neutrality, and the need for teaching it in its usefulness to employers. Such rationales, however, are unable to accommodate a notion of ethics and responsibility: if the writer merely serves the interests that employ her by reporting facts in an objective way, how can she exercise choice when ethical problems arise? An alternative view is to see technical writing as always rhetorical and involved with potentially conflicting agendas and interests, with objectivity, clarity, and neutrality serving merely as stylistic devices in the writer's rhetorical toolbox. Technical writers are rhetoricians who continually make ethical choices in serving diverse interests and negotiating between conflicting demands. The recognition of the fundamental rhetoricity of technical writing is the first step towards accommodating a meaningful notion of ethics into the technical writing curriculum.

Clear and Coherent Prose: A Functional Approach. William Vande Kopple. Boston: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989. 239 pp. Technical Writing in the Corporate World. Herman A. Estrin and Norbert Elliott. Oakville, Ontario: Crisp Books, 1990. Technical Writing in a Corporate Culture: A Study of the Nature of Information. Christine Barabas. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1990. 313 pp. Creating a Computer‐Supported Writing Facility: A Blueprint for Action. Cynthia Selfe. Computers and Composition: Michigan Technological University and Purdue University, 1989. 146 pp. How to Write and Publish Engineering Papers and Reports. Herbert B. Michaelson. 3rd ed. Phoenix: Oryx, 1990. Better Said and Clearly Written: An Annotated Guide to Business Communication Sources, Skills, and Samples. Sandra E. Berlanger. New York: Greenwood P, 1989. 196 pp.

To make informed decisions about ethical issues, technical communicators need to understand how to apply general ethical principles to the kinds of dilemmas they will face routinely, concerning such issues as plagiarism, trade secrets, and misrepresentation of text and graphics. This article reviews the controversy about the relationship between ethics and rhetoric among the Greeks, provides basic definitions of ethics, and applies the literature of business and professional ethics to the concerns of technical communicators and other professionals who communicate, showing how they must think through the conflicts of obligations to their employer, the public, and the environment. It provides a case study that can be used to reinforce a student's understanding of the relationship between technical communication and ethics.

Technical writing will become increasingly important to the nation's engineering interests in the 21st century. To meet a national agenda of competitiveness, writing program administrators must build courses and programs that are sensitive to unique institutional perceptions about writing. By means of a quantitative and qualitative methodology, the present study describes the perceptions of technical writing held by department heads at a technological university. Using a combined survey method and structured interview process, we investigate how department chairs felt about the contents, instruction, and assessment of a technical writing course. We also investigate perceptions about writing products and processes. Based on our experiences with the survey, we call for writing program administrators to study the institutional context for courses and programs in technical writing.

Usability testing is now recognized as essential to quality documentation, but, unfortunately, the costs and the time required for fullblown testing are prohibitive for many projects. This article presents a set of very practical guidelines for a small documentation team to design and conduct its own usability study—including discussions of preparing task lists, recruiting participants, conducting the study, and analyzing the data.

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

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

The evolution of page design to improve the readability of technical writing can be traced to improvements in typography and also to the influence of Peter Ramus. Ramus's logic used bracketed outlines to show the relationships among ideas within larger concepts. Used by legal writers and Puritan theologians to analyze concepts, Ramist method was also used by English physicians who sought to create medical texts that could be easily read and remembered by students and practitioners. Texts that used Ramist method illustrate their writers' awareness of the importance of making information visually accessible by use of white space, headings that reveal hierarchies of ideas, and bracketed dichotomies and partitions to reveal content for selective reading.

Technical communicators are faced daily with digesting the results of research reports; however, many technical communicators do not have the training that would facilitate their comprehension of such reports, particularly the sections of research reports that cite statistical terminology. This article addresses the need of technical communicators to become critical readers of empirical research. Specifically, we present simple definitions of selected research designs and statistical concepts and accompany these definitions with concrete examples related to the field of technical communication research.

Studies in the history of technical writing have only recently begun to study the development of technical writing. Pollard and Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue, 1475-1640 contains a number of English Renaissance technical books that reveal that Renaissance printers and authors were aware of the need for readability and visual access in technical reference and information books. An examination of these books shows evolving use of many contemporary page design techniques: partition, clearly worded headings, visual aids, enumeration and listing devices, and choice of font for emphasis.

It is pointed out that veteran technical writers and editors sometimes suspect that the professors who teach technical writing and editing are too deeply immersed in their academic culture to translate effectively into the classroom the world of work culture in which technical writing and editing are practised. It is argued, however, that the two cultures are remarkably alike, sharing the same goal-to improve communication. Differences arise primarily in the approaches taken to achieve that common goal. Drawing on 25 years of experience as a visiting professor in a university writing program, the author discusses the different approaches that industry and academia take to such topics as grammar, rhetoric, audience, editing, artwork, decision-making, and collaborative writing.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The author examines 22 experimental usability studies that appeared between 1980 and 1989. The discussion takes two directions: analysis of fundamental aspects of research coherence and unity by assessing the extent to which researchers jointly pursue a logical sequence of questions and the extent to which they integrate findings from prior studies into their own designs; and assessment of how trends in sample selection, size, and composition limit the strength of research conclusions. Ten years' worth of choices about samples show that a cumulative laxity in these choices has greatly constrained what one confidently can say experimental studies have proven about effective hard copy documentation. The author concludes by offering 13 recommended design strategies for future usability research.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Recent research suggests that pragmatic emphasis on writing proficiency alone does not produce a good technical communicator. Attention must also be given to the technical communicator as liberally educated generalist who writes well and feels an affinity for science or technology. To this end, technical communication needs to be studied in the larger context of evolving science and technology, developing trends in technical education, and the oratorical tradition of broad learning applied to the active life. Recent studies of the collaborative culture of the workplace should be supplemented by increased attention to humanistic questions of what a person needs to be and know in order to cooperate effectively as a practicing technical communicator.

The student new to technical writing frequently has difficulty, on two counts, with technical definitions: grasping their essentiality and learning how to create them; matters are not made easier by some of the ways in which we approach the subject. Exercises centered around a term that is lapsing into obsolescence offer some productive solutions to this common instructional problem, particularly so if the term is even indirectly related to the student's field.

Researchers continue to miss useful references because of unsystematic methodology and because on-going efforts at systematic bibliography have not utilized some key resources. Although no combination of available resources guarantees comprehensive bibliographic coverage for technical communication, composition, or rhetoric, researchers can significantly improve their personal efforts by using citation indexes and a few other databases.

Technical documents implicitly require readers to play out textually constructed roles in order to create meanings. Good technical writers create texts that motivate their readers by emplotting them in an attractive fabula, and, especially, in a role that not only achieves the ostensible purposes of the documentation but also allows the reader to function as the hero in a narrative of progress and improvement. Drawing on reader-response criticism and narratology, this article shows how a particular instructional software manual, the VP-Expert™ guide, instructs and motivates readers by using devices which resemble the conventions of heroic narrative.

Sales activities have been understood by some to be negative, one-sided rhetorical encounters. Teachers of technical communication will find it more helpful to view sales proposals as aimed toward the construction and maintenance of long-term relationships, a view held by far-thinking sales professionals. Hermeneutic theory, by offering a different conceptual relationship between means and ends than even new rhetoric suggests, can help clarify the process by which ethical know-how intersects with persuasion. Consequently, it can offer technical communication instructors a valuable perspective from which to teach sales proposal writing.

With the advent of electronic networking, writing pedagogy has moved into the arena of computer-supported collaborative writing, using collaborative writing as an instructional means to promote a more social view of the writing process. Therefore, as business and technical communication researchers and instructors, we need to ask the following questions: What kinds of software have been developed to aid computer-supported collaborative writing in the workplace and in the writing classroom? What benefits and problems have resulted from the design and use of this software? What research issues should be addressed as we approach the next decade of computer-supported collaborative writing? In this article the author explores these questions, highlighting five computer-supported collaborative writing systems from the workplace and five such systems from the writing classroom.

It is pointed out that, after Gutenberg's introduction of movable type an the printing press in the fifteenth century, and due to the influence of the Renaissance, Western culture entered a period of visual efflorescence. Then, due mainly to the influence of the Scientific Revolution, there occurred a derogation of visual experience in favour of word and abstract number. It is argued that, in the late twentieth century, technology, supported by developments in scientific theory, has given new efficacy to visual thinking and experience. Increasingly, illustrations of various types are employed to give meaning to otherwise incomprehensible data. Today's technical communicator must learn to deal effectively with the new demands of a visual culture, becoming not only a master of the new technology but also a possessor of a deep understanding of the theories and structures of visual knowledge.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A model for the design of information products is presented. The model serves as a resource to diagnose ineffective designs as well as a guide for the construction of effective displays. It accommodates many factors affecting the reader's processing of visual displays, including cognitive and perceptual processing, ergonomic factors, and the influence of cultural differences. Because the disciplines employed in this paper are incomplete and often depend upon speculation, the model should not be viewed as complete or comprehensive. However, the model can be modified as information design matures as a discipline.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Publications on the broader history of technical communication that have appeared over the past decade are reviewed. It is suggested that historical studies can easily be pursued in North America owing to the availability of source material. Recent microfilm or microprint publications of both primary sources and reference guides to them are identified. Three examples of engineering reports published in the early 19th century are discussed, and their historical implications are explored. The author holds that there is a role for history in the teaching and research of technical communication.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Technical communicators can overcome their reluctance to use color in technical communications and use it effectively if they understand how color works, respect the limitations of color, and apply it in ways compatible with communications objectives and human perception. Terms dealing with colors are defined, and reasons for using color in displays are outlined. Problems, misperceptions, and solutions associated with the use of color in technical communications are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>