Several surveys that compared the effectiveness of color and black and white as they are used in a variety of communication situations are discussed. The effects of color in printed documents and on-line text and on electronic publishers during the printing process and writers during the writing process are described. Suggestions for the effective use of color in technical communications are presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Many engineering students are unprepared to address public policy issues because their education is fragmented: they tend to focus narrowly on technical solutions to closed-end problems in engineering and science courses, and they do not see how technical communication relates to either engineering or public policy. A multidisciplinary approach to professional communication which addresses this fragmentation is discussed. In the four-semester engineering practices introductory course sequence (EPICS) program, students learn professional communication skills by working in groups on 'real world' projects for which industry and government professionals serve as clients. These open-ended problems involve numerous nontechnical constraints, including a variety of public policy issues. Communication skills and the important connections among competent technical analysis, effective communication, and effective policy formation are reinforced and extended in the policy analysis course and senior design sequence, where students are required to consider and articulate the public policy implications of complex technological projects.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

One approach to exploring context in technical communication is through the speech community. Composed of people who share the means and the need to communicate with each other, the speech community is essentially a social entity, its boundaries determined by feelings of commonality among the community's members. In considering the communication that occurs in a speech community, this article asks two general questions. First, what is the relationship among language, culture, and thought? Second, what knowledge is needed for effective communication? Answering the first question requires an exploration of the Whorfian hypothesis as it may apply to technical communication, while answering the second requires an expansion of Chomsky's grammatical competence to include language function and use and a broadening of Flower and Hayes's investigations of cognitive structures beyond the isolated experimental situation into the community.

Examining the limitations of some common metaphors for technical communication and exploring new alternatives lead to a new definition of technical communication. In current studies of the field, four metaphors appear dominant through explicit or implicit use: transmitter, channel, balance, and bridge. But each of these metaphors is limited in some way when used to describe the field. These limitations arise from complexity, directionality, or originality of the process. Some alternatives provide a new way of viewing the field: lock, translator, transformer, synthesizer, conductor, and orchestrator. The latter term leads to a tentative definition of the field: Technical communication is the process of orchestrating linguistic, visual, or auditory codes to accommodate information to the user.

While several strategies have been credited for enhancing the rhetorical acceptability of important historical works in scientific and technical writing, little attention has been paid to William Harvey's On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals. A close examination of his work shows his fear of publication (because of his contemporaries' long-held beliefs about the order of the body and its functions) and his strategies for reducing resistance to his ideas: appropriate circular references and metaphors and organizational techniques that clarify and enhance not only his thesis—that the blood circulates through the body—but also demonstrate the circular pattern as part of God's natural order for the universe.

The varied treatments, introductions and conclusions receive in technical writing textbooks are explored from the dual perspective of the students who must incorporate the advice into their work and the professors who must present the material to students. The books attempt to focus on specific techniques for generating clear, concise writing, delineate methods of authorial analysis and offer student and professional examples of technical reports. It is concluded that these textbooks are successful when the structure of introductions and conclusions is tied closely to the context of the actual report.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A bibliography and its introduction provide a convenient way to narrow the scope of selecting pedagogical material by discussing recent, easily accessible books in the field of technical communication. The bibliography consists of two parts: one is devoted to more traditional textbooks appropriate for classroom use, whether in academia or in industry and business; the other discusses such other resource materials for collateral use and supplementary reading as scholarly studies, anthologies, and handbooks. The bibliography is reasonably comprehensive for books published from the beginning of 1988 through June 30, 1990. 42 books are annotated, and an additional ten are listed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Research in technical communication in 1989 is assessed. The analysis indicates that systematic research in technical communication is still in a limited stage of development. One major problem is the lack of a clear distinction between an illustrative case and a case study in the empirical sense. In the few articles presenting systematic research, the most frequently used methodology is survey/questionnaire. Problems include sample selection and generalizability. In several studies, however, surveys were just one of several tools in a qualitative approach. While some projects were carefully designed, overall, the quality of the methodology is uneven. A comparison of the areas being researched with those designated by technical communicators as needing research revealed that more research is needed in management. Also needed is more systematic research into visual aspects of technical communication.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Instructions should be illustrated so as to help users memorize steps as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Classical mnemonic theory provides an excellent description of how to create such illustrations. The most detailed description of how to form memorable images that function as cues to subject matter is contained in the ancient Roman treatise Rhetorica Ad Herennium. The basic principle is that one must form bizarre, striking pictures combining cue images with images representing the words or concepts that are to be remembered. Much modern research on memory and imagery bears out the ancient wisdom on this topic. Gordon Bower, Allan Paivio, and others have shown that subjects remember lists of items far better when they use paired associate methods of visual memorization that are based on the classical theories. Other researchers, such as Margaret Hagen, have found that the mind processes information faster and remembers it longer when it has to deal with only minimal cues (for example, a simple line drawing as opposed to a photograph or a detailed drawing). Combining insights from ancient theory and practice with those from modern research, I suggest that technical communicators use, where possible, a particular kind of image to illustrate instructions.

Harris argues that linguistic theory is useful for solving certain problems encountered in technical writing theory and pedagogy [1]. However, he undermines his purpose by introducing irrelevant distinctions between competing syntactic theories (Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar and Transformational Grammar) and by failing to exploit the full potential of the few applications he mentions. The passive rule is a case in point. It not only constitutes an operational test for identifying passive sentences, it also contributes to the flow of discourse by rearranging both thematic roles (e.g. agent and patient) and given/new information. The passive rule is only one of a class of noun phrase-moving operations that technical writing specialists may find useful.

This article surveys and critiques the literature on using style checkers and the text-editing capabilities of the computer to assist in revising technical writing. The literature on text-editing capabilities is inconclusive because it is largely anecdotal and methodologically flawed. The literature on style checkers is similarly inconclusive. To better assess the value of the computer, we need to examine the basic premise of the research on revising and word processing: that more revising leads to higher-quality writing. We need to be sure that our evaluative techniques for measuring writing improvement are valid; to focus our attention not only on computer novices but also on computer-experienced writers; to examine other factors that affect how writers use word processing and that in turn might affect writing quality; and to examine more carefully the differences among word processors and among the different style checkers to determine their effects on writing behavior and writing quality.

Best Collection of Essays, NCTE Awards for Excellence in Technical and Scientific Communication.Effective a major sourcebook that offers technical writers, editors, teachers, and students of technical communication a wide variety of practical guidelines based on often hard to find research in the usability of printed and electronic media.The book's eighteen chapters provide a wealth of material on such topics of current interest as the writing of design manuals, research in cognitive psychology as applied to the design of user manuals, and the organizing of manuals for hierarchical software systems. Included are chapters by such well known scholars in the field as Philip Rubens, Robert Krull, Judith Ramey, and John Carroll.Effective reviews the advice offered by other to produce usable documentation books, describing the different types of usability research and explaining the inherent biases of each type. It goes beyond the actual design of textual and/or electronic media to look at these designs in context, giving advice on effective management (good management is a requisite of good writing), on the relationship between document design and product design, and on how to find out who one's readers really are. Advances in the presentation of textual information are explained, with suggestions on how to improve the usability of individual sentences and the design of entire books.The concluding chapters discuss advances in the design and use of online information and offer valuable insights into the use of graphic information and the development and design of information communicated via electronic media.Stephen Doheny Farina is Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at Clarkson University. Effective Documentation is included in the Information Systems series, edited by Michael Lesk.

Ongoing attempts to define technical writing are inevitably confounded by problems caused by an excessively broad focus, which obscures the basis and usefulness of the definition, or by an excessively narrow focus, which arbitrarily-and sometimes oddly-relegates samples of writing as in or out of the realm of technical writing. Technical writers have been doing their jobs for far too long without a definition to be satisfied with a one- or two-sentence catch-all definition, and such a definition may result in dividing technical writing into two (or more) cultures.

Studies show that products are often judged defective for one or more of the following reasons: 1) manufacturing defects, 2) design defects, 3) inadequate warnings, and 4) inadequate instructions [1, p. 127]. The last two reasons are of particular importance to technical communicators, for we function as the information specialists who link the companies that make the products to the people who use the products. This article examines the relationship between warranties and product liability. It includes a discussion of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) guidelines for safety labels in the workplace and an analysis of warnings and labels as they apply to the pharmaceutical industry. In its closing section, the article discusses some of the key references that technical communicators can consult for additional information on product liability and safety labels.

The claim that Geoffrey Chaucer was “the first technical writer in English,” which appears several times in the recent literature on the history of technical writing in early English, misleads because numerous Middle English technical prose texts either precede Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe or are contemporaneous with it. In fact, an important tradition of technical writing exists in both Old and Middle English and extends through the English Renaissance. Historians of technical writing will find it more profitable to investigate the tradition of English practical prose than to find further firsts for their field.

The visual dimension of meaning is widely accepted in technical communication. But theories (and pedagogies) that direct the making of visual meaning are still under development. A guidelines approach, a design decisions approach, and an information/reader model approach are applied as lenses for viewing the marking of meaning on an instructional page. A case study invokes these approaches to describe the visual markers students employ as they write descriptive and instructional text. Although neither group described marked their texts thoroughly, beginning technical writing majors enrolled in a writing class used fewer illustrations and visual markers than technical majors used. The difference in beginning students' performance may be due to prior reading patterns, since the difference is more pronounced in the descriptions than in the instructions. Thus, the paper proposes a longitudinal approach to sensitizing writing majors to visual cues.

It is pointed out that many organizations have decentralized their operations to respond more quickly to rapid changes in markets and technologies. Decentralization has legitimized crossfunctional communication and decision making at relatively low levels in these organizations as a means of improving the quantity and timeliness of information. However, decentralization can adversely affect an organization's communications unless a new communication system is designed as part of the altered communication process. It is suggested that working within a new approach to organizational change, called sociotechnical design, technical communicators can help define performance standards for new communication systems, including those integrated with computer-mediated information systems. The objectives of sociotechnical design are consistent with the language-action perspective of the modern office. That perspective asserts that language organizes work relationships and actions by means of conversations (or transactions) in which requests and promises are made among individuals and groups. These conversations are structured by procedures, policy guides, handbooks, training materials, and a host of other communications.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

It is pointed out that preparing people to work collaboratively allows them to experience some issues of professional ethics, cooperation, responsibility, and decisionmaking. A model for teaching people to work collaboratively is described. A teaching team, comprised of a technical communication professor and a clinical psychologist, explains group dynamics and the three phases of group development to students. The team then asks the members of a group to rehearse roles and discuss various issues that may arise in their groups. It is concluded that people experience and work through issues of collaboration and professional ethics before they begin to work as a group.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The journal article is a uniquely effective case assignment for teaching technical communication students a central, work-world, writing demand faced by all professional writers: accurately defining and effectively writing to multiple, hierarchical audiences. The author examines how two technical communication students successfully construct journal articles based on research from analytical reports completed earlier in the term. The students analyze their target audience(s) and revise their reports into technical articles by assessing their purposes in writing the article; by selecting the most appropriate journal and audience for the article; and by adjusting the article's topical slant, organization, content, and style to fit both the target journal's editorial needs and the interests of its audience(s).< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The results of a 1987 survey of seventy Canadian four-year colleges and universities indicate that approximately half of the thirty-five responding institutions offer some form of technical writing. While courses are well-received by students and have stable or growing enrollments, faculty attitudes toward professional writing courses are mixed, varying from enthusiastic to disapproving. The other half of the responding institutions do not offer professional writing courses and have no plans to do so. Faculties at these institutions are generally against establishing such courses because they do not see technical writing as a legitimate subject.

The author reviews recent articles from the technical writing literature focusing on the controversy surrounding the appropriateness of readability formulas for technical writing, an issue of immediate concern for many writers and editors. While some authorities recommend readability formulas—if the writer recognizes the formulas as a tool limited by the variables manipulated—overwhelming argument from other experts suggests that the formulas should be ignored because they can mislead writers by lulling them into a false sense of security or into writing stilted prose to fit the formula. The author suggests that further research should be conducted to study empirically how readability as a concept might be used to aid the technical writer since readability formulas are shaping computerized editing programs.

It is observed that advances in information technology are drastically changing the profession of technical communication and the role of the technical communicator in developing and managing information. It is argued that educators must face the challenge posed by these advances to prepare students for the profession as it is now and as it will be in the future. It is suggested that one answer to this challenge is experiential learning theory, which places experience at the center of the learning process.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

An attempt is made to establish the view that any medium used to convey information is an interface. Knowing this, technical communicators should be able to make use of human-factors research and techniques that deal with user interfaces. The author discusses the human-factors principles of standardization, iteration and measurement, which all show promise when applied to technical communication.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Jay Reid Gould has had a formative influence on the development of technical and business communication in the twentieth century. In a career as student, teacher, consultant, and author and editor, including service as founding editor of the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Jay has helped bridge the gap between technical subject matter and the human concern of communicating this subject matter. Thus he has helped synthesize the sciences and the humanities.

This bibliography classifies the entire life (1971–1989) of The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication in terms of the following categories: The Profession, Education and Pedagogy, Preparation and Presentation of Technical Information, Research and Theory in Technical Communication, and Application of Technology to Technical Communication. The early bibliographies on which this material draws are the annotated bibliographies compiled by Karen A. Edlefsen (1971–1977), Richard Navarro (1978–1980), and Paul Reese (1981–1984), which were included in the 9:1, 12:1, and 15:4 issues of this journal, respectively. In addition to the materials cited above, this bibliography also includes articles from 1985 to 1989.

Many people who are interested in learning about usability testing have trouble finding an entry point into the literature in the field. This briefly annotated bibliography addresses their needs by identifying recent, reasonably accessible articles and books organized in the following categories: general introduction to usability testing; usability testing of documentation (the process and general methods and tools); print documentation (discussions and examples of tests); and online documentation (discussions and examples of tests); the human-machine interface (the process, general methods and tools, and discussions and examples of tests); and textbooks on research design.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

As user advocate, usability tester, screen designer, and online documentation specialist, the technical communicator is now playing a role in all phases of product development, from initial design to final support. How has this expanded role come about? What kinds of decisions is the technical communicator responsible for? How must the technical communicator interact with other team members, especially in the exciting, interdisciplinary area of “external design”? This article examines the rapidly growing role for technical communicators in the computer industry as members of the external design team.

While demand for business- and technical-writing courses at colleges and uni versities has increased, genuinely qualified teachers are not always available. This article describes an extended program for training graduate assistants to teach business and technical writing. The three-semester program includes a semester of apprenticeship teaching, followed by two semesters in which the graduate assistants teach their own classes. During the graduate assistants' first two semesters, they attend preparatory seminars on the teaching of pro fessional writing. The program emphasizes providing guidance and support for new teachers throughout their assistantship period, while encouraging the graduate assistants to develop their own teaching styles.

Because of the recent emphasis on rhetorical context in business and technical writing (BTW) instruction, the problem-solving case has become a staple in BTW classrooms. However, a number of critics have voiced concerns about the use of the rhetorical case. These concerns recall an ancient debate among Roman rhetoricians over an early case-study method called declamation. For contemporary theorists, the debate over case study revolves around its value as a stimulant to problem-solving skills, its ability to imitate the realistic circumstances of professional BTW, and its emphasis on persona and audience along with its deemphasis of the teacher. A full spectrum of arguments on these and other issues in the case-study debate indicates that the discipline is entering a new phase in its deliberations over the role of problem-solving and pragmatics in the BTW classroom.

This annotated bibliography identifies and summarizes sixteen current articles portraying the technical writer. Despite the abundance of literature on the subject of technical communication, there is scant literature that describes and humanizes the technical writers—the skills they value, products they produce, roles they play, or industries they serve. The sixteen articles listed here, all published since 1980, paint a picture which may be of use to practitioners, students, educators, authors, and researchers.

A rationale and description are presented for an approach to teaching ethics, as a process rather than a product, in a technical writing course. The students carry out a series of related assignments based on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The intent is that by writing and speaking about SDI technologies, students will develop the ability to form responsible value judgments in addition to doing factual reporting. To develop their sense of ethical reasoning, they are encouraged to use generalizations that evaluate the subject rather than just describe it. It is suggested that this method of raising ethical awareness could easily be adapted for use in professional seminars.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A qualitative study using reading protocols suggests that when readers of informative documents understand conveyed information satisfactorily, they make direct confirmations and positive comprehension evaluations. When readers are uncertain about the accuracy of their understanding, they guess, make assumptions, or render the text's language into their own words. When readers' understanding is impaired, they ask for more clearly established links or relationships in the text, or they pinpoint some ambiguity or lack of resolution. When readers' understanding is unsatisfactory but not impaired, they request additional information. In addition, readers make evaluative suggestions that introduce, focus, emphasize, or reiterate their other comprehension-related responses. The response patterns isolated in this qualitative study indicate the need for specific quantitative research and suggest some directions for developing reader-based heuristics for informative writing.

Most research on writing has focussed on the work of single authors working by hand on prose texts. However, much professional work is collaborative, computer-based, not exclusively prose, and not well studied. Some preliminary research suggests that the use of computers will affect the cognitive activities of individual authors in several domains of immediate relevance to composition and technical communication practitioners: planning activities, editing activities, the writing of novice computer users or poor typists, and writing for electronic mail and other electronic communication. Research reported here suggests that the rapidly increasing capability of computer-based writing systems will force communication researchers to 1) broaden their basic conception of and methods of studying “author” to include authoring teams, 2) broaden the type of material studied from that which is purely or largely textual to that which much more frequently includes other types of information, and 3) track changes in “genre conventions” resulting from the increased capabilities of computer-based systems—in short, to assess the impacts of the medium on the message.

The environmental impact statement (EIS) was created by the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969 as a means of ensuring careful study of possible effects on the environment of projects involving public lands and as an aid to effective decisions regarding such projects. This article presents a case study involving the reading of several EISs produced by one government agency, the Bureau of Land Management. An analysis of these documents reveals that, to answer the leading question of rhetoricians in the field of technical writing—Is the document effective?—we must consider the social and cultural context of the EIS as well as the characteristics of the text, its organization and style. Simple notions of purpose and audience are ruled out. We must account for pragmatics as well as syntactics and semantics. The very category of “effectiveness” is conditioned by the historical and political forces that shape the EIS. An approach through genre theory is recommended.

The growing use of acronyms in technical and nontechnical communications is addressed. It is shown that acronyms can hinder communication. Their use is analyzed and classified. Suggestions are given on how to use acronyms effectively.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

An important part of the Certificate in Technical Communication Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering is the technical communication internship, which integrates on-the-job experience with classroom experience. The certificate program requirements and the internship are described. Students who plan careers both in technical writing and in engineering report that they have found the internship valuable.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Usability evaluation and usability testing are defined and distinguished, and the role of expert evaluation in defining audience groups, constructing usage scenarios, and performing task breakdowns is pointed out. Usability evaluation is viewed as comparable to the work of an expert editor, and the background that a usability specialist should have is described. Other methods besides testing that can supplement expert evaluation are briefly discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

When the professional who teaches technical communication uses quality control techniques that are common in industry, technical reports and presentations show continual improvement. These techniques emphasize participative management, which in the classroom means student involvement in improving the process of writing a technical paper or making a technical presentation. Another effective technique derived from industrial management is applying quality control at checkpoints during the process instead of relying on control points at its end. A third improvement technique used by successful Japanese managers encourages and rewards suggestions to an extent unmatched even by the best US programs. The author describes the application of these industrial management techniques in the technical communication classroom. She reports that these techniques help create a strong classroom culture that helps students improve the quality of their work.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The authors argue that while usability testers have drawn on demonstrated practices from a variety of the social and clinical sciences in developing their methods, they have not concerned themselves with the reliability and validity of the data produced. The authors suggest that the concepts of reliability and validity are relevant to usability testing and that a concern for reliability and validity will enhance the credibility and effectiveness of usability testers.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The multidimensional nature of usability (including tradeoffs between dimensions) is described, stressing the linkage of the concept to the effective use of documentation by a particular group of readers in performing a certain set of software-related tasks under realistic environmental constraints. Major issues in the evaluation and design of usability are examined. It is argued that the sampling of realistic tasks and target readers is often very difficult, particularly in a laboratory setting, and that additional emphasis must be placed on using multiple observation periods, standardized measures and materials, and multimethod assessments of usability.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Six steps that are very much like those used in the planning phase of a software product are listed. It is shown, with the help of an extended illustration, how these same steps apply to the planning of an information product. The result is a set of measurable objectives that actually prescribes the appropriate usability testing for the documentation.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A discussion of the real-world environment of usability testing in the computer industry leads into a discussion of how the real world constrains the usability process and how the usability specialist can cope with the constraints. The focus is on two major constraints that result from the need to get information to the interface designers early enough so that they can use it: the need to work with incomplete materials, and the short amount of time usually allotted for a usability test iteration. The design of a new documentation model at Microsoft is considered as an example.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

It is pointed out that workplace reading primarily involves reading to do or reading that specifies action, as opposed to reading to learn or reading that centers on a topic as in a classroom. The author's development of reading to learn to do materials or tutorials that help users both to use a program and to learn is discussed. Her comparison with other research and her guidelines for developing effective tutorials provide help for the technical communicator's design of tutorials and have implications for the educator's design of assignments.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The author points out that construed narrowly, 'usability testing of documentation' can be limited to validating the usability of a nearly completed draft. She explores ways that technical communication can take a broader view of usability and then situate new approaches and studies. She argues that this broader interpretation can given technical communicators ways to talk with others interested in usability and can build a platform for an understanding of usability research that looks beyond the testing of drafts for usability to the tough issues driving usability research.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The author argues that the major reason why Robert Pirsig's 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', first published in 1974, continues to attract so much interest lies in the way Pirsig challenges our values. Pirsig shows that we have lost our understanding of quality, and he explores how we can restore a sense of quality to our lives. The author suggests that technical communication could benefit from Pirsig's idea.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The author discusses the University of Central Florida's technical writing program, which has unusual ways of presenting technical subjects while emphasizing writing and literature. Students learn about science from the English instructors, and they also learn English from scientists by studying the writings of Lewis Thomas, Isaac Asimov, Michael Faraday, Thomas Henry Huxley, and many others. Because the program is English-oriented, the students get a broader view of science, and they learn how to make art and science work together in technical communication.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The evaluation purposes that can be served at various stages in the development of a document are analyzed. Three testing modes-exploring, verifying, and comparing-are discussed, and their use with various forms of evaluation and feedback modes is examined. The generalization of evaluation findings and the need to make evaluation an integral part of document development are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>