Discusses how both novels share key thematic elements pertaining to the experiences of migrants from rural Appalachia to multiethnic industrial centers of the urban north. Notes that a focus on the authors' handling of material culture helps to point one with increased clarity and precision to the writerly method by which Attaway and Arnow convey particular themes effectively.

The ongoing antitrust battle between the U.S. Department of Justice and Microsoft Corporation presents technical communicators with two ethical questions: 1) Is it right, good, or fair for Microsoft to give away its Internet Explorer browser? 2) If Microsoft gains monopoly control over the PC browser market, will this be good for us? In this article, I exam these questions using traditional rights-based ethical theory (Kant), utilitarianism, and John Rawls' principles of justice, concluding that it is neither good nor fair for a company having a near-monopoly over a market to sell products below fair market value, nor is it good that one company stands to gain monopoly control over the PC browser market. When the discussion turned to Netscape, one Intel executive, who asked not to be identified, recalled Martiz [Paul Martiz, Microsoft Group Vice President, Platforms & Application] saying: “We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they're selling, we're going to give away for free” [1]. “We're giving away a pretty good browser as part of the operating system. How long can they survive selling it?”—Statement by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft President and CEO [2]. “Our business model works even if all Internet software is free,” says Mr. Gates. “We are still selling operating systems.” Netscape, in contrast, is dependent upon its Internet software for profits, he points out.—Statements by Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman [3]. Only a monopolist could study a competitor and destroy its business by giving away products—Statement by Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems Chairman [4].

I salute the 1300 two-year colleges-colleges that bring hope, opportunity, fulfillment of dreams to a large segment of our population for whom otherwise higher education would be very difficult, if not impossible. Community colleges are open door, they are accessible, they are affordable, they are cost efficient, they offer a broad array of programs and services, and they open the way for transferring to four-year institutions or entering/reentering the workforce. Familiar words from the Declaration of Independence remind us of the basis of our democracy: "We hold these truths to be self-evident…"-you know the rest of the sentence. The abstractions "created equal," "certain unalienable rights," "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" become realities for many because of their community college experiences. Community colleges are indeed democracy in action. (Pickett 98).

While technical writing continues to struggle for recognition as a legitimate academic discipline, English programs are increasingly perceived not only by nonacademics, but by academics in other fields as having little relevance in nonacademic professions. Internships are routine components of technical communication programs, but they can offer excellent professional opportunities to English majors who do not plan academic careers. A technical communication internship program expanded to encompass the nonacademic needs and interests of English majors has benefits for the English department, for English majors, and for the technical communication profession. First, it can enhance enrollments and retention in the English program. Second, it can build the credibility of the English curriculum in the nonacademic professional community. Finally, it can enhance the credibility of technical communication within the English department. It is to our advantage to do whatever we can to support our English department colleagues rather than to undermine their often precarious status in the academy and in society.

Focusing only on the famous and celebrated has skewed military and political history; focusing only on Oliver Evans, Lauchlan McKay, John W. Griffiths, Joseph Crane, and John H. Patterson could similarly skew our sense of American technical communication in the nineteenth century. Exploring the written work of an ordinary American mechanician of the nineteenth century, William Stillman of Rhode Island, could help balance our appraisal of nineteenth-century American technical communication. Reviewing the writing and graphics in his 1851 Miscellaneous Compositions, as well as his 1839 lock patent and 1836 bank lock instructions, reveals Stillman's ambidextrous abilities in using both text and graphics to communicate; abilities similar to his more famous fellow citizens. However, the three-dimensional qualities of his 1839 patent graphic reveals an unusual ability to mimic the biological methods in which the human eye sees three dimensions.

This article examines the kinds of instruction that foster student engagement with literature and the effects of such instruction on achievement. First, two general kinds of student engagement are distinguished: “procedural,” which concerns classroom rules and regulations, and “substantive,” which involves sustained commitment to the content and issues of academic study. The article then describes the manifestations of these two forms of engagement, explains how they relate differently to student outcomes, and offers some empirical propositions using data on literature instruction from 58 eighth-grade English classes. The results provide support for three hypotheses: (a) Disengagement adversely affects achievement; (b) Procedural engagement has an attenuated relationship to achievement because its observable indicators conflate procedural and substantive engagement; and (c) Substantive engagement has a strong, positive effect on achievement. Features of substantively engaging instruction include authentic questions, or questions which have no prespecified answers; uptake, or the incorporation of previous answers into subsequent questions; and high-level teacher evaluation, or teacher certification and incorporation of student responses into subsequent discussion. Each of these is noteworthy because they all involve reciprocal interaction and negotiation between students and teachers, which is said to be the hallmark of substantive engagement.

The widespread use of irony in academic writing raises issues not considered in most psychological, linguistic, or literary approaches to irony: How is irony signalled in a written text? What are the constraints of politeness within academic discourse that govern the use and interpretation of irony? This essay considers the interpretation of one kind of irony—ironic quotation—in a controversy between linguists and artificial intelligence researchers. Irony in these published exchanges is then compared to irony in conference discussions and unpublished papers in linguistics and to irony in other disciplines. Although the analysis follows psychological and linguistic accounts of irony as echoic mention in which the same words can be reused with a different intention, it begins with the rhetorical relation of the quoting writer, the quoted writer, and the reader as members of disciplinary communities. The instances of irony that are considered both define these relations and assume them as a basis for interpretation. This analysis suggests that the study of irony can serve as a means of understanding disciplines and of examining our own taken-for-granted assumptions as academic writers.

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 current job market favors young technical writers who are skilled in the way of the computer both as a subject of writing and as a production tool. In the technical writing classroom students can be exposed to this important technology through assignments that include computerized instruction, word processing, text analysis, artificial intelligence, and communications.

Native and international science, engineering, and humanities graduate students at The University of Texas at Arlington experience real-world communication situations in an interdisciplinary, projected-oriented technical communication course team-taught by a technical writer and a mechanical engineer. The course simulates the writing requirements of industry and helps students prepare theses and dissertations. A special feature for international students is a supplementary weekly laboratory session devoted to intensive review of writing fundamentals. The course, which has been offered three times since 1976 with enrollments of eleven, five, and nine students, has been received well by science and engineering students for whom it was initially designed and by humanities students who now also enroll. Even though in some cases the progress that a foreign student makes in one semester is limited, all students have found the course of great benefit. The interdisciplinary team approach is an effective way of teaching graduate-level technical communication, providing engineers an opportunity to learn to express ideas to humanists and providing humanists an opportunity to learn to communicate effectively with engineers and scientists.

The following treatise surveys the issues and approaches for designing a computer system capable of reading, understanding, and writing technical reports. Recent progress in computer science and artificial intelligence research is used to specify the nature of the modules in the system. The processing of a sample text is observed during the phases of reading and writing a report on the origin of sunspots. The author advances some proposals for correlating syntax and semantics of English from a procedural standpoint. The discussion is illustrated with structural diagrams.

Evolving from principles observed in telecommunications and servomechanisms, cybernetics is now a broad interdisciplinary science that embraces all biological and environmental activities, including human thought and social organization. Cybernetics provides the unifying basis for various scientific techniques used in business management today, but computer-aided administration and factory automation are only a start. Eventually, comprehensive systems of artificial intelligence will function at the highest level to direct, not merely manage, the total operation of industry, even the administration of society itself. Clearly, there will be marked impact on human communication, especially in scientific and technical publications for marketing and training.