This article traces the history of technical writing instruction in American colleges, concentrating on the major figures in technical writing instruction, the most important textbooks, the forces that shaped courses in technical writing during the period 1900–1980, and the refinements and improvements in teaching and materials that led to the current growth and success of technical writing courses.

Borrowing from scientific logic, the technical writing teacher can demonstrate differences between the way researchers/writers problem solve and the way readers comprehend written reports that are roughly parallel to the differences between deductive and inductive logic. As three pyramid theories of writing and their application in university and industry classrooms demonstrate, learning both systems of logic and how to transpose one into the other enables students to understand and structure their information from their readers’ viewpoint. In this logical context, opening with the conclusion finally makes sense to most writers.

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I have begun to suspect that many of the problems I see in technical writing books are introduced by the editor or publisher rather than by the author. A recent letter I received from an author whose book I reviewed sustains that opinion. I see a tendency by publishers to want to create a “universal” book to appeal to a larger audience and make more money. If that impression is true, I think the publishers' efforts are counter-productive.

This paper describes the problem of teaching technical writing to engineering students who are convinced they will never need or use the skills. A possible solution to the problem is to use the case method. The case method changes the nature of the traditional classroom environment by reflecting life on the “outside.” This paper describes how the case method is used in one technical writing course and how it changed some students' minds about the importance of a technical writing course in helping them prepare for their professional careers. The ten-week syllabus is described and samples of “before” and “after” are offered.

Instructors of technical writing can teach Japanese specialists more effectively by being aware of some basic linguistic differences. One of the difficulties with traditional instruction is that it is prepared from the native speaker's point of view. Instruction should be prepared to meet the foreign students' needs. Japanese students experience difficulty in three areas: First, they have trouble with technical terms, often relying too literally on a dictionary to offer a synonym. The consequence is their selecting imprecise terms which in turn produces an awkward expression. Second, Japanese students have trouble with English grammar — in particular with articles, prepositions, tenses, auxiliary verbs, and the subjunctive mood. Finally, they are challenged by rhetoric, that is, choosing and arranging words effectively. Examples of each problem are offered with suggestions on how to make the students more aware of the principles involved.

The laboratory notebook, traditionally a primary document in patent applications, has recently developed additional importance in the wake of federal regulations designed to insure more stringent record-keeping in the testing of drugs. Compression of procedural detail in published reports to save journal space has also changed the function of the laboratory notebook, which now serves as a receptacle for detailed information omitted from published accounts. These recent developments in laboratory notebooks are discussed with application to possible technical writing assignments.

Language study and literary criticism have for many years been separated. Modern developments in critical theory have stressed the study of texts. Structuralism developed a semiotic approach to texts using psychological and linguistic theory to support objective analysis. Poststructuralist theory has further developed these approaches investigating deep and surface significance in textual interpretation urging a deconstruction of texts to yield a full contemporary understanding. The relationship between writer, reader, text, and context is seen anew within the whole communication complex in an approach which regards texts as discourse. Advanced foreign language teaching unites literature and language in a new synthesis stressing communication and conceptualization through language. Technical communication should be aware of new interdisciplinary trends since it is itself at the center of the dominant theme of communication.

Procedures, instructions, and specifications demand precise and imaginative audience analysis. Although these three communications tasks ask an audience to participate in an operation, the specific purpose and audience of each is unique. Recognizing this uniqueness provides the technical communications teacher with challenging student assignments and the technical writer and editor with useful questions to ask in analyzing these audiences. This article describes the audiences that read procedures, instructions, and specifications, provides examples of each communication task, suggests assignments in each for technical communications teachers, and lists questions for technical writers and editors to ask about audiences of each task.

Poster sessions—also known as science markets—play an increasingly important part in the presentation of the results of scientific investigations at symposia and congresses. However, it often appears that scientists, technical communicators, and graphic designers have hardly any idea of the purpose of a poster session. This paper deals with several aspects of this fairly new phenomenon. The willingness of the visitor at a poster session to read a particular poster is determined by his interest in the subject, the structure and quantity of the scientific information involved, and the presentation as such. The person presenting the poster can influence only the last three factors. The poster can best be designed on Din A3 format (29.7 cm × 42 cm) and photographically enlarged to poster size (1 m × 1.5 m). A science market with posters may also contribute to improve scientific communication within a research institute, in combination with the conventional in-house presentations.

The practicing technical editor quickly realizes that regardless of author or subject, the same grammatical errors occur repeatedly in manuscripts. This can probably be blamed on a fundamental weakness in the training of technical writers, rather than on any lack of individual or collective ability on the writer's part. With this in mind, ten errors commonly found in technical manuscripts are collected and presented. It is hoped that the list will be helpful to teachers of technical writing and to technical writers who wish to improve their craft.

This article examines a little known, but superb piece of ancient technical writing, in fact the first technical writing in English on a complex scientific instrument: A Treatise on the Astrolabe by the medieval poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. As late as 1932, Chaucer's treatise was still touted by a science historian as unsurpassed among English writings on the astrolabe; yet it has received little attention within the technical writing field. To gain deeper understanding of the strengths and enduring powers of this piece of technical writing, so we can apply these insights to modern efforts, this article examines Chaucer's treatise and also looks briefly at Chaucer's source, an eighth-century work by an Arabian astronomer, Messahala. This examination of historical descriptions and instructions shows that many of our current conventions and forms in handling these modes of writing were both natural and traditional in Chaucer's time, and some even in Messahala's.

Translation is a form of technical writing in that both translators and technical writers assess their work by comparing it with a concrete object or process (a technical text with its subject, a translation with its original). Among aspects of language that concern translators and technical writers is that of “sublanguages,” subsets of a language used in special fields of knowledge, having distinct lexical, grammatical, and syntactic features. Sublanguage knowledge plays a vital part in both translation and technical writing. The relations found between the two professions also imply some ways technical writers can improve foreign-language services they receive.

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

In order to repair defective equipment in the shortest possible time, the repairman needs functional service manuals. These manuals are made by the technical communicator, who gets his “input” from the development engineer. Three different people, with different background and training. This article concentrates upon the relationship between the engineer and the communicator. How can they help each other in order to obtain a useful manual?

Bond graphs offer a simple, efficient method for developing models of physical (e.g., mechanical, electrical, thermal, fluid), chemical, economic, and other types of systems. They are a communication device that can be easily interpreted by workers with differing technical and mathematical backgrounds, thereby facilitating interdisciplinary discussion and exchange of information. This paper provides a quick introduction to bond graphs with examples and references.

We expect a book with the title The Writing System to be about a systematic approach to technical writing, a step-by-step method of producing good writing. Indeed, the emphasis of this book is on the strategy of writing, but it is both broader and narrower in scope than the title suggests. How can it be both broader and narrower?

Business and Technical Writing: An Annotated Bibliography of Books 1880–1980 Gerald J. Aired, Diana C. Reep, and Mohan R. Limaye with the assistance of Michael A. Mikolajczak. London and Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1981. Philosophers on Rhetoric: Traditional and Emerging Views. Donald G. Douglas, ed. Skokie, Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1973. Four Worlds of Writing. Janice M. Lauer, Gene Montague, Andrea Lunsford, Janet Emig. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. Pp. xvii and 423.

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The word refers to a way we engage in an activity. Doing something is difficult if we do it with effort and with some doubt as to the eventual outcome. Depending on the nature and degree of doubt, there are three kinds of difficulty. If we are having difficulty with something but expect from the nature of the task or the fact that others can do it that we will eventually learn to do it easily, we are having a transitory difficulty. This is the difficulty of riding a bicycle, the difficulty of getting up in front of a group, the difficulty of choosing between vanilla and chocolate ripple. Other difficulties we do not expect to overcome, though we think in principle that the task admits easy success and we can see that others have overcome the difficulties. These are continuing difficulties. I have difficulty writing, for instance, and I expect to continue to have difficulty, but I know others for whom it is not at all difficult. I think of this sort of difficulty as a failure to call on the right resources. For most of us, selfdiscipline falls into this category, or being honest on our tax forms. The last kind of difficulty inheres in the task itself, given our capacities. These no one does easily: resolving paradoxes or thinking of two things at once, confronting death or remembering dreams. These are inherent difficulties. The transitory difficulties a new teacher of technical writing faces are only too apparent. They include learning a new curriculum, discovering the needs of a new kind of student, making up assignments and grading them, learning the textbooks, gaining a feel for technical style-and, as Maxwell Smart used to say, loving it. These are difficulties we have teaching any new subject; they are not in principle different from those we would encounter if suddenly asked to teach a course on Nigerian paleoliths. Nor are they particularly difficult as these things go, for there is a profession of teaching technical writing, which we find we have inadvertently joined, and the experienced in that profession have sought to ease our difficulties. An association, a little magazine, summer programs, textbooks, and innumerable how-to articles exist which will help any reasonably thorough person construct and teach a course which will indeed help students. The fundamental principles of technical writing (figure out your audience, organize to

Requirements of accuracy in technical writing overwhelm considerations of stylistic grace. Analysis of the resulting technical style, however, often reveals a discrepancy between technical and verbal accuracy. The object of verbal form is an accommodation between grace and accuracy. Several avenues to achieve this accommodation are presented from Martin Buber's I and Thou to psycholinguist theorists such as George Miller and Walter Kintsch. Linguistic theory and literacy analysis can also provide means of reestablishing grace, not as replacement, but in contention with technical accuracy. The aims of technical discourse, like that of all other discourse, should include the gracefulness of one human being speaking to another.

This annotated bibliography includes all articles published in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 1978–1980. The articles are divided into the following categories: 1) The Profession, 2) Education and Pedagogy, 3) Preparation and Presentation of Technical Information, and 4) Applied Theory in Technical Communication.

We may discover the basis for a humanistic rhetoric of technical writing by examining managerial theories of human behavior. Complaints about the deficiencies of writers and their work correspond remarkably to complaints about the deficiencies of employees and their work. And both sets of complaints may actually be related to the traditional Theory X of human behavior, held by managers and teachers of writing. An alternative managerial theory proposed by Douglas McGregor, Theory Y, suggests ways to encourage an individual's initiative and to satisfy the organization's goals simultaneously. Since technical writing weds the worlds of writing and working, this managerial theory can provide a sound basis for a rhetorical theory that encourages a writer's initiative and satisfies the goals of writing simultaneously. The letter of application for employment illustrates how Theory Y works.

Technical writing required of employees in business and industry has been investigated, but the writing demands on graduate students have not been systematically surveyed. To find out what kinds of writing are required of graduate engineering students, twenty-five engineering faculty members from the Engineering College at the University of Florida listed the kinds of writing assigned to graduate classes during the academic year 1979–80. Since the faculty members were asked to rank-order the writing kinds from most frequent to least frequent, the Friedman analysis of variance and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test were used to test for differences in the rank ordering. The tests showed that faculty assigned examinations, quantitative problems, and reports most frequently, that they assigned homework and papers (term and publication) less frequently, and that they assigned progress reports and proposals least frequently.

The author of this article argues that all too often teachers of technical writing spend too much time pressuring their students to write simply and without jargon, and that as a result they often get writing that is bad because it is skeletal and undeveloped writing lacking in continuity and narrative functions. The technical writer is often overjoyed to submit outline-writing because it requires small effort, not realizing that it shifts the burden of interpretation to the reader. The author recommends a number of cures for the skeletal technical paper.

The cover letter you send with a resume to a prospective employer should be grammatically and typographically perfect. The principles to follow when composing the cover letter are the same as for any technical communication: Use simple, precise language; be concise; use the active voice. Tips on how to handle the mechanical aspects of the cover letter — selecting paper, using proper margins, and writing short paragraphs — are also presented.

Like a two-legged stool, language and content in technical writing do not stand alone. The finished product must meet requirements and satisfy constraints — the moral of this tale.

The disciplines of software engineering and technical writing have much in common. Both espouse a structured approach to product development, whether the product is a computer program or a manual describing that program. These disciplinary parallels suggest that technical communicators have more to offer software engineers than our usual writing and editing services. Specifically, this article describes four special services that technical communicators could provide during the first phase of software development, requirements. These services are audience analysis, functional analysis, human factors research, and requirements writing. The goals of these services are to improve the quality of software products and to make the documentation task more efficient.

At present the ethical concerns for technical communicators are narrowly defined in terms of management issues. Ethical problems cannot be solved by such a simplistic view. Instead we need to explore the ethical nature of the professional fields technical and science writing supports, the ethical positions in closely related fields, and the work that has already been accomplished in the general area of communication ethics. Once we have established such a foundation, we can begin to explore the most basic influences inherent in language uses on ethical concerns.

Having students read selected portions of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography provides unique and effective material for supplementing instruction in style and control of tone. Franklin's writing exemplifies the major style characteristics taught in technical writing: active voice, conciseness, common words, concrete language, sentences structured by clauses rather than phrases. The work clearly shows that good “technical” style is not an isolated type of writing, but a powerful means of controlling tone and meaning. Students can be shown that by skillfully using syntax and diction and by carefully selecting content, Franklin shrewdly and effectively achieved his goal in writing the Autobiography — a precisely drawn image of himself for posterity.

Various style manuals, advice to authors, and textbooks on writing stress that writers should prefer the active voice of the verb and avoid the passive form. The following bibliography brings together references to the passive voice of the verb from linguists, grammarians, and researchers of the use of passive voice verbs; comments from technical writing textbooks; comments from books on language; comments from style manuals; and references from various other sources. The annotations summarize the principal points the article makes about passive voice verbs (abstracts provided by the authors of the articles are marked with an asterisk (*)). Part I covered materials from linguists while Parts II through V list references in technical writing textbooks, style manuals and authors' guides, and various other sources.

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Design and development engineers have a responsibility to communicate and cooperate fully with technical writers if successful publications are to emerge from an organization. It is the writer's obligation to obtain the respect and confidence of the engineers so that information is rendered accurately and for mutual benefit. Such information may take the form of explanatory documents, manuals, brochures, reports, specifications, and publications for employee training. Illustrations are part of an international technical writing language. Their purpose is to convey a message with little or no text and they must be carefully crafted not to hand the reader a puzzle.

To understand a scientific or technical article written in English by Japanese specialists, readers should understand in what areas of English grammar the Japanese tend to make mistakes. Most common are mistakes in the use of articles, subjunctive mood, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs. Also a problem is the use of unsuitable words, often due to the use of bilingual dictionaries. A further complication arises from the absence of the perfect tenses in Japanese.

Students in engineering courses can learn technical writing skills without having to spend large amounts of valuable class time. Given design-project handouts that contain a problem statement and a list of design specifications, students are asked to solve the problem and they are expected to write a report that includes a title page, abstract, table of contents, introduction, body, conclusion, and reference list. Handouts, which are provided at the beginning of the project, are models of the technical reports the students are expected to prepare.

This article is placed within the defined area of study of “coherence,” which is seen as one of the three parts of recent work in the “discourse analysis” of contemporary English prose with emphasis on technical writing. One element of the total system of coherence is seen to be the “associated nominal” which, together with repetition, substitution, deletion, synonymy, among others, enables writers to maintain the thread of continuity in a text. Introductory details of associated nominals are given, and some of their purposes and environments of use are described with the use of examples of actual English use. Potential effects of this work on the teaching of technical writing are mentioned, and detailed references and anannotated bibliography assist readers who may wish to read further.

Various style manuals, advice to authors, and textbooks on writing stress that writers should prefer the active voice of the verb and avoid the passive form. The following bibliography brings together references to the passive voice of the verb from linguists, grammarians, and researchers of the use of passive voice verbs; comments from technical writing textbooks; comments from books on language; comments from style manuals; and references from various other sources. The annotations summarize the principal points the article makes about passive voice verbs (abstracts provided by the authors of the articles are marked with an asterisk (*)). Part I covers materials from linguists while Part II, to be published in the next issue, lists references in technical writing textbooks, a selection of general books on language, style manuals and author's guides, and various other sources.

Creative and technical writing share definite, but seldom realized, affinities. Like the fiction writer, the engineer and the scientist must realize that writing is a creative process rather than a reflex action if they are to communicate successfully. Often, professional advancement depends on the ability to present and to interpret factual information coherently and effectively. Although technical writing presents factual information and creative writing fictional information, both crafts adhere to the same underlying rhetorical principles in order to create their desired effects. This article examines those shared principles that make technical writing more than a prosaic exercise and allow writers to express themselves meaningfully. The role of imagination in this craft is also explored.

Moby-Dick is a classic of technical literature as well as a classic of American literature. But for the technical writing teacher, its relevance goes beyond this: Moby-Dick can also be a valuable teaching resource. It provides pertinent examples for teaching students the concepts of audience, purpose, research and sources, use of background experience, and thoroughness in compiling data. It also supplies ample models of technical definitions, descriptions, processes, and theories. Finally, Moby-Dick demonstrates the kind of energetic technical writing that is so needed today.

Three hundred sixty-seven engineering graduates responded to a survey by ranking 30 communication tasks according to their job importance and frequency of performance. The statistical result was that speaking tasks were rated slightly higher than writing tasks for all engineering fields surveyed, independent of whether the respondent spent more time in engineering or in management. Also, more than 50 percent had job-related spoken communication with technical personnel at least daily and with nontechnical personnel at least weekly.

The author discusses the rather highly specialized role of the technical communicator in promoting the process of technology transfer, i.e., industrial application of technologies that originally had been developed in Government research and development (R&D) programs.

You can make yourself easily understood on complex ideas by organizing and signaling the meaning of your thoughts in a clear way. Thoughts should be grouped in the order situation, problem, resolution, information — the SPRI system. Even an already written but confusing article can be improved by coding each sentence or passage with an S, P, R, or I and then reordering the text.

The first section sketches a broad historical framework in which to understand the emergence of the computer and the profession of technical communication and sets the stage by concluding that the computer is both a part of the technological milieu which needs technical communicators and a tool which communicators can use. Then comes a brief review of computer applications in terms of numerical, nonnumerical, and communication applications and dumb, clever, and intelligent program functions. Then the author argues that advances in computer science will narrow the gap between writing computer programs and documenting them to the point where technical communicators in the software field will be programmers. The final section suggests that computing technology will give technical communicators professional autonomy comparable to that currently enjoyed by doctors and lawyers.

The debate as to whether heuristics or prescription provides the best approach to teaching technical writing is still largely unresolved. When heuristics are used as process, as problem-solving devices, and when prescription is used as a product-producing device, a useful synthesis of the two approaches occurs. This article presents such a synthesis of heuristics and prescription; it concludes with a short annotated bibliography on heuristics and prescription which can be used by the technical writing teacher and the technical writer.

In most textbooks on technical writing, understandability of sentences is misleadingly equated with grammatical primitiveness. In actual technical writing, however, writers regularly conform to six basic rules dealing with the uses of base clauses and free modifiers, as well as punctuation. There are ten types of free modifiers, which can be used singly or in parallel or nonparallel sequences. All types are used either to add details to a key idea expressed in a base clause or to make transitions between one sentence or paragraph and another.

A technical writing course can simulate the work situation and develop in students the uniquely human faculty of imagination. Whole-group effort is needed to sustain the fiction that the course is a job. Special presentation by the instructor of traditional assignments is essential. Such a course prepares students for demands made on the job. More importantly, the course, by emphasizing the act of imagining, enables students to progress from fitting facts into given formats to designing reports for specific communication situations. Because of this emphasis on imagination, the course is a humanities offering as well as a technical complement.

This paper differs from many how-to-do-it guidelines for authors because it proposes that technical writers need to acquire various skills. One valuable skill is that of analyzing how a document will be used. Creating easy-to-read texts also requires the twin skills of language control and judicious selection among graphic and typographic options. Evaluating the cost-benefits of alternative presentations requires a fourth skill, sophisticated interpretation of the available research findings (laboratory findings are not suitable for rote application). A fifth set of skills that are useful to the technical writer concerns the management of the production process, where administrative and interpersonal factors must be deftly handled. Whether these diverse skills can be found within one person seems an open question which has important implications for the training of technical authors and the operation of technical writing departments.

The premise upon which readability formulas operate is that short words and short sentences are the measure of readable writing. This premise has (and was acknowledgedly designed with) limitations that are too often overlooked in enthusiastic attempts to reduce all writing to simple, quantitative analysis. Among these limitations two are particularly germane to any discussion of using readability formulas for evaluating technical communication.

Mail survey research exists which can provide guidelines in the development of two-year college technical communications curriculum. This paper describes what surveys exist; where they have been reported; and what they have found. Close examination reveals that there are areas of research saturation and areas of research deficiency. By developing new types of questions to cover these areas of research deficiency, future researchers will be able to analyze vital new areas of knowledge.

Since technical writing is changing from a course for the scientific elite to one with a much broader base, the need to diagnose in technical writing classes is growing too. The right diagnostic tools can allow the instructor to set class goals more effectively, structure the course more efficiently, and discover and deal better with student expectations. The diagnostic we have designed, asking students to compose a memo which discusses their projected needs as aspiring technical writers, yields useful information about the stylistic strengths and weaknesses of the students. But more important, the diagnostic provides guidelines for choosing among the flexible units of study at the instructor's disposal, and also reveals student attitudes, preconceptions, and prejudices — data which aid the instructor in laying the proper groundwork in the early phases of the course.