The movement toward improved written technical communications has generated little parallel pressure for improved oral communication. Yet the cost of noncommunicative technical talks is large. Attention by speakers to several simple details will result in significant improvements in technical talks. The most important of these details is to present conclusions as close to the beginning of the talk as possible. This simple action will help change a talk from a mystery story to an understandable scientific presentation.

Several innovative methods were used to help technical writing students to write more purposively, professionally, and effectively: writing a paper on the improvement of style in technical writing; reading science literature and writing critiques; editing a technical report; writing a professional technical report; writing science books for children; and writing for publication.

The teaching and practice of technical writing are sometimes hampered by assumptions and approaches that have little value. The traditional term paper has as few applications in the real world as the essay. An “idea grid” has much more value than the outline, and creativity is not linear, sequential, or measurable. Most technical writing texts are of minimal value because of their common denominator approach.

Teachers are recruited from the technical professions and from advanced composition courses to instruct the new discipline: technical writing. Students in a single class major and work in diverse fields. As a common denominator, organization, research, and writing a major paper are emphasized. Classroom discussion, specialized workshops, and individual conferences are utilized. Quality is the key.

Three principal facets of the engineer's role in communicating technical information are to maintain a constant awareness of the inherent importance of technical communication; acquire and practice the basic skills needed to communicate effectively in various media; and foster the continued improvement of communication at all levels, including active participation in a professional society. Fulfillment of this role would allow engineers to realize better day-to-day communication, enhance their opportunities for advancement, and achive greater professional recognition.

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The author of this article directs his remarks primarily to teachers of literature who may be considering the teaching of technical writing. He shows the similarities existing among the forms of creative, expository, and technical writing. He then cites some of the differences: the interactions of writer, subject, and the audience; the use of graphics; and the emphasis of the practical rather than the aesthetic.

The transition from teacher of literature to teacher of technical writing was both a matter of choice and a matter of necessity. By choice I teach in a community college. But the subjects I teach and the manner in which I teach them are largely influenced by the nature of the institution and the students. The institution, committed to the concept of extending educational opportunity to all, attracts a uniquely heterogeneous student body who prefer occupationally oriented programs.

At Texas A&M, the technical writing faculty discovered that the biggest weakness of students' long technical reports was lack of research. To remedy this weakness, a library instruction plan, here described, was developed. Because of the intensive nature of the library instruction, devised to aid approximately twenty-one different majors, a followup procedure was necessary. The library research report, also described, was designed to require students to examine the research tools shown them during library instruction. After this report is complete, students can draw from it information necessary to write their proposals for their long reports. Thus, library instruction, the library research report, and the proposal can be made interrelated studies which have both immediate and long-range instructional value for students.

This annotated bibliography includes all articles published in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 1971–1977, with each of the 233 articles appearing in one of the following five major categories: (1) The Profession, (2) Education and Pedagogy, (3) Preparation and Presentation of Technical Information, (4) Publication and Personnel Management, (5) Applied Theory in Technical Communication.

American scientists and engineers are lucky. If their reports are unreadable, they can study technical writing at the nearest university, community college, hotel seminar, or in-house course. Their British counterparts are less fortunate. According to a British friend of mine who just earned his Ph.D. degree in engineering, the British are not taught to write past primary school. Those who study engineering at a polytechnic, an advanced college of technology, or at a university must write the best they can. Too often their best writing does not read well.

A survey of college and university members of the American Society for Engineering Education indicated that about 25 percent are offering technical writing instruction in some type of continuing education program. Formats vary widely and include videotape presentations, classroom instruction, and correspondence. Half of the courses are taught at the undergraduate level; about half of the instructors are in-house or visiting faculty. Major programs are at Clemson Univ., Colorado State Univ., George Washington Univ., Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Univ. of California (Los Angeles), Univ. of Michigan, and Univ. of Wisconsin (Madison). An industrial communication certification program is being planned at California State Univ. (Fullerton).

The ornate style practiced before the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century too often led to obscurity and verbal games rather than clarity and the pursuit of truth. In reacting against ornateness, however, scientists developed the ideal of a plain style that is itself problematic. The writer's posture is essentially defensive; he is more concerned with what not to do than what to do in his writing. The practice of amplification, useful for audience adaptation, has been abandoned, and rhetorical devices that promote the personal touch are no longer taught. Recent experiments indicate that classroom exercises involving rhetorical devices can help promote economy and clarity, encourage more personal and aggressive writing, strengthen the idea that writing is an art, and arouse writer and reader interest. The study of stylistic devices in use before the scientific revolution can be fruitful for modern scientific and technical writing.

In response to a mail survey of the career opportunities they offer teachers of technical writing, twenty-four programs that prepare students for careers as technical writers and editors indicated that their technical writing faculty enjoy about the same teaching loads, salaries, and chances for promotion and tenure as do equally qualified and experienced teachers of literature at their schools. The programs also indicated that they have a growing number of openings on their faculties for teachers of technical writing. Finally, the programs ranked and rated seventeen qualifications that might be offered by applicants for those positions; the most significant conclusion drawn from the rankings and ratings is that the programs look more favorably upon experience — both in teaching and in working as a technical writer or editor — than they do upon formal study of technical writing or the teaching of it.

This is one of the papers from technical writing students that the Journal publishes from time to time. The use of visual aids to complement technical writing is described, especially in reference to two main categories: static and dynamic images.

In this student paper, the author discusses technical writing with clarity as a major emphasis. It is suggested that the technical writing discipline can achieve more effective communication through the further development of writing skills.

Professional technical communicators need to be “engineers plus.” In the United Kingdom, the plus is added in short courses after full engineering education. Developing the plus requires more than just training in grammar, graphics, and layout; it calls for programs which will develop the personal attributes communicators need in order to cope with the constraints with which they have to work.

This article concerns a survey made by the author to determine the importance of technical writing to prominent engineers. Specific items discussed are the place of technical writing in the engineering curriculum and what should be included in a technical writing course. The results of a lengthy questionnaire are given, with some individual comments.

Teachers new to technical writing must understand that “Technical Writing” is not one course. Rather it is a whole variety of courses distinguished from one another primarily by differences in objectives and only secondarily by differences in subject matter. To identify needed technical writing courses and to define coherent sets of courses, teachers of technical writing and program administrators need “a mapping procedure” to help them consider alternatives systematically in terms of objectives. This paper proposes such a mapping procedure.

Reading of a substantial number of recent technical publications discloses excessive violations of certain stylistic and grammatical proprieties. These violations suggest failure of editors and teachers to get their message across and of writers to approach writing with fitting concern. The most frequent and significant violations are selected and explained. Speculation on causes and suggestions for elimination of the violations accompany the explanations.

A summer program at the Naval Underwater Systems Center offers from two to four temporary positions each year, where graduate students in technical writing are introduced to a wide variety of assignments in technical communications. The program, now in its sixth year, provides practical professional training for technical writers and editors.

A number of points for improving writing and speaking necessary for the world's work are discussed. One of these is the expansion of technical writing courses for managers, administrators, and company officials. Another point is concerned with the fact that most technical writing texts focus too much upon engineers and too little upon scientists. A third point deals with the necessity for paying more attention to graduate and professional programs. Other suggestions range through traditional English graduate programs, ways to reward effective technical writing teaching, emphasis on professionalism, and allocation of funding for the improvement of technical writing teaching. The author closes with a call for definite action.

There is essentially no teacher training for technical writing overseas. Western Europe follows United Kingdom practices because English is the primary scientific and technical language and the U.K.'s ISTC has assumed leadership on the continent. In the U.K., teachers are primarily concerned with preparing students for the external examinations given by the City and Guilds for certification of technical writers; elaborate teacher-training programs are unnecessary for this. Canada has not yet expanded course offerings sufficiently to create a demand for teachers of technical writing. Australia has this year decided to implement the U.K. procedure. While all nations train their scientists, en passant, to communicate in their own disciplines, none trains teachers of technical writing specifically.

In this article, the discussion centers around a changing and expanding definition of technical writing. An early definition was restrictive. Later, as courses for a number of disciplines were designed, technical writing became more diversified. A distinction is made between technical reporting and technical writing in other forms. The relation of graphics to technical writing is explored. The author gives a number of examples of the expanding subject matter and forms of technical writing.

To communicate technical material effectively to a particular audience, a writer must not only analyze his readers' background and professional needs, but also incorporate that analysis into his text. This article introduces the concept of the mock reader as a means of giving body to an amorphic audience and relates that concept to the decisions a writer must make. Three situations are presented—writing to the operator, the expert, and the manager—to show how the mock reader can enhance the immediacy and coherence of a text.

The traditional view of rhetoric and science as sharply distinct has helped reduce the technical writing course to mere vocational training. Current thinking in rhetorical theory and philosophy of science supports the contrasting view that science is rhetorical. Salient aspects of the rhetoric of science are illustrated by Crick and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA, as recorded in Watson's The Double Helix [1]. Analysis of the rhetoric of science suggests that the study of technical writing could be central to liberal education for a technological society.

LAST year we devoted most of our pages to articles on technical writing and publishing. This year we will tip the balance toward audio and visual aspects of technical communication. In this issue, for example, we include some thoughts on lecturing. Though the four articles reprinted here range in time of origin from the first half of the 19th century to the second half of the 20th, they are remarkably consistent and provide some succinct guides toward the development of effective oral presentations.

Language in a technical writing course can be taught from the standpoint of its function in the student's papers. Three functions can be differentiated: generative—making later discussion necessary; substantive—giving supporting material from researched sources; and conclusive—making the author's conclusions clear and apparent.

Looking back to a time when he was a student in technical writing courses, the author discusses the importance to the practicing engineer of style and correctness in communication. He cites the characteristics of an effective style. This is followed by the problems of grammar and the ways to attain reader interest.

There are two opposing views towards technical writing courses and towards teachers of technical writing: one favorable, the other disdainful. Those who disdain technical writing seem to believe that it: 1) imposes restrictive and arbitrary forms upon creative individuals, 2) involves only the accumulation of factual evidence, 3) deals with things, rather than with people, and 4) is, like other practical arts, a second-class activity. The first three beliefs are mistaken, and it can be argued that the dissemination of technical and scientific information is just as humanistic as artistic writing.

The special nature of technical writing is seen in the emphasis on efficient information transmission. Rather than relying on the classic concept of information as the probability of items in a series, the article discusses information value with respect to reader background and to the distribution of “new” information (not known to the reader, or not focused) and “old” (known, presupposed, mentioned) information. It is argued that this perspective is best suited for the presentation of grammar in the teaching of technical writing, with special regard for the focusing techniques of written as opposed to spoken English; examples are provided.

The busy technical writer can find whatever he needs stylistically in the Handbook of Technical Writing, and he can find it fast. Prepared as a college textbook, the Handbook can serve just as well as a desk reference for the employed writer.

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A student's honest complaint challenges the relevance of teaching technical writing. He assumes that academic and business criteria have little to do with each other. However, an examination of academic statistics and the expectations of business undercuts his assumption.

Modern technical writing often suffers from its tendency toward jargon. Technical writing courses should include units on grammar as it relates to stylistics in technical writing. Transformational-generative grammar offers an effective and useful approach to train technical writers to communicate more effectively and to avoid the problems inherent in an impersonal style. One way of organizing a discussion of transformational-generative grammar is to consider its application to sentences and clauses, phrases, and individual words.

This paper posits that the technical communicator probably spends more time engaged in oral communication activity than he does in written; thus, to be an effective technical communicator one needs an appreciation and an understanding of both modes. Differences between oral and written communication, and methods of difference reduction, are discussed for the dimensions of: 1) permanency, 2) style, 3) interactional control, 4) mediation, and 5) effects. The conclusion is drawn that to be effective the technical communicator must develop the ability to produce messages which evoke common understanding among those participating in the communication event.

To be used as a tool of professional writing, paragraphing must involve style organization, and a recognizable flow of thought. These characteristics are reviewed with examples, and emphasis is put on the use of a summarizing topic sentence.

Knowing how to express oneself properly is a necessity in today's technical world. The technical writer must use correct grammar and exact language in his descriptions of precise, technical subjects. He must learn how to adapt his personal style to the impact he wants to make. In addition, he must learn how to communicate to various levels of audiences. Also, he should learn to use graphic aids in the presentation of an article.

`Rules-of-thumb' are developed for guidance in the handling of technical names so that readers can benefit-rather than suffer-from italization, and other stylistic conventions in technical writing. The discussion also promotes the elimination of jargon, special meanings and ad hoc abbreviations.