Bibliography of Articles on the History of Technical Writing

R. John Brockmann Arizona State University

Abstract

This collection of thirty-six articles exposes the problem and the promise of historical research in technical writing. The central problem is that historical research in technical writing has too often been focused only on celebrated authors or scientists as technical writers. The central promise contained in some very recent essays is that historical research in technical communications is beginning to consider the slow evolution of technical communication taking place across a broad spectrum of both celebrated and uncelebrated writers. This historical approach, though more difficult to carry out, is immensely more accurate and meaningful.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
1983-04-01
DOI
10.2190/1lar-4plu-ekq3-302w
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (9)

  1. Written Communication
  2. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  4. Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Show all 9 →
  1. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

References (84) · 8 in this index

  1. Abstracts provided by the authors themselves are marked with an asterisk (*).
  2. Andrews Deborah C. and William D., Nineteenth Century American House Pattern Books, A Rhetorical Analysis, Pr…
  3. *In 19th Century America, a widely felt need for information on house-building resulted in a sizable body of …
  4. Technical Communication
  5. *Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?–1400) is renowned as one of the earliest and greatest of English poets; his Canterbu…
Show all 84 →
  1. Technical Communication
  2. This article describes the stylistic changes in a short prose passage written by Joseph Glanvill in 1676. One…
  3. 10.1109/TEWS.1965.6594555
  4. Technical Communication
  5. This short article examines the diction of an article published by Davy in 1816 and points out how it exempli…
  6. Connaughton, Michael., Technical Writing in America: A Historical Perspective, in Technical Writing: Past, Pr…
  7. This ground-breaking article describes the place of historical considerations in the discipline of technical …
  8. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  9. *This article is a sample of science and technology stories about the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, drawn …
  10. 10.1126/science.197.4306.827
  11. Thinking with pictures is an essential strand in the intellectual history of technological development in the…
  12. Ferguson Richard W. “Fear God and Take Your Own Part.” Ethical Imperatives and Technical Writing — Some Turn-…
  13. *Unlike the pluralistic view which dominates our perception of our society today, many of our predecessors he…
  14. Society of Technical Writers and Publisher Review
  15. *Before the current technological era, the appellation “technical writer” and the term “instruction manual,” …
  16. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  17. *Addressing the professional communicator, the technical writing teacher and the interested student, this art…
  18. Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Communications Conference
  19. *The modern technical communicator needs to be aware of the legacy of scientific and technical writing in Ame…
  20. Technical Communication
  21. *Technical writing was born in the military manual mills of World War II, according to a popular notion, but …
  22. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  23. *The achievements of great men like George Washington Carver are often perpetuated by myth; but more often th…
  24. Thus, this article seeks to identify Carver's achievements as a technical communicator through a brief analys…
  25. Courses, Components, and Exercises in Technical Communication
  26. *Many students in technical writing classes are absorbed in the immediate developments within their technical…
  27. Society of Technical Writers and Publishers Review
  28. *Benjamin Franklin was an editor, a publisher, and a printer, but first of all he was a writer. His technical…
  29. Language and History in the Sciences and Technologies: Towards a Hierarchical Semantics o…
  30. A historical understanding of a technical or scientific document allows one to understand the conceptual para…
  31. Jones Richard F., Science and English Prose Style in the Third Quarter of the Seventeenth Century, Publicatio…
  32. This article traces the impact of the Royal Society's linguistic reformers — Sprat, Petty, Wilkins, et al. — …
  33. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  34. *Moby-Dick is a classic of technical literature as well as a classic of American literature. But for the tech…
  35. Technical Communication
  36. This short article discusses how the nineteenth century British geologist Sir Charles Lyell effectively commu…
  37. Technical Communication
  38. This brief article discusses how John Snow's 1824 paper, “The Prevention of Cholera,” exemplifies the rhetori…
  39. Lipson Carol, I Am But a Lewd Compilator: Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe as Translation, Neuphilo-logisc…
  40. *This article looks at the extent of Chaucer's dependence on sources; it finds inapplicable the common design…
  41. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  42. *This paper examines Chaucer's place in the manual tradition of the period. It looks at the strengths of his …
  43. Technical Communication
  44. *Modern technical communicators can learn a thing or two by studying the work of pioneers in the field. Analy…
  45. Technical and Professional Communication
  46. The two authors discuss how they introduce students to the “long and great” tradition of technical and scient…
  47. The Teaching of Technical Writing
  48. *Passages from the works of technical writers of the past are presented and discussed by the author, who stat…
  49. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  50. *The fiftieth anniversary of the death of Camille Flammarion, the great French astronomer, is the occasion fo…
  51. Ovitt George, A Late Medieval Technical Directive: Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe, Proceedings of the 28…
  52. *Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe, which is the oldest treatment of a technical subject in English, was wr…
  53. Paradis James G., The Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, and Some Origins of the Modern Technical Paper, Proceed…
  54. *The interaction of science and literary tradition in the mid-seventeenth century is an important source of t…
  55. New Essays in Scientific and Technical Writing and Communication
  56. Although largely based on the vernacular, scientific language draws much of its vocabulary from distinct lexi…
  57. Technical Communication
  58. *Eramus Darwin (1731–1802) was a renowned English physician and scientist. He was also the author of extremel…
  59. Society of Technical Writers and Publishers
  60. This article discusses the activities of people whose primary work has been technical writing from Babylonian…
  61. Society of Technical Writers and Publishers
  62. *Once in a rare while a person achieves stature as a scientist on the basis of work that is primarily a colle…
  63. Society of Technical Writers and Publishers Review
  64. *A dedication to learning was one of the outstanding characteristics of the Puritan religious movement in Eng…
  65. 10.2190/NETC9
  66. During their careers, Renaissance scientists such as Paracelsus, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, and Copernicus disco…
  67. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  68. *Having students read selected portions of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography provides unique and effective ma…
  69. Technical Communication
  70. This short article investigates the personal stylistic attributes of an experiment written up by Joseph Pries…
  71. Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Communications Conference
  72. *The topics of classical rhetoric are familiar methods in the communication of scientific and technical infor…
  73. 10.2307/356123
  74. *Bacon's comments on logic and rhetoric reveal a comprehensive view of the communication process. In particul…
  75. Internship Programs: Current Practices and Future Changes, Proceedings of the Council for Programs in Technic…
  76. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  77. American Computing Machinery Special Interest Group for System's Documentation Newsletter
  78. A Reformed Writer in 1676, Technical Communications, Fall 1982.
  79. Cases for Composition Versus Casebook Rhetoric, Teaching English in the Two Year College, Spring 1982.