This article describes techniques for finding and for preparing for consulting work in communications. It explores procedures essential to workshops, in-plant and extension seminars, free-lance and staff-writing and editing, scientific and medical journalism, reviewing and abstracting and translating services, and several of the communication links established by new federal legislation.

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.

The distribution of 13 million Australians over a land mass the size of the United States poses unique problems for the communication of technical information. Both industry and education in non-urban areas are being imaginatively served by telecommunication and non-linear techniques, but the needs of secondary and tertiary industries for technical writing capabilities have not been met. Vigorous efforts by federal and state governments, by academic and industrial training facilities, and by professional societies are being made to correct this recognized inadequacy.