This article takes a historical view of Dawes Era medical communication, focusing on National Archives Record Group 75 (the Bureau of Indian Affairs papers). Examinations of reports from the Pine Ridge and Nett Lake Agencies focus readers’ scrutiny on prevalent formal codes and paracolonial conventions of Indian Bureau medical reports. This article challenges writing studies scholars to forthrightly concern themselves with the ways in which discourses of power are encoded in document structures and designs.

This article reports on an effort by the authors to use usability testing as a component of online teacher training for their multimajor technical communication course. The article further explains the ways in which program administrators at other institutions can create their own usability testing protocols for formative online teacher training in course design and in principles of user-centered design.

This article presents follow-up information to a previous publication regarding ways to increase emphasis on research skills in undergraduate Technical Communication curricula. We detail the ways our undergraduate program highlights research by requiring majors to complete senior thesis projects that culminate in submission to an online peer-reviewed journal housed at our institution. This article also describes the roles our undergraduate students play in helping to manage the publication of that academic journal, an activity that further increases students' awareness of the research process and the value of writing for an academic audience beyond the classroom.