This article discusses what we mean by the term—internship, with special attention to requiritalicents for compensation; explains the issues that appertain to unpaid student internships; and urges broad engagitalicent and individual as well as collective action on this issue.

This article explores the complexity in Rohan's observation that “although texts in progress create community, this function hasn't value; in the world of business works in progress must be free” [1, p. 130]. To do so, the article describes the history of the development of the paper sewing pattern, discusses the role personal communications with consumers played as the genre evolved, and offers observations on the kinds of instruction provided by sewing machine and pattern companies. The extent to which gender and authority are connected in communications between consumers and corporate authors is explored. The article concludes by observing that once a genre is sufficiently established to become a standard, two changes occur: industries adopt authority for only certain types of necessary information, and women's authorship becomes anonymous, corporate, and personal exchanges with consumers are curtailed to save the expense.

Although scarcely explored to date, US patent records provide numerous opportunities for research in technical and scientific communication. This article reviews disciplinary research that taps this rich archive of information, describes ways in which patents act as moral and social barometers to technological change, and provides readers with a brief guide to basic information needed to initiate research using patent records.

This article considers why women have been absent from the history of technical communication. It discusses research from the history of technology suggesting that notions of technology, work, and workplace may be gendered terns. The piece concludes with several suggestions for defining technical communication so the significant works of women will not be excluded from the discipline's history.