Every professional who must make oral presentations will find some useful techniques in this book. It is geared to the pragmatic, rather than the academic, and it is lively and direct.

Thomas Montalbo, formerly a financial manager for the U.S. Treasury Department, draws from more than 20 years of public speaking and speech writing experience to produce a book with an interesting premise. This is a call to resurrect the eloquence we usually associate with great issues and great men, but Montalbo points out that eloquence is not restricted to great issues and great men. “Why be an average speaker when you can be one of the best?”

If you're in technical publishing or thinking about getting into it, you'll find much useful information in this book. The publisher bills it as “the first book about technical publishing that takes over where the ‘report writing guides’ end, taking you through the rest of the publication cycle to the printed page.” The author (president of a firm specializing in producing technical manuals for clients) presents a good overview of the entire publishing cycle.

In the foreword to this book, Francis Weeks, Executive Director of the American Business Communication Association, says, “This book has been needed for a long time — since 1935, at least, when ABCA was founded.” The publication of this volume does indeed fill a void and will be welcomed by ABCA members and by any professional communicator with an interest in consulting.

The author of Publication design notes in the preface that when the first edition of this book appeared in 1972, there were very few design-related books on the market. Today, of course, there are many. The large number of books available on typography, art design, layout, and publication design suggests that publication design has come into its own.

This book uses as a springboard the studies conducted by Roger Sperry and associates at the California Institute of Technology during the 1950s and '60s, who determined that the two hemispheres of the brain “employ different methods or modes of processing information.” Studies of the left and right hemispheres still abound, appearing in recent national publications and still affecting the teaching of cognitive theory. As Dr. Edwards searched for a better way to teach her students to learn to draw well, she settled on the premise that one can consciously learn a specific set of skills, such as drawing, by exercising the right hemisphere of the brain — the creative side we normally associate with intuition and talent rather than conscious learning.

While addressing visual-thinking skills much as Dr. Edwards' book does, this book more specifically aims at helping the reader improve problem-solving skills. The book's target audience is the engineer and the design professional, but anyone interested in graphics and in visual problem-solving strategies can benefit from studying this book.

When the first editions of these two books appeared, I thought they were significant because of their unique format and content. As the authors suggest in the preface, the books can serve both students and practicing professionals equally well. I have used them in the college classroom; in short courses presented to scientists, engineers, and business people; and in the corporate writing-editing environment where I now work. These books are, as they promise, useful to every reader concerned with clear and effective communication.

The editor of this book clarifies for the reader his use of “technology” as it relates to text by emphasizing that “this is not a book about lithography, reprography, holography, printing presses, computers, or any other ‘machine’ used to generate or reproduce text … Rather it is about the technology of sequencing, structuring, designing, and laying-out of the printed page.”

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).