EVERYONE knows that Thanksgiving Day is in November, but any time of year is a good time for us to express gratitude and count our blessings. So I decided to use my last Transactions column as PCS President to recognize and thank the many enthusiastic PCS volunteers who work behind the scenes to make our Society function smoothly and continue to provide worthwhile service to its members.

PCS was chartered to serve all members of IEEE, and the engineering profession in general, by sponsoring activities that focus on ways to improve technical communication. Our Society continues to make steady strides in improving our services to members, as reflected by the following status report.

The Professional Communication Society's renewed goal of increasing support to the technical community must have struck a happy chord for some engineers who have responded on a positive note. The following letter from Bill Hibbard, an engineer with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is typical of the responses we've received: Your editorial in the September PC Transactions says you would like to hear from us. So, I'm writing yet. I am one of the ‘engineers’ (i.e., not a professional communicator) who belong to the Society. I joined for the very reasons you suggest: to get help and support in my professional communications. As a space systems study manager, I have lots of opportunities to write and to speak. (I also enjoy the English language.) And so it follows that I enjoy and appreciate your publications.

Scientific and engineering minds are special instruments, admired and often envied. Yet by their very nature, they tend to be encapsulated and uncommunicative. This is sometimes intentional, sometimes not. Sometimes just modest.

Each of the eighteen PCS members who make up the Administrative Committee (AdCom) extends an invitation for you to actively participate in our common purpose of improving technical communications. Service on one of our committees can be a rewarding experience for both you and our Society.

DURING the past few months, members of the Professional Communication Society (PCS) Administrative Committee (AdCom) have been reevaluating their specific areas of activity, establishing long-range goals, and writing formal plans to achieve these objectives.

It is an honor to succeed Dan Rosich as President of the Professional Communication Society (PCS) of the IEEE. I want to thank the Administrative Committee members for their trust in electing me to this challenging position. We are chartered to serve all members of the IEEE and the engineering profession in general with activities that involve the transmittal of information by any form of communication.

Preparing an anthology presents many unique challenges and rewards. Based on their experience developing Marketing the Technical Idea or Product Successfully!, the authors describe the principal steps in preparing an anthology. Many of the steps are analogous to those in all writing efforts (defining the scope and audience, making an outline, doing the research); others are unique to the preparation of an anthology (reviewing articles for inclusion, obtaining reprints and copyright permissions). Besides preparing a prospective anthologist with a framework, this article benefits other writers by reviewing several requirements common to the successful completion of any writing project.