As questions of public policy become more involved with the uses of scientific and technological knowledge, the public must increasingly rely upon interpreters of that knowledge to be able to form and express valid opinions. Here is a new and important role for the technical writer. The President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island stated that the most serious effect of that accident was severe mental stress. The stress was caused by incompetent reporting by people who lacked the necessary scientific and technological knowledge, or by people who possessed that knowledge but who were unable to express it in terms that lay people could understand.

Richard W. Schmelzer, the author of this article on the first textbook written for technical writing classes, knows his subject from firsthand experience. He was one of the first teachers assigning The Preparation of Reports to future engineers. In this paper he pays tribute to Dr. Ray Palmer Baker, an early authority on modern technical communication and the author of The Preparation of Reports.

Three present-day developments are very likely to have a major influence upon technical writing in the nineteen eighties. These are: interactive lectures, information storage and retrieval, and the development of an ultra-small electronic camera for movies, television, and still pictures. Carefully tested interactive lectures will provide individual attention for learners at the time it is most needed. Under a perfected system of information storage and retrieval, the technical writer would suggest to the reader the kinds of information to request from a nation-wide information bank. He would also assist in the screening of information so that learners would not be deluged by surplus information. The small electronic camera will enable the technical writer to illustrate his instructions on the user's TV set. Thus, the technical writer of the eighties could well become a writer-producer.