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A critical area in the advancement of literacy is the production of textbooks that reflect recent insights on language and discourse. However, this project is problematic within the established procedures whereby textbooks are reviewed and approved. This article presents an ethnography of one author's experience and suggests some guidelines whereby rational criteria might be widely established.

A brief overview of methods relating language education to psychological theories and models is provided. Strengths and weaknesses of behaviorist and mentalist approaches are surveyed, followed by an outline of a recently developing cognitive-process approach. The approach is then illustrated with an individual case study from the University of Florida writing program, with special consideration of the concerns of technical writing on the topic of automobile repair instructions. It is argued that specific tendencies carry over from speech habits that are partly supportive and partly contrary to success in learning the skills of technical writing. Consequently, appropriate training should be able to alleviate the contrary tendencies, provided we take into account the operations of writing.

The following treatise surveys the issues and approaches for designing a computer system capable of reading, understanding, and writing technical reports. Recent progress in computer science and artificial intelligence research is used to specify the nature of the modules in the system. The processing of a sample text is observed during the phases of reading and writing a report on the origin of sunspots. The author advances some proposals for correlating syntax and semantics of English from a procedural standpoint. The discussion is illustrated with structural diagrams.