A three‐year experiment in integrating technical editing students into a multidisciplinary engineering design project developed several ways of helping students apply classroom learning to practical problems. Each year, the engineering students formed Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) and the technical editing students provided editorial support, first as full members of IPTs, then as separate editorial support teams. Research from cooperative learning and teamwork indicates strategies and techniques for best integrating the technical editing students.

Structured Document Processors (SDPs) guide and control composing processes for specialized writing, such as procedures and regulations. SDPs integrate word processors and various writing aids in a controlled writing environment that prompts writers for particular kinds of information, automatically formats document design features, and provides context‐sensitive help on how to write within the required document structures. This article describes a range of SDPs now used in industry, and explores their implications for the practice and teaching of technical writing.

Patent specifications have heuristic benefits as structural models for teaching technical description. Once taught how to read patents, students can use the specification's four main sections for writing assignments, structurally adapt ing a single topic-an invention-to different rhetorical contexts: (1) Back ground of the Invention describes the context into which the invention fits; (2) Summary of the Invention explains what makes the invention special; (3) Brief Description of the Drawings focuses on pictorial description; (4) Best Mode of Carrying Out the Invention explains how to make the invention work. Parts 1 and 2 correspond to Aristotelian definition, while part 3 can work as physical description and part 4 as functional description or even performance instructions.