The authors offer a few simple and effective suggestions that may help a speaker overcome problems of public speaking. These include rehearsing moderately, storing and retrieving main points and supporting points in the order they are planned, talking to a test audience, speaking clearly, maintaining correct posture, nonequivocation, talking rather than reading verbatim, and retaining control.

Engineers transmit more words through speech than through printed, film, or electronic media. Even though 15 to 30 percent of an engineer's day may be spent on writing, another 15 to 30 percent is generally spent in technical discussions of current work. Further, most of us can generate 1000 words in a technical discussion in far less time than we can generate 1000 words of final copy for a technical report. Engineers also transmit spoken words in formal presentations, briefings, and meetings.

A tape recorder helps an author produce a fast first draft of a document. The tape is transcribed on a word processor and the transcripts are developed and revised by the author and an editor. The strategy saves time, helps authors and editors work as a team, and has proved cost-effective in these applications.

The Automated Systems Approach to Proposal Production (ASAPP) quickly produces high quality, competitive proposals while reducing proposal-team stress. ASAPP has three components: electronic boilerplate, a dedicated proposal team, and a five-phase process for proposal development. The electronic boilerplate is reusable text on management structure, related experience, general capabilities, personnel abilities, and company policy. The team members fill six roles: proposal manger, text coordinator, writer(s), contract officer, text processing leader, and graphics leader. Their authority and responsibilities provide efficiency and coordination for the proposal effort. In phase I the team constructs an outline, makes writing assignments, establishes deadlines, and pulls together boilerplate information. In phase II the team drafts the technical approach so an official bid/no-bid decision can be made. If the company decides to bid, the boilerplate and the technical draft are coordinated and developed in phase Ill. Phase IV focuses on editing the successive drafts as they are produced, and phase V involves reviewing the last draft and producing the proposal in final form.