This article is a bibliographical essay on the history of business and technical writing based on a survey of over 200 articles and books that demonstrate not only the quality and quantity of recent publications in this field but also the wide opportunities it offers for future research. The studies in the article and bibliography are grouped into 13 categories according to historical period (from ancient and classical times through the twentieth century), national origin, and (for twentieth-century studies) subject of investigation. The article concludes with suggestions about further research in the history of business and technical writing.

This article first describes the NCR-USC Document Validation Laboratory, its corporate background, the mutual benefits it offers to National Cash Register (NCR) and the University of South Carolina (USC), and the validation procedure used therein. The article then goes on to discuss three common problems discovered in NCR's manuals and the reasons for these problems. The laboratory's success is then illustrated by presenting and analyzing excerpts from two documents that were validated in the laboratory and subsequently revised by NCR's writers before being revalidated.

I came to Holcombe's and Stein's new book, Presentations for Decision Makers, after having read and reviewed their earlier book, Report Writing for Decision Makers (IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun., 27(1):47). Therefore, before I opened it, I couldn't resist guessing about several features I thought I would find in the new book. It would have, I (correctly) predicted, a strong emphasis on • Careful audience analysis • The composing process • Visual techniques to develop and refine logical and effective organizational patterns.

“This book is different.” This italicized claim appears prominently in the preface to Marya Holcombe's and Judith Stein's Writing for Decision Makers. Their claim is not unusual: Almost every author of a book on writing makes the same assertion to potential publishers and readers. This book, however, is different, and different in an interesting way. Holcombe and Stein believe that managers, though they know the importance of clear, effective writing, dread writing and feel inadequate when it comes time to put facts and ideas into words on paper. They argue convincingly, however, that managers can be more effective writers if they simply apply to their writing tasks the managerial skills they already possess. Managers, they remind their readers, are trained to deal with people, to solve problems, to plan carefully, to market products and ideas, and to stress quality control.