#13525
A Brief History of Technical Communication 
Civilization is a cumulative enterprise, and communication has always been a vital component of that cumulation process. From the fourteenth century on, the social system of science has depended on technical communication to describe, disseminate, criticize, use, and improve innovations and advances in science, medicine, and technology. Rapid change in technical communication has been obvious during the past few decades with the advent of computers, laser printers, the Internet, and other developments. Viewed from a historical perspective, those changes can be seen as but a portion of the evolution that technical communication has undergone. It has undergone vast changes in the means and methods that it employs and in the audience to which it is addressed, the purposes to which it is put, the roles it fulfills, and the social forces that drive and support it.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>History>TC
#30412
Computer Networks and the Technical Writer
Electronic mail and the computer networks it travels over provide new tools for the fechnical writer to use in researching, composing, and submitting documents. Over these networks, the writer can query authors, seek guidance from other professionals, browse through electronic libraries, and exploit other information resources to aid the writing process.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Email
#24906
Key Issues in Conducting and Writing Integrated Assessments
Integrated assessments of environmental concerns consider the economic and social effects of a change as well as the environmental effects. Topics that should be addressed in such an assessment and the weight given 10 each are thorny problems for the assesment team and writer to deal with. The results of a workshop of experts in public policy, utility management, regulation, political science, government, technical communication and environmental science identified and characterized the key issues in shping and defining this new genre of environmental writing.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Environmental>Assessment
#21236
Newsletters in the Communication System of Science
Newsletters play several important roles in the scientific community because they can be used to convey information (e.g., administrative information) that is not appropriate for more formal genres (e.g., journals) and because they can be a more timely form of communication than other media, such as books.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Publishing>Newsletters
#19966
Science Communication and Global Change
Scientific publications about global changes (i.e., global warming, ozone depletion, and acid precipitation) and their effects (e.g., drought, UV-B radiation exposure, and fish kills) often convey four misimpressions to the reader: (1) A global change occurs at some specific time. (2) A global change occurs uniformly around the world. (3) Change occurs only unidirectionally. (4) Change occurs at a constant rate. These mistaken impressions result largely from how the results are presented and described. Therefore, technical communicators should be aware of the possibility of such misrepresentations and subsequent misinterpretations. They should recognize the complexity of the subject matter, convey to the reader an element of that complexity and its ramifications, and strive to present an accurate view of the processes involved when writing about the results of global-change research.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>International
#19967
Using Web Tools to Communicate about Risks to the Public
Communicating health, safety, and environmental risks to the public and to the scientific, political, and business communities is a persuasive task as well as an informative one. The job is made easier if the assertions about risk can be backed up with empirical data. But risks are often characterized through the analysis of data sets containing thousands if not millions of measurements. Further, the collection of these data is often conducted by many research teams, and the results often appear in disparate portions of the scientific literature or regulatory reports. On top of all this, environmental, safety, and health data compilations are frequently massive. As a result, finding needed data can be difficult, and understanding it can be bewildering. Web tools are available that synthesize these data and present the information they contain in an organized, understand-able fashion. In doing so, they help risk communicators to focus their writing on a specific topic and to base their assertions on hard facts.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. and Frederick W. Stoss. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Risk Communication>Web Design>Writing
#24956
War Stories of a Technical Writer
Working as a consultant in technical communication has led to a number of interesting assignments. These assignments range from developing a computer program for displaying index information for six volumes of data on global warming to occupying an office across the street from the White House while writing an environmental document for the Executive Office of the President.
O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing
