Typography is the study and process of typefaces; how to select, size, arrange, and use them in general. Traditionally, typography was the use of metal types with raised letterforms that were inked and then pressed onto paper. In modern terms, typography today also includes computer display and output.
#29087
Annual Reports: A Literature Review (1989-2001) 
Since the collapse of Enron Corporation in November 2001, annual reports and corporate financial disclosures have been the focus of government, corporate, and public attention. This article examines the literature written about annual reports between 1989 and 2001 to identify trends in research and determine areas of future study. Articles were categorized as related to SEC regulations and guidelines, summary annual reports, online annual reports, rhetorical analysis of annual reports, readability and accessibility of annual reports, methods of conveying negative information in annual reports, effective annual report writing, use and importance of annual reports, or use of annual reports in business writing classes. Post-Enron, it is likely that the number of articles in this area will dramatically increase over the next five to ten years.
Lord, Heather L. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Business Communication>Financial>Reports
#28353
Anonymity and Online Community: Identity Matters
While anonymity may allow people to feel more free and disinhibited to discuss otherwise embarrassing or stigmatizing topics, it can also be a community's biggest enemy.
Grohol, John M. List Apart, A (2006). Articles>Web Design>Community Building
#23903
Answering the Critics of Plain Language
Plain language has to do with clear and effective communication -- nothing more or less. It does, though, signify a new attitude and a fundamental change from past practices.
Kimble, Joseph. Plain Language Network (2003). Articles>Writing>Legal>Minimalism
#13967
Anthropologists Go Native in the Corporate Village
Anthropologist Elizabeth Briody earned her PhD studying communities of Mexican-American farm workers and Catholic nuns. For the past 11 years, though, she's been studying a different community -- the men and women of General Motors. As GM's 'industrial anthropologist,' Briody explores the intricacies of life at the company. It's not all that different from her previous work. 'Anthropologists help elicit the cultural patterns of an organization,' she says. 'What rules do people have about appropriate and inappropriate behavior? How do they learn those rules and pass them on to others?' Briody is a pioneer in a growing and influential field -- corporate anthropology. What began as an experiment in a handful of companies such as GM has become an explosion. In recent years, some of the biggest names in business have recruited highly trained anthropologists to understand their workers and customers better, and to help design products that better reflect emerging cultural trends. These companies are convinced that the tools of ethnographic research -- minute observation, subtle interviewing, systematic documentation -- can answer questions about organizations and markets that traditional research tools can't.
Kane, Kate A. Fast Company (1996). Articles>Usability>Methods>Contextual Inquiry
#10145
Anthropology and International Education via the Internet 
Tomoko Hamada and Kathleen Scott describe a collaborative classroom experience between students at the College of William and Mary and at Keio University, looking at the pros and cons of this international experiment. Their research helps to assess that collaboration, and draw conclusions that can be useful in understanding how people use technology to communicate, and how cultural differences affect that communication.
Hamada, Tomoko and Kathleen Scott. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2000). Articles>Education>Online>International
#20827
The Anti-Mac: Violating the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines
Graphical computer interfaces have become the norm. They are based on a number of principles such as metaphor, see-and-point, direct manipulation, user control, and WYSIWIG. The Anti-Mac project explored alternative interfaces that might result from violating the principles behind conventional graphical interfaces. What emerges is a human-computer interface based on language, a richer representation of objects, expert users, skilled agents, and shared control.
Nielsen, Jakob. ACM SIGCHI (1995). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Standards
#27124
Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science
Scientists who study encryption or computer security or otherwise reverse engineer technical measures, who make tools enabling them to do this work, and who report the results of their research face new risks of legal liability because of recently adopted rules prohibiting the circumvention of technical measures and manufacture or distribution of circumvention tools. Because all data in digital form can be technically protected, the impact of these rules goes far beyond encryption and computer security research. The scientific community must recognize the harms these rules pose and provide guidance about how to improve the anticircumvention rules.
Samuelson, Pamela. Science (2001). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright
#14071
Anxiety In Action: Sullivan's Interpersonal Psychiatry as a Supplement to Vygotskian Psychology
Is there a way to deal with such psychiatric issues in a way that is consistent with the psychological theory of Vygotsky and his followers? Or do these issues represent a totally different subject matter belonging to the distinctive disciplines of psychiatry and clinical psychology, which use entirely different intellectual, investigative, and practical tools? Are Vygotskian approaches to being human in fact blind to major processes of human interpersonal development and to the consequences of that development for the social participation that Vygotsky identifies as the source of higher mental processes?
Bazerman, Charles. UCSB (1994). Articles>Rhetoric>Theory
#24220
Anything That Can Go Wrong: Lessons Learned from A Decade of Toolkit Documentation 
Writing software toolkit documentation for programmers is a special challenge and opportunity for technical writers. Compared with writing software documentation for lay users, toolkit documentation is more demanding and exacting. Checking facts and finding tiny errors is like riding a motorcycle through a swarm of gnats. However, for me at least, toolkit writing has opened doors to a larger role and greater input into product design. Engineers treat me like a peer and I get to see into their culture. I know my readers and salespeople need me.
van Oss, Joseph E. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>SDK>Technical Writing
#14780
Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing in XML
Tyson supports the claim of his title with a detailed discussion of three important benefits of XML.
Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2002). Articles>Writing>Information Design>XML
#24012
Apocalypse? Not Now: Three Myths of New Media
The Internet explosion has spawned quite a few popular myths, and some Eye readers may not know what to believe. I'd like to offer my dismantling of what may be the top three misperceptions.
Raymond, Eric S. Editorial Eye, The (1996). Articles>Cyberculture>Multimedia
#20465
Commas, semi-colons and colons are the sentence tidiers. Used correctly, they'll give your written language the 'punctuation' that pauses, voice modulations and gestures provide when you speak.
Right Words (2006). Articles>Writing>Style Guides>Grammar
#22975
The Applicability of the ADA to the Internet
As the Internet has increased in prominence in all sectors of society, interested individuals have begun to question whether or not the Internet should be included in the regulations set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Right now there is no explicit reference to the Internet in any of the language of the act.
Bohman, Paul. WebAIM (2000). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Policies and Procedures
#10757
A brief overview of evolutionary theory and its application to knowledge and learning in the theory of memetics is presented. The knowledge and learning structures that exist within a modern company are examined and significant failures within them are identified. It is concluded that harnessing and exploiting evolutionary learning can resolve many of these failures. Evolutionary learning is a natural precursor for the transition from training to performance support. For this transition to happen successfully it is necessary that the right corporate culture and knowledge infrastructure are present.
O'Gorman, Adam. EPSS (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online
#31979
The Application of Rhetorical Theory in Managerial Research: A Literature Review
Recent management research imports rhetorical scholarship into the study of organizations. Although this cross-disciplinarity is heuristically promising, it presents significant challenges. This article interrogates management's use of rhetoric, contrasting it with communication studies. Five themes from management research identify how rhetoric is used as an organizational hermeneutic: The article demonstrates that management research conceptualizes rhetoric as a theory and as an action; as the substance that maintains and/or challenges organizational order; as being constitutive of individual and organizational identity; as a managerial strategy for persuading followers; and as a framework for narrative and rational organizational discourses. The authors argue that organizational researchers who study rhetoric characterize persuasive strategies as managers' most important actions.
Hartelius, E. Johanna and Larry D. Browning. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Research>Rhetoric
#28682
Applied Empathy: A Design Framework for Meeting Human Needs and Desires
The design community keeps making a lot of noise about designing for people/users/customers. However, while this notion is well-intentioned and even conceptually correct, I find much of it boils down to empty rhetoric. What exactly are we doing? More user research? More usability testing? Certainly these are valid approaches to finding out about people's needs, but they're only a small part of an optimal solution. Are we using hollow tasks and tools like personas and scenarios? Those approaches typically take design farther away from the people for whom we are designing products rather than closer. How about focusing on usability and the user experience? That gets at only part of the issue and tends to come from the perspective of the product--as opposed to the more universal needs and desires of actual people.
Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods
#27002
Applying "Mass Customisation" Manufacturing Principles to Solve Technical Communication Problems
This article discusses how organisations can resolve the conflict between the need to produce bespoke, customer-specific, technical communication and the need to re-use as much information as possible. It begins with a description of the conflict and resulting trade-off and then compares it to the field of manufacturing, which has found ways to deal with a similar issue. Universal information modules are introduced as the solution - these allow the manufacturing principle of mass customization to be applied to technical communication. The article ends by outlining the requirements needed for supporting tools in order to adopt this solution.
Rombauts, Yves. Cherryleaf (2005). Articles>Content Management
#27600
Applying Agile Methods in Rapidly Changing Environments
The authors (both coming from a heavyweight software development environment) describe their approach to transferring a heavyweight method into a more agile approach. One can argue whether the described result is intermediate or final, the the process described and the choices made are well worth studying.
Kutschera, Peter and Steffen Schafer. Jeckstein.com (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Agile
#14798
Applying Audience Invoked Models to Instructional Design Methods
You should know what appeals to and motivates your audience before you approach them with a suggestion for action. The same point is also true for writers. The writer must have a good idea of who the audience is and what motivates them in order to create arguments that will convince his or her audience to not only to read the text, but also to behave in the desired fashion after they have read the text.
Cleman, Kelly A. Orange Journal, The (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design
#31538
Brand has become an integral part of the employee communicator's role as organizations recognize the importance of employee behaviors in building brand. When it comes time to integrate brand elements into the intranet or portal, good usability practices and testing can guide that integration, ensuring desired employee behaviors.
Wilson, Stacy and Susan Weinschenk. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#28580
Applying Common Sense to Technical Writing
How can budding writers achieve a middle path in their approach to documentation? This no-model approach is an attempt at busting the myth that only a model-based approach works.
Chitkara, Promila. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing
#20275
Applying Computer Analysis and Design Techniques to Document Component-Based Software
Facing the challenges involved in developing documentation for component-based software (for example, object-oriented technology, intelligent agents, and distributed computing) requires a documentation strategy based on the same processes and methodologies used by such technologies. These strategies need to be adapted to meet documentation, rather than coding needs. Developing this strategy now, as component-based technology is still maturing, will help technical communicators keep pace.
Bachmann, Karen L. and Ginger Doherty. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Software
#18892
Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information
Copyleft contains the normal copyright statement, asserting ownership and identification of the author. However, it then gives away some of the other rights implicit in the normal copyright: it says that not only are you free to redistribute this work, but you are also free to change the work. However, you cannot claim to have written the original work, nor can you claim that these changes were created by someone else. Finally, all derivative works must also be placed under these terms.
Stutz, Michael. GNU. Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Open Source
#30385
Applying Expectancy-Violations Theory to Online Documentation
A person usually expects another person to behave according to accepted norms, but how does a person respond to a message that violates his/her expectations? One theory dealing with violations of expectations is Burgeon and Hale's (1) nonverbal expectancy-violations theory. This theory posits that, under certain circumstances, violations of social norms and expectations may be an effective strategy for communicators to achieve the intended communication purpose. Although the expectancy-violations theory focuses on expectations for nonverbal behavior, such as gaze and conversational distance (2), I believe that this theory can also apply to expectations for humancomputer interaction.
Chiu, Yu-Kwong. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Rhetoric>Online
#23839
Applying Hypertext and Hypermedia to Scholarly Journals Enables Both Product and Process Innovation
Early uses of hypertext technologies were associated with scholarly communication. New electronic-only journals have been quick to adopt hypertext/hypermedia technologies. Existing print journals have also started to adopt such technologies as they make the transition to parallel delivery. The widespread uptake of the World Wide Web has enabled journals to improve, enhance and transform what they do. This paper surveys these developments and places them in context.
Treloar, Andrew E. ACM Computing Surveys (1999). Articles>Publishing>Hypertext
