#30275
From Technical Writing To Science Communication: How Do We Make The Leap? 
In response to their institution's need to explain its research to the public, a group of technical writers from Los Alamos National Laboratory is investigating methods to help writers make the leap from technical writing to science communication--the art of communicating science to nontechnical audiences. Through individual study and networking, members of the group are collecting resources that illuminate the techniques and complexities of science communication. From this foundation, they are preparing an extensive, annotated bibliography and assembling training materials so that they can become a resource for other writers shifting from technical to science communication.
Agnew, Marion, Anne Garnett, Grace Hollen, Amy Longshore, Judy Machen, Ann Mauzy, Eileen Patterson and Amy Reeves. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Scientific Communication>Documentation
#20619
A General Guide to Science Writing 
There are three fundamental aspects to good science writing - planning the structure, thinking about your reader, and choosing your words.
Garratt, John and Brian Mattinson. Education in Chemistry (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication
#29777
Graphic Barriers: Enhanced Comprehension of Patient Education Material 
In this paper, I will demonstrate that when choosing graphics for patient education material, document designers should consider empirical research on memory of pictures and mental processing of graphs. It has been shown that comprehension of patient education materials is often impeded by text written at reading levels too high for the patient population. Graphics have been used to aid in overcoming the deficits of complex text. However, graphics too can be too advanced for the client to understand if designers do not consider audience and cognitive processing of images.
Terrell Willis, Sharese. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Illustration>Biomedical
#28556
Graphics and Invention in Engineering Writing 
This study reports on the use of graphics by engineers as a method of stimulating the writing process (rhetorical invention). Information presented here comes from working engineers, based on a questionnaire developed after informal conversations and then administered to 15 participants in private industry, with questions about specific writing genres and types of graphics. Results show that graphics have a powerful function in stimulating writing ideas. Although individual writers' preferences in graphics are strong, patterns could be seen in (1) overall number of graphics types used by each writer, (2) specific types of graphics used by each writer based on the writing genre, and (3) the most common types of graphics used overall.
Hutto, David. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Engineering>Technical Illustration
#28888
Growth of Science and Technology Journals in India
This paper estimates the growth of Science and Technology (S&T) journals in post-independence India.
Shafi, Muzamil. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Publishing>Scientific Communication>Collaboration
#29542
Review: Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine
Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine is a fine introduction to the burgeoning field of medical rhetoric and an excellent addition to the annals of rhetorical criticism in general. Written by Judy Z. Segal from the University of British Columbia, the work is solidly grounded in the mainstay rhetorical traditions of Burke, Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca, Booth, and Aristotle. But Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine is hardly conservative in its mission or methodology, and the result is a work that captures the essence of discursive encounters in medicine, especially those between doctors and patients and their families, and yet unabashedly attempts to reform these encounters for the betterment of all parties involved.
Jablonski, Jeffrey and Michael J. Zerbe. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Reviews>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#30736
Health Care Institutions, Communication, and Physicians' Experience of Managed Care
This study uses the institutional theory of organizational communication (ITOC) to explain physicians' reactions to managed care. ITOC posits that enduring beliefs and practices both transcend and shape particular organizations and organizing. The authors find that physicians' institutional beliefs moderated the negative relationship between managed care medical practice and satisfaction. ITOC also posits that the negotiation of institutional, environmental, organizational, and individual factors occurs through communication. Controlling for these factors, communication with managed care representatives remains significantly and positively related to satisfaction. The results provide support for ITOC and macro approaches to organizational communication research and offer insights for the management of professionals in general and physicians in particular.
Barbour, Joshua B. and John C. Lammers. Management Communication Quarterly (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#14590
The goal of having a comprehensive collection of science information easily available to researchers and students has been expressed repeatedly for decades. These reports reiterate that our concept of a comprehensive collection of information has been attractive to the physical science community for decades.
OSTI (1999). Articles>Content Management>Scientific Communication
#24496
During scientific researchers' collaborations, authors draw on many extratextual resources (social, intellectual and empirical) which are deployed in their texts.
Bazerman, Charles. WAC Clearinghouse (1991). Articles>Scientific Communication>Collaboration
#20942
How to Write and Publish Scientific Papers: Scribing Information for Pharmacists
Scientific writing can be both professionally and financially rewarding, but many pharmacists hesitate to write for publication. A primary obstacle is not knowing how to begin. Thoughtful planning is the first and most important step. Before writing a word, the writer should identify the main message, audience, target journal, resource materials, type of manuscript, and authorship.
Hamilton, Cindy W. Hamilton House (1992). Articles>Scientific Communication>Publishing
#25013
How Would You Like to Have 150,000 Space Shuttle Photos of the Earth at Your Fingertips?
Explore the Earth on laser videodisc. All the astronaut photographs of the Earth taken on the first 57 missions of the Space Shuttle are now available on two laser videodiscs. Disc 2 also contains selected photos from the earlier NASA missions— Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. With the accompanying data records and software like the program we will demonstrate, you can choose global views of environmental change, graphic illustrations of scientific processes, or simply dramatic scenes to help your manuals communicate.
McKay, Mary Fae, Kathryn D. Sullivan, and Kimberly J. Willis. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Multimedia>Scientific Communication
#21233
Scientific communication differs from technical communication in several ways. One is that scientific communicators work with ideas rather than with a product. They present data and the inferences and conclusions drawn from those data. The information or the idea is the message. Scientific editors facilitate the transfer of knowledge from authors to readers.
Burgan, Murrie W. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Writing
#29531
Medical personnel in hospital intensive care units routinely rely on protocols to deliver some types of patient care. These protocol documents are developed by hospital physicians and staff to ensure that standards of care are followed. Thus, the protocol document becomes a _de facto_ standing order, standing in for the physician's judgment in routine situations. This article reports findings from Phase I of an ongoing study exploring how insulin protocols are designed and used in intensive care units to transfer medical research findings into patient care 'best practices.' We developed a taxonomy of document design elements and analyzed 29 insulin protocols to determine their use of these elements. We found that 93% of the protocols used tables to communicate procedures for measuring glucose levels and administering insulin. We further found that the protocols did not adhere well to principles for designing instructions and hypothesized that this finding reflected different purposes for instructions (training) and protocols (standardizing practice).
Longo, Bernadette, Craig Weinert and T. Kenny Fountain. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Document Design>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#29016
Two separate studies, conducted among a total sample of 147 adults, explored the communicative effectiveness of imprecise frequency descriptors within the context of direct to consumer prescription drug advertising. Study One used imprecise frequency descriptors to describe level of side effect occurrence and then asked consumers to numerically estimate the frequency of side effect occurrence. A comparison of consumers estimated to actual level of incidence indicated that they are unable to accurately estimate level of side effect occurrence when those levels are described by an imprecise frequency descriptor. Study Two presented consumers with a list of side effects preceded by an imprecise frequency descriptor. Consumers were then asked to estimate the relative likelihood of side effect occurrence. The results indicated that consumers are unable to accurately estimate the relative likelihood of side effect occurrence when a list of side effects are preceded by an imprecise frequency descriptor. The pattern of consumer response across both studies indicates that when imprecise frequency descriptors are used to describe the incidence of side effects within the context of direct to consumer prescription drug advertising, consumers estimate likelihood of side effect occurrence on the basis of an intuitive judgment of the side effect s commonness/severity within the general population.
Davis, Joel J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Marketing
#13929
To provide modest insight into whether or not reading literature helps medical students communicate more effectively in the physician-patient encounter, I conducted an ethnographic study of medical students taking a required three-hour literature and medicine course. This article will demonstrate that although these medical students were embedded in the discourse of medicine, reflective writing enabled them to conceive medicine as an interpretive, personal, and idiosyncratic activity rather than as a stagnant diagnosis-based process.
Welch, Kathleen E. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Education>Biomedical>Scientific Communication
#19868
Because of the advances of computer technology and the accessibility of the Information Information Superhighway, electronic publishing is surpassing print literature. Electronic publishing includes libraries, on-demand publishing and journals. This paper specifically covers the purpose of electronic journals and the techniques for publishing. It also focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of electronic journals, and asks 'Is it a viable form of written communication?'
Burdan, Amy L. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Publishing>Online
#27794
In this country several factors influence the medical writing of medical professionals, professionals in a field that prides itself on combining art with science. The fairly exclusive culture of the medical professional, the power and highly competitive nature of publishing within that discourse community, and the need for accurate, reliable information for immediate use in solving problems, and a strong inclination to put medical 'facts' first and communication of those facts second create interesting dynamics and rhetorical complexities in medical writing.
Taaffe, Maura. Michigan Tech University (1998). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Writing
#19134
In this country several factors influence the medical writing of medical professionals, professionals in a field that prides itself on combining art with science. The fairly exclusive culture of the medical professional, the power and highly competitive nature of publishing within that discourse community, and the need for accurate, reliable information for immediate use in solving problems, and a strong inclination to put medical 'facts' first and communication of those facts second create interesting dynamics and rhetorical complexities in medical writing. For over a century the quality of medical writing has been a great concern to both medical professionals and lay readers. According to Dr. Lester King, physician and retired, long-time editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 'more than a century ago critics deplored the repulsive quality of medical prose' to such an extent that the AMA set up committees to evaluate the problem of medical literature as early as 1851.
Taaffe, Maura. Michigan Tech University (1998). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
#25044
Issues In Scientific Communication
We identify and discuss issues related to substantive editing of scientific material, and examine how technical communicators can support the development and communication of scientific information.
Armbruster, David L., Murrie W. Burgan, LaVonna F. Funkhouser, Mary Fae McKay Carolin Middleton, Barbara J. Miller, Margaret Boone Nestor and Elizabeth A. Smith. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Scientific Communication
#19502
Issues in Scientific Communication
Communicators working with scientific researchers are faced with diverse working environments and issues. The panelists discuss five issues of current interest in scientific communication.
Armbruster, David L., Murrie W. Burgan, Christine M. Farmery, Jeffrey L. Hibbard and David E. Nadziejka. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication
#19484
Issues in Scientific Communication
Communicators working with scientific researchers are faced with diverse working environments and issues. The panelists discuss five issues of current interest in scientific communication.
Armbruster, David L., Murrie W. Burgan, Christine M. Farmery, Jeffrey L. Hibbard and David E. Nadziejka. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication
#14226
Issues of Online Research Repositories from the Perspective of the Biomedical Sciences
This commentary on Joseph Y. Halpern's proposal for a computing research repository discusses difference in traditions and practices of online publishing and repositories between computing and biomedicals sciences. Issues of accessibility and archiving are also discussed.
Armbruster, David L. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Scientific Communication>Online
#29830
It's Not What You Know: A Transactive Memory Analysis of Knowledge Networks at NASA
Much of America was stunned into mourning on February 1, 2003 as the space shuttle Columbia was reported to have broken up over Texas. The ensuing investigation revealed that debris at liftoff was the cause of the crash, but the official report suggested that NASA's organizational communication was just as much to blame. This article uses transactive memory theory to argue that there were significant gaps in the knowledge network of NASA organizational members, and those gaps impeded information flow regarding potential disaster. E-mails to and from NASA employees were examined (the 'To' and 'From' fields) to map a network of communication related to Columbia's damage and risk. Although NASA personnel were connected with each other in this incident-based network, the right information did not get to the people who needed it. The article concludes with extensions of theory and practical implications for organizations, including NASA.
Garner, Johnny T. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Articles>Knowledge Management>Scientific Communication>Government
#21977
Kairos in the Rhetoric of Science
If there is a canonical text in this still-early period of the rhetorical criticism of science, it is the 1953 Nature paper in which James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick proposed the double helix structure for DNA.
Miller, Carolyn R. North Carolina State University (1992). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Rhetoric
#13923
Keeping the Rhetoric Orthodox: Forum Control in Science
Academic disciplines certify knowledge through publication in scholarly journals; therefore, peer review of journal articles is one method of authorizing someone’s speech. It is possible, however, to see peer review and other strategies as methods by which elites silence or de-authorize voices that pose a threat to their status. This article discusses four methods of forum control--peer review, denial of forum, public correction, and published ridicule. Examples are drawn from cases in science.
Sullivan, Dale L. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Scientific Communication>Rhetoric
