#15088
April 15, 2002, through August 15, 2002 
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from April 15, 2002, through August 15, 2002.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2002). Articles>History>TC
#14665
Arthur Levitt and the SEC: Promoting Plain English
Intercom's assistant editor profiles a recent recipient of STC's President's Award. The Securities and Exchange Commission was honored for requiring plain English in all disclosure statements filed with the SEC.
Nielan, Cate. Intercom (2000). Articles>TC>History>Minimalism
#19386
Nielan summarizes fifty years of Society history and identifies key events that influenced the development of technical communication.
Nielan, Cate. Intercom (2003). Articles>TC>History
#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
#29214
The CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication: A Retrospective Analysis 
This article presents the history, purposes, outcomes, and significance of the CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication during its first five years. It analyzes the topical areas and research methods of the 34 dissertations nominated for the award from 1999 to 2003, as well as the evaluations of the judges. Methods of the nominated dissertations are interpretive (41%) and empirical (59%), but many dissertations combine methods. In the empirical category, qualitative methods (17) outnumber quantitative methods (3). The most frequent topical areas are workplace practice (8), rhetoric of the disciplines (7), and information design (6). Topics that are not widely investigated include issues of race and class and international communication.
Selber, Stuart A. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>Research>TC>History
#15108
December 1, 1999, through February 29, 2000
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from December 1, 1999, through February 29, 2000.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2000). Articles>History>TC
#15109
December 1, 2000, through February 28, 2001
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from December 1, 2000, through February 28, 2001.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2001). Articles>History>TC
#26682
The Effect of Changes in Publishing Technologies on Labor and Documentation
Online publishing technologies is an ever-changing, morphing animal that cannot necessarily be predicted, but perhaps we can work to harness it. As publishing technologies change, so too will the style in which the readability of those documents change as they are shaped and designed to meet new formulas and needs. Likewise, as the readability and accessibility of documents change, so too must the interaction and intervention of the technical communicator change to ensure readable, articulate, navigable documentation, as well as preserve an author-reader relationship and also to preserve the role of the technical communicator.
Comstock, Jeanie. Orange Journal, The (2004). Articles>TC>Publishing>History
#29031
Ethics and Technical Communication: The Past Quarter Century
Ethics as a topic in technical communication has grown in interest in the past quarter century as the field itself has matured. We now understand technical communication as involved in communicating not only technical information but also values, ethics, and tacit assumptions represented in goals. It also is involved in accommodating the values and ethics of its many audiences. This understanding is linked to an awareness of the social nature of all discourse and the root interconnectedness of rhetoric and ethics. This article presents an introduction and annotated bibliography of articles from technical writing and communication journals over this period, arranged in categories of professional, academic, and systematic approaches. Ethics is broadly conceived to include not only particular theories but also systems of values and principles.
Dombrowski, Paul M. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>TC>Ethics>History
#15135
This article presents a brief history of the Association of Technical Writers and Editors, one of STC's parent organizations.
Rutkowski, Ed. Intercom (2001). Articles>History>TC
#23420
From Technical Writing to Technical Communication: Looking to the Future
This paper focuses on the technical communicator’s role as it relates to computer technology.
Fisher, Julie L. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>TC>Technology>History
#22889
Golden Hits of STC Conferences... A Potpourri of Titillating Technical Communication Tidbits
STC's international conferences offer a golden opportunity for professional growth and development. Taking a leaf from the book of Gordon McKenzie, keynote speaker at the 41st STC Conference in Minneapolis in 1994, the presenter has compiled his material from 16 previous presentations and workshops at regional and international STC conferences, as well as notes from many other technical sessions at those conferences, into a simulated 'HyperCard' stack of 32 topics (i.e., signs on the wall) which session participants can 'browse' simply by 'clicking' (read: shouting out a number).
Voss, Daniel W. and Lori A. Allen. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>TC>History
#19862
A Golden Opportunity-Planning for STC's 50th Anniversary
STC will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2003 and begins a year-long celebration here in Nashville. The STC 50th Anniversary Committee announces its plans, encourages chapters to participate, and asks members to share their ideas with the Committee. The plans include a special 50th anniversary website, an online STC history timeline, and recognition of pioneers. The committee prepared a Chapter Resource Kit, which includes program and speaker suggestions, news release templates, chapter historian guidelines, and chapter recognition recommendations. Members are asked to contribute anecdotes, as well as provide information on chapter pioneers and history resources.
Cantoni, Georgina C., Ernest D. Mazzatenta, William D. Leavitt, Kenneth J. Cook, Elizabeth Babcock and Marguerite Krupp. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>History>TC
#14743
Growth of the Technical Writing Profession
This article, reprinted from the January 1958 issue of the STWE Review (the quarterly journal of the Society of Technical Writers and Editors, one of STC's parent organizations), examines the state of the technical communication profession in the late 1950s.
Rathbone, Robert R. Intercom (2002). Articles>TC>History
#29114
Herbert Spencer's Philosophy of Style: Conserving Mental Energy
My article traces the development, chronicles the impact, and explains the essence of Herbert Spencer's "The Philosophy of Style" (1852). Spencer's essay has had a significant influence on stylistics, especially in scientific and technical communication. Although in our generation Spencer's contribution to stylistics is not widely remembered, it ought to be. His single essay on this subject was seminal to modern theories about effective communication, not because it introduced new knowledge but because it was such a rhetorically astute synthesis of stylistic lore, designed to connect traditional rhetorical theory with 19th-century ideas about science, technology, and evolution. It was also influential because it was part of Spencer's grand "synthetic philosophy," a prodigious body of books and essays that made him one of the most prominent thinkers of his time. Spencer's "Philosophy of Style" carried the day, and many following decades, with its description of the human mind as a symbol-processing machine, with its description of cognitive and affective dimensions of communication, and with its scientifically considered distillation of the fundamental components of effective style. We should read Spencer's essay and understand its impact not so much because we expect it to teach us new things about good style, but precisely because: 1) it's at the root of some very important concepts now familiar to us; 2) it synthesizes these concepts so impressively; 3) we can use it heuristically as we continue thinking about style; and 4) it provides a compact, accessible touchstone for exploring--with students, clients, and colleagues--the techniques of effective style for scientific and technical communication. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler [1, p. 314]. . . . the fewer the words are, provided neither propriety nor perspicuity be violated, the expression is always the more vivid [2, p. 333]. However influential the precepts thus dogmatically expressed, they would be much more influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In this as in other cases, conviction is strengthened when we understand the why [3, pp. 2-3]. The psychology of language reception is still very imperfectly understood [4, p. 77].
Hirst, Russel. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>TC>Theory>History
#29035
His Master's Voice: Tiro and the Rise of the Roman Secretarial Class
The foundation for Rome's imperial bureaucracy was laid during the first century B.C., when functional and administrative writing played an increasingly dominant role in the Late Republic. During the First and Second Triumvirates, Roman society, once primarily oral, relied more and more on documentation to get its official business done. By the reign of Augustus, the orator had ceded power to the secretary, usually a slave trained as a scribe or librarian. This cultural and political transformation can be traced in the career of Marcus Tullius Tiro (94 B.C. to 4 A.D.), Cicero's confidant and amanuensis. A freedman credited with the invention of Latin shorthand (the <em>notae Tironianae</em>), Tiro transcribed and edited Cicero's speeches, composed, collected, and eventually published his voluminous correspondence, and organized and managed his archives and library. As his former master s fortune sank with the dying Republic, Tiro s began to rise. After Cicero's assassination, he became the orator's literary executor and biographer. His talents were always in demand under the new bureaucratic regime, and he prospered by producing popular grammars and secretarial manuals. He died a wealthy centenarian and a full Roman citizen.
Di Renzo, Anthony. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>TC>Government>History
#22729
Historical Patterns in the Scholarship of Technology Transfer
Offers an historian's view of the development of the scholarship about technology transfer over the past half century, interweaving two primary threads. First, it identifies events and circumstances that have influenced and shaped real-world efforts to move technology in its many guises across boundaries— national, geographic, institutional, organizational, social, or otherwise. These historical situations have had a profound impact on the efforts of American policymakers and leaders in business, government, universities, and nongovernmental organizations who deal with technology transfer. These circumstances have produced significant changes of emphasis in the definition of technology transfer at different points in time.
Seely, Bruce E. Johns Hopkins University (2003). Articles>TC>History>Technology
#22450
History of Technical and Scientific Communication
History is a crucial dimension of any legitimate academic field because it identifies it as having lasting interest and signficance and, like a living organism, as a growing, evolving, coherent entity that progresses over time and advances to more sophisticated forms. History, after all, is scholarship and vice versa.
Dombrowski, Paul M. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>TC>History
#21646
Speculates about what the future will hold for technical communicators.
Martin, Maurice. Intercom (2004). Articles>TC>History
#15151
January 15, 2002, through April 15, 2002
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from January 15, 2002, through April15, 2002.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2002). Articles>History>TC
#15154
July 1, 2000, through August 31, 2,000
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from July 1, 2000, through August 31, 2000.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2000). Articles>History>TC
#15155
July 15, 2001 through October 15, 2001
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from July 15, 2001, through October 15, 2001.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2002). Articles>History>TC
#15166
March 1, 2000, through June 30, 2000
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from March 1, 2000, through June 30, 2000.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2000). Articles>History>TC
#15167
March 1, 2001, through July 15, 2001
This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from March 1, 2001, through July 15, 2001.
Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2001). Articles>History>TC
#21670
Navigating Change in Turbulent Times
This panel presentation addresses three questions: What changes/forces are shaping technical communication? What skills will we need to meet the changes in technical communication? What strategies can we use to maintain a sense of balance as we move to meet these changes?
Cheirrett, Peg A., Debbie L. Scroggs and Mary L. Eschen. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>TC>History
