http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Scientific-Communication A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Scientific Communication in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Scientific-Communication http://tc.eserver.org/35502.html http://tc.eserver.org/35502.html Ainsworth’s (2006) DeFT framework posits that different representations may lead learners to use different strategies. We wanted to investigate whether students use different strategies, and more broadly, different cognitive activities in diagrams versus in running text. In order to do so, we collected think-aloud protocol and other measures from 91 beginning biology majors reading an 8-page passage from their own textbook which included 7 complex diagrams. We coded the protocols for a wide range of cognitive activities, including strategy use, inference, background knowledge, vocabulary, and word reading. Comparisons of verbalizations while reading running text vs. reading diagrams showed that high-level cognitive activities—inferences and high-level strategy use—were used a higher proportion of the time when comprehending diagrams compared to when reading text. However, in running text vs. diagrams participants used a wider range of different individual cognitive activities (e.g., more different types of inferences). Our results suggest that instructors might consider teaching students how to draw inferences in both text and diagrams. They also show an interesting paradox that warrants further research—students often skipped over or superficially skimmed diagrams, but when they did read the diagrams they engaged in more high-level cognitive activity. http://tc.eserver.org/35355.html http://tc.eserver.org/35355.html Examines focus group data about Spanish speakers' preferences for health communication. Contrasts known preferences of Mexican Spanish speakers with Spanish speakers in the U.S. Makes recommendations from the data for communicating health information to Spanish speakers within the U.S. http://tc.eserver.org/35269.html http://tc.eserver.org/35269.html The study reported here explored the broadband digital divide in the context of Internet- based health communication. Inequities in the adoption of broadband technology were examined and the comprehensive model of health information seeking (CMIS) was used to make predictions about the implications of broadband Internet for personal health. Data from a population-based survey conducted by the National Cancer Institute in 2005 (N = 5,586) were analyzed. Results showed that those who were younger, more educated, and lived in an urban area were more likely to have a broad- band Internet connection in their home. Furthermore, consistent with the CMIS, those with a broadband connection were more likely to use the Internet for health-related information seeking and communication than those with a dial-up connection. http://tc.eserver.org/35079.html http://tc.eserver.org/35079.html One of the big problems in document review is that reviewers often fail to recognize that their principal job as a reviewer is to act as a surrogate for the document end-user, in this case the regulatory reader. In this article, we offer a characterization of the reading style of the regulatory reader which is useful to keep in mind when reviewing any document or group of documents to be submitted to pharmaceutical and medical device regulatory agencies. http://tc.eserver.org/35001.html http://tc.eserver.org/35001.html A recent British national intelligence-based Assessment (2002) illustrates how one government agency communicated science to serve its policy goals. This article analyzes some of the values that drive science, public policy, and national intelligence, and traces how those values affected the Assessment writers' goals and communication strategies. Through close reading of the Assessment's foreword and first section, this study shows how the writers shaped scientific and technical information to satisfy their disciplines' values and to naturalize their "proper perspective" on the policy case. Further analysis of similar documents will extend current research on scientific rhetoric, multidisciplinary collaborative writing, and public communication. http://tc.eserver.org/35003.html http://tc.eserver.org/35003.html This article uses theories of space and findability to analyze a public information center as an example of multi-modal risk communication. The Yucca Mountain Information Center is an informational space created by the Department of Energy to inform the public about the proposed nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As a public space, the Center uses fact sheets, posters, and three-dimensional displays to make arguments about the storage of nuclear waste; we argue that the physical space, text, displays, and online space are all elements of risk communication. We offer a new way to read these elements of risk communication and suggest potential opportunities for public agency. http://tc.eserver.org/35009.html http://tc.eserver.org/35009.html Editors who work with authors before a manuscript is sent for review face certain challenges. Since we’re often the first to see a manuscript, we sometimes encounter problems we must help solve before they come back to bite the author. These problems fall into a variety of categories, of which I see three repeatedly in my work. In this article, I’ll discuss the nature of these problems, provide examples from my own career as a science editor, and suggest how similar problems might arise in other types of editing. http://tc.eserver.org/34940.html http://tc.eserver.org/34940.html Evolving and improving technology can improve health and healthcare in a myriad of ways. Equipment that is designed with the user, task, and environment in mind will reduce errors and improve outcomes. New designs make it possible for patients to do things for themselves that previously only doctors could. http://tc.eserver.org/34958.html http://tc.eserver.org/34958.html This study provides a new and valuable insight into the information behaviour of visually impaired people, as well as testing the applicability of a specific and generic information model to the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information. http://tc.eserver.org/34960.html http://tc.eserver.org/34960.html Critical care nurses' work is rich in informative interactions. Although there have been post-hoc self report studies of nurses' information seeking, there have been no observational studies of the patterns of their on-duty information behavior. This paper seeks to address this issue. http://tc.eserver.org/34966.html http://tc.eserver.org/34966.html The purpose of this research is to analyse the behaviour of the users of a package of electronic journals using the data of consumption per IP address. The paper analyses the data of consumption at the University of Barcelona of 31 electronic journals of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2003. Data of sessions, articles downloaded and abstracts viewed were analysed. http://tc.eserver.org/34967.html http://tc.eserver.org/34967.html The purpose of this paper is to report on a research designed to find out how people in Scotland access and use online health information. http://tc.eserver.org/34900.html http://tc.eserver.org/34900.html "Meaning must be negotiated and confirmed." This is an important concept not just for developing a working definition for a term like knowledge management, but it is also an approach critical to the conveyance of knowledge in scientific and technical report. http://tc.eserver.org/34842.html http://tc.eserver.org/34842.html Genred documents facilitate collaboration and workplace practices in many ways—particularly in the medical workplace. This article represents a portion of a larger grounded investigation of how medical professionals invoke a wide range of rhetorical strategies when deliberating about complex patient cases during weekly, multidisciplinary deliberations called Tumor Board meetings. Specifically, the author explores the role of one key document in oncological practice, the Standard of Care document. Each Standard of Care document (one for every known cancer) presents a set of national guidelines intended to standardize the treatment of cancer. Tumor Board participants invoke these guidelines as evidence for or against particular future action. In order to better understand how genred, generalizable guidelines like Standard of Care documents afford decision making amid uncertainty, the author conducts a temporal and contextual analysis of the document's use during deliberations as well as a modified Toulminian analysis of a representative sample. Results suggest that, while on its own the document achieves an authoritative, charter-like purpose, it fails to make explicit a link between individual patients' experiences and the profession's expectations for how to act. Implications for how genred, generalizable guidelines—given the way they encourage certain ways of seeing over others—organize and authorize work are discussed, and a modified Toulminian approach to understanding the relationship between claim and evidence in multimodal texts is modeled. http://tc.eserver.org/34843.html http://tc.eserver.org/34843.html Based on a sample of 22 oncology encounters, this article presents a discourse analysis of positive, neutral, or negative valence in the presentation of three elements of informed consent—purpose, benefits, and risks—in offers to participate in clinical trials. It is found that physicians regularly present these key elements of consent with a positive valence, perhaps blurring the distinction between clinical care and clinical research in trial offers. The authors argue that the rhetoric of trial offers constructs and reflects the complex relationships of two competing ethical frameworks—contemporary bioethics and professional medical ethics—both aimed at governing the discourse of trial offers. The authors consider the status of ethical or unethical persuasion within each framework, proposing what is called the best-option principle as the ethical principle governing trial offers within professional medical ethics. http://tc.eserver.org/34844.html http://tc.eserver.org/34844.html This article contributes to recent efforts to add life and movement to rhetorical studies by focusing on the representation of movement in medical texts. More specifically, this study examines medical texts, illustrations, and photographs involving movement by Johann Casper Lavater, G. B. Duchenne de Bologne, Charles Darwin, and Étienne-Jules Marey. By identifying how figures of speech epitomize arguments, this examination follows a shift in the way arguments about movement are represented, a shift from static, visual arguments to gestural enthymemes, as they are named, arguments that are made in movements; these shifts are linked to developments in medical technologies involving photography. These arguments about and using movement attempt to “capture” or express the moments within which life, through the embodied gesture, resides. This extended understanding of the enthymeme broadens current understanding of argument to include delivery, links medical and rhetorical discursive practices, and informs how we make sense of and study the relationships between technology and rhetoric both in the past and present. http://tc.eserver.org/34792.html http://tc.eserver.org/34792.html With the substantial move to submitting electronic documents versus paper documents to FDA, it is useful to pause and consider how a regulatory reviewer actually reads a large complex technical document on screen. http://tc.eserver.org/34793.html http://tc.eserver.org/34793.html improving document review practices is of great concern to many in the biopharmaceutical industry. The reason for this interest can be explained by the following observations which provide some insight as to why review is, or needs to be, a central focus for improving knowledge propagation and dissemination. http://tc.eserver.org/34609.html http://tc.eserver.org/34609.html It does not matter if they were published 10 years ago or 100 years ago, old scientific papers may be more important than you think. http://tc.eserver.org/34523.html http://tc.eserver.org/34523.html The mere act of reading good books, if you are not stopping to scrutinize the moves and tools used by the writers, examining and dissecting the choices they have made and why they work, will do nothing for you when you sit down to write. If you want a journal to accept your paper, or a federal agency to grant you coin, you have to make clear what is at stake and why the reader should care. Then you have to put forward the strongest reasoning based on evidence you provide in the clearest language you are able to rally. And then you need to know when you need help. http://tc.eserver.org/34228.html http://tc.eserver.org/34228.html Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities. Just check the entry on Global Warming. http://tc.eserver.org/33899.html http://tc.eserver.org/33899.html The pharmaceutical industry has been slow to adopt XML until recently. Initiatives in the US and EU, as well as other jurisdictions, have begun that use XML to define important documentation formats as part of the drug product life cycle. In the US the FDA is mandating that drug product descriptions called "labels" be submitted in an XML format called the Standard Product Label (SPL) language by the end of 2005 and similar mandates are being made in the EU and other regions. Since most pharmaceutical companies are international, companies are scrambling to figure out the best method for managing their data in order to meet all of meeting these specific requirements. Also, drug label information will become an important component in the broader set of medical records and prescription standards that are being developed concurrently. This session will describe the roles and status of these standards, initiatives for adoption in the US and the EU, and provide some ideas on strategies for managing data within this complex set of requirements. http://tc.eserver.org/33891.html http://tc.eserver.org/33891.html Several authors of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the projected effects of global warming now say they regret not pushing harder to include an updated diagram of climate risks in the report. The diagram, known as “burning embers,” is an updated version of one that was a central feature of the panel’s preceding climate report in 2001. http://tc.eserver.org/33845.html http://tc.eserver.org/33845.html We describe how two XML-based data formats, OpenMath and Content MathML, are used in a mathematical service toolkit based on the Maple computer algebra system. This service toolkit is based on a configuration engine that provides the appropriate conversions between the mathematical XML data formats, builds the necessary Maple program, and installs the necessary extensions to a generic Web services engine. http://tc.eserver.org/33819.html http://tc.eserver.org/33819.html While computing the Mathematical Sciences is similar to other scientific areas, often the researcher lacks the resources to carry out those computations. Grid computing and web services provide some possibilities for solutions but they do not address the increasing demand for computing resources and ad hoc computation networks. This paper describes a solution to this that uses peer-to-peer technologies to build ad hoc networks of computational agents that all speak XML to carry out computations. http://tc.eserver.org/33646.html http://tc.eserver.org/33646.html How does Web 2.0 fit into the world of public health? STC Fellow, Dr. Thomas Barker discusses the values of social networking in regards to largescale public disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the SARS outbreak. http://tc.eserver.org/32296.html http://tc.eserver.org/32296.html The present study examines whether the use of humor in scientific article titles is associated with the number of citations an article receives. Four judges rated the degree of amusement and pleasantness of titles of articles published over 10 years (from 1985 to 1994) in two of the most prestigious journals in psychology, Psychological Bulletinand Psychological Review. We then examined the association between the levels of amusement and pleasantness and the article’s monthly citation average. The results show that, while the pleasantness rating was weakly associated with the number of citations, articles with highly amusing titles (2 standard deviations above average) received fewer citations. The negative association between amusing titles and subsequent citations cannot be attributed to differences in the title length and pleasantness, number of authors, year of publication, and article type (regular article vs comment). These findings are discussed in the context of the importance of titles for signalling an article’s content. http://tc.eserver.org/32299.html http://tc.eserver.org/32299.html Health informatics concerns the use of information and information and communication technologies within healthcare. Health informatics and information science need to take account of the unique aspects of health and medicine. The development of information systems and electronic records within health needs to consider the information needs and behaviour of all users. The sensitivity of personal health data raises ethical concerns for developing electronic records. E-health initiatives must actively involve users in the design, development, implementation and evaluation, and information science can contribute to understanding the needs and behaviour of user groups. Health informatics could make an important contribution to the ageing society and to reducing the digital divide and health divides within society. There is a need for an appropriate evidence base within health informatics to support future developments, and to ensure health informatics reaches its potential to improve the health and well-being of patients and the public. http://tc.eserver.org/32305.html http://tc.eserver.org/32305.html This paper explores the history of `the social' in information science. It traces the influence of social scientific thinking on the development of the field's intellectual base. The continuing appropriation of both theoretical and methodological insights from domains such as social studies of science, science and technology studies, and socio-technical systems is discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/32321.html http://tc.eserver.org/32321.html In this article, indigenous knowledge is defined as holistic of all forms of knowledge emanating from an indigenous community. The critical relevance of local science and technology information (STI) databases in the development and sustainability of Africa's indigenous knowledge is discussed. It is advocated that local African STI databases should be considered required development infrastructures because they will provide information resources that are more adequate for national planning and management than their international counterparts. Furthermore, the various stakeholders and their roles are identified and the policy environment of STI databases in Africa examined. Constraints notwithstanding, local databases for African STI resources are envisaged to enhance global distribution and sharing of Africa's indigenous knowledge. http://tc.eserver.org/32324.html http://tc.eserver.org/32324.html Well reported research published in conference and journal abstracts is important as individuals reading these reports often base their initial assessment of a study based on information reported in the abstract. However, there is growing concern about the reliability and quality of information published in these reports. This article provides an overview of research evidence underpinning the need for better reporting of abstracts reported in conference proceedings and abstracts of journal articles; with a particular focus in the area of health care. Where available we highlight evidence which refers specifically to abstracts reporting randomized trials. We seek to identify current initiatives aimed at improving the reporting of these reports and recommend that an extension of the CONSORT Statement (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials), CONSORT for Abstracts, be developed. This checklist would include a list of essential items to be reported in any conference or journal abstract reporting the results of a randomized trial. http://tc.eserver.org/32328.html http://tc.eserver.org/32328.html The typical structure of a scientific report involves highly standardized sections. The key concept of a scientific report is the reproducibility of results. Because not only clarity but also conciseness is a tool for the advancement of science, a new format using nested tables is proposed with the aim of improving the design of short reports in scientific journals, namely short communications, short technical reports, case reports, etc. This format is based on the ergonomic philosophy of visual encyclopaedias (one topic, one page) and on the quality system of the Deming's cycle (plan--do--check--act) for continuous improvement. This new editing tool has several advantages over existing forms, because it provides quick and ergonomic, reader-friendly research reports that, at the same time, would render a saving in terms of available space and publishing costs of the printed version of scientific journals. http://tc.eserver.org/32282.html http://tc.eserver.org/32282.html Where the seams of information and public space overlap and intersect, Elliott Malkin creates projects that span genres from religion to natural science. In a preview of his upcoming IDEA conference talk, Malkin talks about home-movies, butterflies, and designing for unofficial signs in public space. http://tc.eserver.org/32254.html http://tc.eserver.org/32254.html At the core of good science and engineering is the careful and respectful treatment of data. We calibrate our instruments, scrutinize the algorithms we use to process the data, and study the behavior of the models we use to interpret the data or simulate the phenomena we may be observing. Surprisingly, this careful treatment of data often breaks down when we visualize our data. http://tc.eserver.org/32233.html http://tc.eserver.org/32233.html Publication in general medical journals stimulates more conventional than electronic mail. However, the content of e-mail may be of greater scientific relevance. Electronic mail can be encouraged without fear of diminishing the quality of the communications received. http://tc.eserver.org/32168.html http://tc.eserver.org/32168.html This study analyzes the procedural explanations written by remedial college mathematics students. Relevant literatures suggest that six communication activities might be key in effective procedural explanations in mathematics writing: (a) orienting the learner, (b) providing kernels or definitions of concepts and procedures, (c) using exemplars or worked examples, (d) providing descriptions of the process or procedure, (e) solidifying learner understanding, and (f) facilitating linguistic control of mathematical terms. Using this framework, 18 practices or types of difficulties were discovered in students' written explanations. Independent experts consistently evaluated student explanations more highly when the explanations contained arithmetic or algebraic exemplars, described specific actions and their meanings, linked new with prior knowledge, and used descriptive language; experts evaluated student explanations more negatively when students displayed difficulties reasoning with kernels, reasoning with exemplars, or with describing processes. http://tc.eserver.org/31700.html http://tc.eserver.org/31700.html Despite the advent of computer-centered ways of creating and accessing scientific knowledge, the format of the scientific research article has remained basically unchanged. We have developed a model of a more appropriate form for research publications to structure scientific articles, based on a rhetorical structure which is ubiquitous in (natural) science papers. The model has three components: defining rhetorical elements inside the documents, the identification of the argumentational relationships between these elements; and the connection of data elements and entities to external sources. http://tc.eserver.org/31086.html http://tc.eserver.org/31086.html This article analyzes several decks of playing cards designed to communicate technical or scientific information ranging from military topics to the domestic arts to medical subjects. It places each deck in its historical context, describes the appearance and organization of the cards, and speculates about intended audience and purpose, drawing upon relevant secondary literature. It then extrapolates the conventions of this unusual genre. Finally, it argues that technical communicators can profit from this study because it raises questions and offers insights about such important topics as audience adaptation, organizational patterns, and ethical practices. Ultimately, this study may encourage reflection about these and other issues and perhaps lead to discovery and innovation. http://tc.eserver.org/30763.html http://tc.eserver.org/30763.html Successful applicants show us they can invest their hearts as well as their minds into their writing. They tell us stories that live in our minds long after we read their words. http://tc.eserver.org/30736.html http://tc.eserver.org/30736.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/30687.html http://tc.eserver.org/30687.html Arguments manifest in scientific visuals through graphic representation, content placement, and overall document structure. These arguments, designed to influence public perception, change over time in relation to sociopolitical climate. Analysis of a series of documents constructed deliberately to influence perception can help to determine patterns of argumentation and perceived exigencies. In this article, four self-guided tour brochures produced for distribution to visitors to the Glen Canyon Dam in 1977, 1984, 1990, and 1993 are analyzed in order to identify rhetorical strategies designed to influence public perceptions of the dam site, and examine how public perception of the dam, and related argumentation, is structured by sociopolitical climate. http://tc.eserver.org/30686.html http://tc.eserver.org/30686.html This article explores the basis of the public debate between Darwinian evolution and creationism. Using dramatic analysis, we show that the source for the debate is due to what we call 'Darwin's Dilemma,' which is found in Darwin's Origin of Species. In the Origin, Darwin extends the mechanistic metaphor featured in Enlightenment science by devising the concept of 'natural selection.' In the process, however, he also ascribes a motive to nature, which moves his theory outside the boundaries of Enlightenment science. We show that he is aware of this dilemma in his theory, and that he tries to pass it off as a metaphorical maneuver for the sake of brevity. Darwin's inability to resolve this dilemma, however, opens the door for purveyors of creationism and intelligent design. Indeed, much of the debate today over Darwinian evolution still pivots on our inability to come to terms with Darwin's dilemma. http://tc.eserver.org/30700.html http://tc.eserver.org/30700.html Given Alan G. Gross's substantial contributions to the rhetoric of science, most recently with Joseph E. Harmon and Michael Reidy (2002) in Communicating Science, I looked forward to reading Gross's latest work, Starring the Text: The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies--until I read the preface. In the preface, Gross notes that Starring the Text is not a new con- tribution but a 'major refiguring' (p. ix) of his earlier work The Rhetoric of Science (1990). Like most readers, I am decidedly less enthusiastic about reading a revision of an older contribution than I am about reading a new contribution. http://tc.eserver.org/30568.html http://tc.eserver.org/30568.html If you are interested in scientific communications in any way, come meet others who write about science, discuss forming a Professional Interest Committee in Scientific Communications, contribute to a wish list, brainstorm options, accept part of the challenge, lend your support, or watch the process. http://tc.eserver.org/30271.html http://tc.eserver.org/30271.html A wide variety of environmental issues needs to be communicated to diverse groups of audiences. A panel representing government and industry discusses with the audience the impact of government regulations, public perception, and ongoing research findings on environmental writing. Communication strategies and theories for disseminating information and gaining public support are applied and analyzed. http://tc.eserver.org/30275.html http://tc.eserver.org/30275.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/30210.html http://tc.eserver.org/30210.html This article uses qualitative material gathered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to construct a model of the rhetorical activity that occurs at the boundaries between diverse communities of practice working on complex sociotechnical systems. The authors reinterpret the notion of the boundary object current in science studies as a rhetorical construct that can foster cooperation and communication among the diverse members of heterogeneous working groups. The knowledge maps constructed by team members at LANL in their work on technical systems are boundary objects that can replace the demarcation exigence that so often leads to agonistic rhetorical boundary work with an integrative exigence. The integrative exigence realized by the boundary object of the knowledge map can help create a temporary trading zone characterized by rhetorical relations of symmetry and mutual understanding. In such cases, boundary work can become an effort involving integration and understanding rather than contest, controversy, and demarcation. http://tc.eserver.org/30175.html http://tc.eserver.org/30175.html Advanced technical communication students analyzed information about pediatric AIDS that was designed for dtrerent segments of the public. They then produced individual projects for local segments of the university and surrounding community. Through this assignment, students learned the importance of community standards in designing accurate and locally 'acceptable' communication about a difficult subject. http://tc.eserver.org/30183.html http://tc.eserver.org/30183.html While chemistry faculty agree that writing is an important professional skill, few know how to teach it. They lack a strategy for incorporating writing into their courses, skill in designing eflective writing assignments, and knowledge of evaluation methods. Our practical manual, funded by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tennessee Knoxville, will provide chemistry and other science faculty with these skills along with a set of ready-to-use assignments for their courses. The manual will allow chemistry faculty to teach writing purposefully and effectively, focusing on the scientific content while systematically developing this all-important skill. http://tc.eserver.org/29830.html http://tc.eserver.org/29830.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29803.html http://tc.eserver.org/29803.html This study examines a paradox in findings regarding the effects of media literacy training on adolescents' decision making about tobacco use. Recent experiments have found that media literacy training successfully reduced participants' beliefs associated with risky behavior, whereas at the same time, their positive affect toward individuals portrayed in advertising increased. Study results confirm the hypothesis that media literacy training changes the way individuals think about the desirability of portrayals in the media. Although desirability usually represents individuals' affect toward portrayals, reports gathered after media literacy training also appear to reflect participants' increased awareness of the efforts made by advertisers to produce attractive portrayals designed to sell products and services. This awareness reduces or eliminates the impact that positive affect otherwise would have on decision making. Because this analysis suggests that individuals may respond to survey questions differently depending on their level of skill or involvement, the results raise important issues regarding issues of reliability and validity that may extend well beyond tests of this theoretical model or particular evaluation. http://tc.eserver.org/29777.html http://tc.eserver.org/29777.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29735.html http://tc.eserver.org/29735.html Technical communicators gather data from subject-matter experts and then transform it into information that helps users accomplish tasks. In this workshop, we demonstrate how to adapt our expertise to effectively interact with health care professionals--to improve our understanding of the health care industry. By relying on our professional skills, we can successfully navigate the health care maze and effectively operate in the "foreign" environment of the doctor's office, hospital, and care facilities. And, in doing so, we will improve the quality of care we receive. http://tc.eserver.org/29738.html http://tc.eserver.org/29738.html This paper presents a qualitative study of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's diverse users and their mental models regarding injury-related content. The study employed an innovative modified contextual inquiry method utilizing tailored, in-depth interviews with five distinct user groups. Included in this paper is a detailed description of the background, framework, and method used for this study. Analysis of the full results was still in process at the due date of this paper. The results will be in the presentation's slide set and available from the STC website www.stc.org. http://tc.eserver.org/29740.html http://tc.eserver.org/29740.html Many of the memoranda and letters related to the Chicago flood, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters that warned of impending disasters went unheeded. The reason: the writers failed to properly use various rhetorical features and conventions. They failed to include necessary information, omitted unnecessary detail, placed important information in inappropriate locations, used qualifiers to reduce perceptions of the consequences of actions, and failed to follow organizational conventions related to transmission of information. Their lack of knowledge of rhetorical strategies exacerbated the problems associated with the contexts in which the various documents were written, resulting in misunderstandings. http://tc.eserver.org/29632.html http://tc.eserver.org/29632.html The author describes his history after being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), including a brief discussion of what the disorder is, how he came to be diagnosed as having it, and how he has come to live in harmony with, and even embrace, ADD. Murray concludes by offering helpful hints for accommodating the disorder that have helped him lead a fulfilling and successful career in technical communications. http://tc.eserver.org/30281.html http://tc.eserver.org/30281.html Too much of the information on new technology tools is of little value to the scientific communicator. This session provides topic overviews and discussion of three topics: SGML, electronic networks, and specialized word processing software. Please note that these discussions are introductory; other ITCC presentations cover SGML and the Internet in more depth. http://tc.eserver.org/29683.html http://tc.eserver.org/29683.html Science writing for general audiences in newspapers and magazines differs from scientific writing for scientists in journal articles, letters, and grant proposals. The general public is limited in its knowledge and its understanding of scientific advancements, so science writers try to seize on the public's interest in science and "translate" discoveries and developments for them. Science writing differs from scientific writing in audience (lay versus expert), purpose (to entertain as well as to inform or persuade), and techniques such as the use of human interest, control of pace and diction, and appeal to interest in and the utility of science. http://tc.eserver.org/29572.html http://tc.eserver.org/29572.html This ability to provide evidence and evaluate arguments is critical to a liberal arts education or an engineering one. Hence, the interface between the document and the verified repository not only ensures correctness and eliminates error by construction, but also gives depth to the article, from the inserted math to its very foundations. http://tc.eserver.org/29542.html http://tc.eserver.org/29542.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29538.html http://tc.eserver.org/29538.html This article investigates the contribution visual rhetoric and rhetorical genre studies (RGS) can make to health care education and communication genres. Through a visual rhetorical analysis of a patient record used in an optometry teaching clinic, this article illustrates that a genre's visual representations provide significant insights into the social action of that genre. These insights are deepened by an insider analysis of the patient record that highlights how content analyses of visual designs need to be elaborated by contextual considerations. A combined visual rhetoric and RGS analysis shows that clinical novices learn to interpret the record's visual cues to safely traverse the complex requirements of this apprenticeship genre. The article demonstrates that visual rhetoric research can meaningfully contribute to the understanding of genres by presenting an enriched contextual analysis achieved by consulting with context insiders. http://tc.eserver.org/29532.html http://tc.eserver.org/29532.html The use of visual representation to learn science can be traced to Louis Agassiz, Harvard Professor of Zoology, in the mid-19th century. In Agassiz's approach, students were to study nature through carefully observing, drawing and then thinking about what the observations might add up to. However, implementation of Agassiz's student-centered approach has struggled with the conflict between science as a form of developing "mental discipline" in which mastery of scientific facts is the goal and science learning as a socially situated activity with an emphasis on the process of learning, not merely its products. Present-day attempts to have students draw to learn science often succumb to these same conflicts, limiting their full realization. http://tc.eserver.org/29531.html http://tc.eserver.org/29531.html 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). http://tc.eserver.org/29530.html http://tc.eserver.org/29530.html The Multimodal approach offers technical communicators and science writers an analytical tool to synthesize the meaning made in the connections across communicative modes. This multimodal synthesis can help technical communicators better exploit the meaning-making potential of multimodal combinations and understand the needs of future generations shaped by their increasingly developed multimodal literacy. http://tc.eserver.org/29529.html http://tc.eserver.org/29529.html This pilot study obtained baseline information on verbal and visual rhetorics to teach microscopy techniques to college biology majors. We presented cell images to students in cell biology and biology writing classes and then asked them to identify textual, verbal, and visual cues that support microscopy learning. Survey responses suggest that these students recognized some of the rhetorical strategies used and conflated others, revealing intriguing questions for further research in undergraduate microscopy education. http://tc.eserver.org/29418.html http://tc.eserver.org/29418.html One of the fascinating things about science is just how many breakthroughs have come from mixing the knowledge provided by entirely different disciplines, and I suspect that this lesson has yet to be learned in our own discipline of scientific communication. Technical writers have been grappling with the issues of rhetoric, audience analysis, and usability testing for years, and have developed effective solutions and techniques for addressing these issues. Scientific communicators have largely ignored these breakthroughs and clung to our familiar models of communication. http://tc.eserver.org/29425.html http://tc.eserver.org/29425.html Sometimes English just isn't the most elegant way to say something. It might be so much easier if we write for a math journal, because the correct language for the explanation can be, in fact, mathematics. http://tc.eserver.org/29412.html http://tc.eserver.org/29412.html The purpose of this article is to clarify some common misperceptions as to what science is, what science does, how science relates to technology, and how the activities of science and technology differ from the areas of informed and uninformed speculation, and how the three areas complement each other. http://tc.eserver.org/29333.html http://tc.eserver.org/29333.html Many people make an unfortunate and invalid separation between heart and mind, or feeling and intellect. In some contemporary traditions, abetted by attitudes stereotypically centered on Southern California, feelings are exalted as more "real" and the only proper basis for action -- if it feels good, do it -- while intellect gets short shrift as a hang-up of outmoded elitism. http://tc.eserver.org/29255.html http://tc.eserver.org/29255.html 'The importance of the work is inversely proportional to the number of people who can understand it' is an outdated attitude in today's scientific arena. The trend toward plain language is gathering force in government, academe, and scientific journals. http://tc.eserver.org/29200.html http://tc.eserver.org/29200.html Although the rhetoric of relatively stable scientific disciplines has been studied extensively, less attention has been paid to discourse formation in young disciplines. The author extends recent theories of genre and disciplinary discourse in a close rhetorical analysis of early papers in ethnological science. Practitioners apply extant rhetorical resources to new disciplinary problems as they learn to identify themselves as participants in a collective project. The young discipline 'learns' its discourse from its practitioners. http://tc.eserver.org/29194.html http://tc.eserver.org/29194.html A look at the importance of science writing in helping the public to understand issues that affect our daily lives so that we can make informed decisions concerning risk. http://tc.eserver.org/29225.html http://tc.eserver.org/29225.html Florence Nightingale is usually pictured as an angelic nurse tending to British soldiers in military hospitals during the Crimean War. Although Nightingale was indeed a tender of soldiers, she was also an administrator, advocate for the common soldier, and proponent of the use of statistics and information design. This article examines Nightingale's rose diagrams, which she designed following her service as the director of nurses at a field hospital in the Crimean War. When the war ended, Nightingale was asked by the queen to write a report on the poor sanitary conditions and make recommendations for reform. When, after six months, the government did not act on the reforms, Nightingale decided to write an annex to the report, in which she would include her invention, the rose diagrams. Nightingale's ultimate success in persuading the government to institute reforms is an illustration of the power of visual rhetoric, as well as an example of Nightingale's own passionate resolve to right what she saw as a grievous wrong. http://tc.eserver.org/29241.html http://tc.eserver.org/29241.html This article argues that technical communicators are uniquely poised to function as public intellectuals. To demonstrate this point, the author offers the example of her work on a major AIDS prevention program report. Situating this work within the history of technical communication, the current discussion of rhetorics of risk, and the writing classroom, the author argues that technical writers don't have simply the opportunity to engage in textual activism; in many cases they have no alternative. http://tc.eserver.org/29111.html http://tc.eserver.org/29111.html To promote intercultural understanding in medical communication, this article studies a regulation issued by the Chinese government to standardize traditional Chinese medicine labeling. Then the author claims that the traditional Chinese medicine labeling is medicine-focused. This feature has its roots in traditional Chinese philosophy of stressing the context while de-emphasizing individuals. The author examines a particular medicine label to support his claim that the medicine-focused feature draws patients' attention to the situations that cause disorders. http://tc.eserver.org/29016.html http://tc.eserver.org/29016.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29037.html http://tc.eserver.org/29037.html This article reports the results of a survey of thirty-one colleges of veterinary medicine in the United States and Canada to identify common writing, speaking, and reading tasks performed by veterinary medical students and practicing veterinarians. From the twenty-seven colleges that responded (87% response rate), we learned that writing, speaking, and reading tasks are assigned in almost every veterinary medical course and that the communication tasks assigned in veterinary medical courses accord well with the communication tasks expected to be performed by practicing veterinarians. Along with these learning-to-communicate tasks, veterinary medical students are also assigned communicating-to-learn tasks. Unlike many of the writing-to-learn tasks associated with writing-across-the-curriculum programs, communicating-to- learn tasks in veterinary medical courses seem concerned with teaching students to think like veterinary medical practitioners. The emphasis on communication in veterinary medical curricula is probably due to some extent to the emphasis on problem-based learning, a curricular innovation popular in veterinary medical education. Problem-based learning requires that instruction be designed around cases or problems to be solved rather than topics or information to be covered. This merging of research and practice in the education of veterinary medical students may offer lessons for the education of professional practitioners in technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/29068.html http://tc.eserver.org/29068.html To determine the metaphor that represents cloning, a contemporary scientific revolution, this study examines articles published in Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Science, and Time that describe the cloning of the sheep Dolly. A plethora of figurative language may be garnered from these articles, and this study describes a number of them: metaphor (dead, natural, and technical), simile, hyperbole, personification, irony, cliché, paronomasia, antithesis, metonymy, anthimera, oxymoron, the rhetorical question, and analogy. The significance and relationship to cloning are explicated. The article concludes that the figures do not support a central metaphor. Further research is suggested to determine if the lack of a metaphor is a fluke or a trend in the development of scientific research and what the difference may be between scientific and technical metaphor. http://tc.eserver.org/29022.html http://tc.eserver.org/29022.html As proposed in the classic work by Hervey Cleckley, M.D.--The Mask of Sanity--a psychopath typically meets sixteen diagnostic criteria. Every one of them applies to Richard Hickock as he is revealed by Truman Capote's <em>In Cold Blood</em>, a nonfiction novel about the murder of Kansas farmer Herbert W. Clutter and his family forty years ago. It transcends the boundaries of traditional journalism by closely examining the entire constellation of antisocial personality traits that Hickock exhibits. Drawn in large part from jailhouse interviews, Capote's portrait of Hickock breathes life into the psychiatric literature, thus rendering intelligible the mental evaluation provided by the physician who examined the accused in preparation for his upcoming trial. In so doing, Capote s best-selling masterpiece serves as a case study of a psychopath, one that conforms to established medical authority while maintaining its popular appeal. http://tc.eserver.org/29055.html http://tc.eserver.org/29055.html Teachers and researchers in the field of Technical English have always been concerned with the nature of this subject, its major characteristics, and its chief uses in Science and Technology. Obviously, less time and efforts have been spent on how technical English is learned, particularly in situations where foreign students have to relate their limited linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in technical texts of immediate concern to their specialist studies. This research is an early effort to show how technical English is learned and, more specifically, what relevant factors are involved in the overall learning process. http://tc.eserver.org/29077.html http://tc.eserver.org/29077.html This article claims that two social values in science--falsifiability of science and cooperation among scientists--determine use of passives in scientific communication. Scientists do not always develop valid theories, so scientific experiments must be amenable to being repeated and found invalid. This requires that the experiments must not be discrete events. Science is also a cooperative enterprise. As an integral part of science, scientific writing employs more passives than actives to focus on materials, methods, figures, processes, tables, concepts, etc. Use of passives to focus on the physical world helps de-emphasize discreteness of scientific experiments. Besides, it also helps remove personal qualifications of observing experimental results. Finally, it enhances cooperation among working scientists by providing a common knowledge base of scientific work--things and objects. Looked at in this way, the passive voice in scientific writing represents professional practices of science instead of personal stylistic choices of individual scientists. http://tc.eserver.org/29129.html http://tc.eserver.org/29129.html This article analyzes the statements on plain style made by Royal Society writers and seventeenth-century women writers. Using scholarship in feminist rhetorical theory, the article concludes that Royal Society plain stylists constructed scientific discourse as a masculine form of discourse by purging elements that were associated with femininity, such as emotional appeals. The article also discusses how women writers, particularly Margaret Cavendish, embraced a plain style more out of concern for their audience than out of a desire to eliminate undesirable feminine attributes. The implications of this historical study for understanding of current practice are noted. http://tc.eserver.org/29063.html http://tc.eserver.org/29063.html Rhetoric of science reveals the role of rhetoric in the complex social enterprise that is standard science. Rhetoric plays a role in non-standard science too. The recent elucidation of the human genetic code calls to mind an earlier, tragic episode in the history of genetics, Lysenkoism in Stalinist Russia. It involved the repudiation of standard science in favor of an insular, intuitive, and anti-intellectual science called agrobiology which supposedly could shape agricultural productivity to political will. The tragedy is that careers were ruined and millions suffered starvation as the new science failed to bear its predicted fruit. Whether seen as a debased rhetoric of science or as a rhetoric of debased science, it assumed that language is plastic and can support a plastically reconceived science that reflected the plasticity of nature itself. This plastic rhetoric is strikingly similar to Plato s view of sophism, which of course differs considerably from contemporary views of sophism. http://tc.eserver.org/29162.html http://tc.eserver.org/29162.html Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology is an underutilized, relatively unknown resource in technical communication which could be exploited not only for its potential clarification of large social issues that involve our discipline, but also specifically toward the development of a critical theory of illustrations. Applications of critical theory help strengthen our discipline by forcing us to delineate extant approaches and consider whether democratic goals are being achieved through those approaches. If a critical theory of illustrations can be built from Feenberg's critical theory of technology, it should be useful for classroom instructors and researchers as well as theorists. http://tc.eserver.org/29078.html http://tc.eserver.org/29078.html This article uses Chaim Perelman's theories of argumentation to examine a recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Promoting Health: Intervention Strategies from Social and Behavioral Research (2000). The IOM's text explores social and behavioral research to devise multipronged intervention strategies; it focuses on social, economic, behavioral, and political health as a means of assuring population health--and thereby expands the conventional boundaries of public health. Since Chaim Perelman's rhetoric is seldom applied in the field of health communication, employing his ideas to consider the role of style, arrangement, and argument in such a cutting-edge document can illuminate public health writing, as well as shed new light on Perelmanian rhetoric. http://tc.eserver.org/29100.html http://tc.eserver.org/29100.html Scientific and technical jargon--specialized vocabulary, usually Latinate--plays a vital role in scientific and technical communication. But its proper use continues to be a point of discussion because of our concern with audience adaptation, rhetorical exigence, rhetorical purpose, and ethics. We've focused on teaching students--and on convincing scientists, engineers, and other writers/speakers--to gear their specialized language to the recipients of their communication, to the occasion calling for their communication, to what they wish to accomplish through their communication, and to the ethical goals of safety, helpfulness, empowerment, and truth. These are exactly the sorts of things we should be doing. My contribution to this conversation is a reinforce ment and, I hope, an extension of the argument that we should also be teaching and convincing students and professionals: 1) to fully appreciate what makes jargon either good or bad; 2) to carefully distinguish jargon usage from other aspects of scientific and technical style; and 3) to recognize that in every context, even in communication among experts, jargon should be used judiciously--that is, in the most helpful, least taxing way. Jargon, i.e. scientific terminology, is essential for designating new entities for which the language has no name. It makes for economy and for the accuracy and precision required in scientific research [1, p. 319]. Does the excessive use of technical terms impede the advance of science? I think it does. It kills the grace and purity of the literature by means of which the discoveries of science are made known [2, p. 116]. What if it should turn out that we are all jargon makers and jargon users, and that jargon is necessarily involved in the growth and change of language? That we are consumers of jargon as we are eaters of sliced bread? [3, p. 3]. To attempt a definition of jargon threatens unusual dangers [4, p. 69]. The above epigraphs are glimpses into discussions about both the uses of jargon and its definitions. My article enters in on such discussions, offering a point of view about the definitions and about the proper uses of jargon. http://tc.eserver.org/29043.html http://tc.eserver.org/29043.html The basis for effective scitech communications is formed by: focusing on the needs of the audience; structuring the substantive and language content accordingly; concentrating on accuracy, clarity and brevity; meeting logical requirements; and presenting in a communicative style and layout, including the use of visuals. In many scitech communications, the Appendix is the right place for detail not of immediate interest to most readers; this option is grossly under-utilized. http://tc.eserver.org/29094.html http://tc.eserver.org/29094.html While debates continue over the effectiveness of innovative communication technologies to bring information and services to populations that have been underserved by such new technologies, a federally-funded program at the University of Vermont and Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC), Burlington, Vermont, has enabled trauma specialists to link with rural emergency room health care providers through a synchronous videoconferencing (telemedicine) network. Analysis of patient histories and surveys completed by the participating physicians after each use of the computer conferencing system as well as interviews and observations indicate that the FAHC consulting trauma specialists and the remotely located physicians felt the linkups do not interfere with standard ER procedures, that communication was at least adequate for all consultations, and that the consults improved the quality of care, for over half of the cases. Furthermore, interviews with rural ER physicians indicated that they saw the program operating as the first stage of FAHC's management of a patient to be transferred to that facility. http://tc.eserver.org/29039.html http://tc.eserver.org/29039.html This article describes the linguistic and semantic features of technocratic discourse using a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework. The article goes further to assert that the function of technocratic discourse in public policy is to advocate and promulgate a highly contentious political and economic agenda under the guise of scientific objectivity and political impartiality. We provide strong evidence to support the linguistic description, and the claims of political advocacy, by analyzing a 900-word document about globalization produced by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). http://tc.eserver.org/28888.html http://tc.eserver.org/28888.html This paper estimates the growth of Science and Technology (S&T) journals in post-independence India. http://tc.eserver.org/28556.html http://tc.eserver.org/28556.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27794.html http://tc.eserver.org/27794.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27702.html http://tc.eserver.org/27702.html In a pediatric teaching hospital, the authors examined 16 novice medical case presentations that were classified as instances of a hybrid apprenticeship genre. In contrast to strict school and workplace genres, an apprenticeship genre results from the sometimes competing activity systems of student education and patient care. The authors examined these novice case presentations for the amount and patterns of time devoted to student learning and expert teaching, the difficulties created for participants, the sometimes misunderstood implicit messages delivered by experts, and the opportunities to address educational objectives. This study offers professional communication researchers a model that combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to assess the effects of competing activity systems in the development of communication expertise. http://tc.eserver.org/27280.html http://tc.eserver.org/27280.html We describe the system architecture and data template design for the Animal Diversity Web (http://www.animaldiversity.org), an online natural history resource serving three audiences: 1) the scientific community, 2) educators and learners, and 3) the general public. Our architecture supports highly scalable, flexible resource building by combining relational and object-oriented databases. Content resources are managed separately from identifiers that relate and display them. Websites targeting different audiences from the same database handle large volumes of traffic. Content contribution and legacy data are robust to changes in data models. XML and OWL versions of our data template set the stage for making ADW data accessible to other systems. http://tc.eserver.org/27282.html http://tc.eserver.org/27282.html Defining a 'designated user community' for a data collection is essential to good scientific data stewardship. It enables data managers to determine what information is necessary to ensure the usability of the data now and into the future. It helps managers present and enable access to the data and may determine the format of the data. However, defining a community is difficult, and it is impossible to predict how the use of a data collection may change over time. This creates a series of data management problems for data stewards that may be mitigated by a set of best practices. http://tc.eserver.org/27284.html http://tc.eserver.org/27284.html In 1998 ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment, launched an e-learning platform with the mission of sharing scientific knowledge among everyone, not just workers but also students and the unemployed, in order to use its research results to support competitiveness and sustainable development. In 6 years, more than 20.000 users have followed one or more of the 46 on line courses. Many agreements with schools, universities, private and public training organisation are now under way to improve the dissemination of scientific knowledge and to build an open data base of scientific learning objects that anyone can use. http://tc.eserver.org/27288.html http://tc.eserver.org/27288.html The availability of the Internet has provided unprecedented opportunities for both data compilers and users. With respect to materials data, this paper explores: how do we know what is available? how can data be accessed, interpreted, exchanged? what novel modes of presentation are now available? what organizations are active in this field and what are their programs? what improvements are needed? where do we go from here and how? Examples will be illustrated of specific materials databases available on the Internet from a variety of materials data fields, e.g. fundamental data, engineering design properties, environmental data, and materials safety data. While there is no question that large and widely varied bodies of data are accessible on the Internet, significant improvements are needed promptly. The paper concludes by summarizing these problems and possible means for their alleviation. http://tc.eserver.org/27279.html http://tc.eserver.org/27279.html This paper proposes an overview of the IMSA application, a patient-oriented medical information system. IMSA stands for Interactive Multimedia System for Auto-medication and aims to provide a health-care Internet tool for the end-user. This system proposes an environment that integrates on-line health information, medical and pharmaceutical databases and a knowledge-based system for medical diagnosis. The implementation process focuses on cognitive science, knowledge representation and human-computer interaction. http://tc.eserver.org/27281.html http://tc.eserver.org/27281.html Heterogeneous research environments, interests and locations do not necessarily coincide, thus hitherto the primary method of communication amongst researchers has been email. In this article a novel unified polythematic, real-time, synergistic, data telecommunication system is proposed with peer-reviewed, bidirectional fuzzy feedback for research scientists, to facilitate scientific information exchange via the extensible markup language (XML) on multiple scientific topics, e.g. in mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry. http://tc.eserver.org/27287.html http://tc.eserver.org/27287.html Access to and sharing of data are essential for the conduct and advancement of science. This article argues that publicly funded research data should be openly available to the maximum extent possible. To seize upon advancements of cyberinfrastructure and the explosion of data in a range of scientific disciplines, this access to and sharing of publicly funded data must be advanced within an international framework, beyond technological solutions. The authors, members of an OECD Follow-up Group, present their research findings, based closely on their report to OECD, on key issues in data access, as well as operating principles and management aspects necessary to successful data access regimes. http://tc.eserver.org/27118.html http://tc.eserver.org/27118.html Science has advanced in part because data and scientific methodologies have traditionally not been subject to intellectual property protection. In recent years, intellectual property has played a greater role in scientific work. While intellectual property rights may have a positive role to play in some fields of science, so does the public domain. This paper will discuss some of the positive functions of the public domain and ways in which certain legal developments may negatively impact the public domain. It suggests some steps that scientists can take to preserve the positive functions of the public domain for science. http://tc.eserver.org/26846.html http://tc.eserver.org/26846.html For the past two decades or so, science communication activities have gained momentum in India. Efforts have been made from both governmental and non-governmental platforms to enhance the public understanding of science. The idea is to help science and a scientific culture penetrate India's socio-culturally diverse society, and to transform it into a nation of scientifically thinking and scientifically aware people. http://tc.eserver.org/26692.html http://tc.eserver.org/26692.html Suggests that the interrelated skills of understanding and representing (re-presenting) the abductive inference (often neglected in technical and professional communication pedagogy) are critical for the scientific communicator vis-a -vis kairos, and that science communication instructors ought to develop a pedagogy that includes the instruction of this skill. http://tc.eserver.org/26557.html http://tc.eserver.org/26557.html Over the past years, many reference books have been published for various science and engineering disciplines. Based on publishers’ descriptions, I selected four for review. http://tc.eserver.org/25994.html http://tc.eserver.org/25994.html Expresses concisely why scientists need to use plain language when they write for the public. http://tc.eserver.org/25996.html http://tc.eserver.org/25996.html Looks at a number of institutions that are finding ways to insert plain English into communication between scientists and the public, as well as among scientists of different disciplines. http://tc.eserver.org/25997.html http://tc.eserver.org/25997.html This article outlines the benefits you can realize by articulating your science clearly and succinctly; next time, we'll look at how and why several academic and government institutions as well as some publications are encouraging this trend. http://tc.eserver.org/25773.html http://tc.eserver.org/25773.html AMWA formed a new task force in 2001 to develop a statement regarding AMWA’s position on the contributions of biomedical communicators to scientific publications. http://tc.eserver.org/25765.html http://tc.eserver.org/25765.html While many bemoan the fact that television is a central source of science information for much of the United States, professionals charged with informal science education tasks have welcomed opportunities afforded by the medium. Creating TV programming that meets both institutional goals and audience preferences, though, is a challenge fraught with difficulties. To develop such programming, one tempting formative research option is to conduct focus groups with potential audience members. In this article, we present guidelines for focus group implementation as well as crucial caveats to which we should adhere in interpreting data from such efforts. To illustrate the guidelines, we discuss a formative evaluation undertaken for the Discoveries and breakthroughs inside science television news project to understand how some people respond to science news stories. http://tc.eserver.org/25486.html http://tc.eserver.org/25486.html The two purposes of this article are: 1) to use metaphorical analysis to determine whether or not Max Planck invented the quantum postulate and 2) to demonstrate how metaphorical analysis can be used to analyze the rhetoric of revolutionary texts in science. Metaphors often serve as the basis of invention for scientific theories. When we identify these metaphors in Planck's original 1900 quantum paper, it is clear that Planck did consider the quantum postulate to be important. However, we also see that he does not consider the quantum postulate to be revolutionary. A New Scientific Truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. http://tc.eserver.org/25175.html http://tc.eserver.org/25175.html Scientific communications are expected to search for truth, while the Truth is no longer given as in (religious) belief systems. Truth can then be considered as a code or a meta-heuristics of communication. In this dynamic system of rationalized expectations new ideas can be entertained and tested, while communications in a belief system must be normatively integrated. Scientific communications in different fields do no longer need to be organized hierarchically: during their further development, the hierarchies may have been inverted. The concept of a "unity of science" can from this perspective be replaced with a dynamic within and among the sciences. This dynamics is both complex and non-trivial. Inter-human communication is expected to contain uncertainty, and it can be provided with (interactive and reflexive) meaning. Languages allow for the codification of these relations. Higher-order codifications (e.g., the paradigmatic control of the use of language) can endogenously be developed. http://tc.eserver.org/25177.html http://tc.eserver.org/25177.html Libraries historically have been identified with the functions of storage and retrieval. In recent years, they have expanded their role to include information transfer and the creation of the networked, digital library for information access and dissemination. More recently, the William H. Welch Medical Library (WML) of the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) has been exploring strategies to integrate the library more fully into the scholarly and scientific communication process. The result is a new role we call knowledge management. http://tc.eserver.org/25044.html http://tc.eserver.org/25044.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/25013.html http://tc.eserver.org/25013.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/24908.html http://tc.eserver.org/24908.html A physicist-turned-editor shows you the basics required for copyediting physics papers (physical quantities, symbols, units, scientific notation, the structure of mathematical expressions, the nature of graphs), and points the way to learning enough 'editorial physics' to begin substantive editing. http://tc.eserver.org/24793.html http://tc.eserver.org/24793.html Many technical writer/editors at Los Alamos National Laboratory feel that we (and our colleagues at other institutions) do a good job of helping scientists communicate with each other, but we do not do so well in communicating with the general public. We have done a literature search and interviewed target audience members to learn how to better communicate science. Our research falls into the four following areas: the need for this special knowledge, characterization of audiences, communications strategies, and evaluation of the resulting communication products. http://tc.eserver.org/24637.html http://tc.eserver.org/24637.html Suggests that writers of technical manuals could learn a thing or two about usability from the consistent form of scientific journal articles. http://tc.eserver.org/24566.html http://tc.eserver.org/24566.html Studies in the rhetoric of science have tended to focus on classic scientific texts and on the history of drafts and the interaction surrounding them up until the moment when the drafts are accepted for publication by a journal. Similarly, research on disasters resulting from failed communication has tended to focus on the history of drafts and the interaction surrounding them up until the moment of the disaster. The authors argue that overattention to the moment skews understanding of what makes scientific discourse successful and neglects other valuable sources of evidence. After reviewing the promises and limitations of studies from historical, observational, and text-analytic approaches, the authors call for studies of responses to research articles from disciplinary readers and argue for studies using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies that will explore the real-time responses of readers to scientific texts, test the effects of rhetorical strategies on readers, and track the course of acceptance or rejection over time. http://tc.eserver.org/24531.html http://tc.eserver.org/24531.html Despite the prevailing assumption that narrative and scientific discourse are incompatible genres, in this article the authors show that scientific texts typically follow a narrative pattern. This simple observation that narrative and scientific texts are similar is not all that surprising when we recognize that scientific discourse, like all narratives, describes what happened and what it meant. Indeed, scientific texts are almost always accounts of scientists' experiences in reality. After developing a vocabulary of narrative, the authors analyze the works of Newton and Einstein, using narrative analysis to illuminate scientific texts as stories. http://tc.eserver.org/24496.html http://tc.eserver.org/24496.html During scientific researchers' collaborations, authors draw on many extratextual resources (social, intellectual and empirical) which are deployed in their texts. http://tc.eserver.org/24445.html http://tc.eserver.org/24445.html Explores the influence of DSM-III in the limited sphere of a single child psychiatrist. http://tc.eserver.org/24444.html http://tc.eserver.org/24444.html Explains how rhetoric is related to modes of inquiry and to the social community in classical rhetoric and in scientific rhetoric in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. http://tc.eserver.org/24418.html http://tc.eserver.org/24418.html If you are interested in scientific communication in any way, come meet others who write about science and help develop a strategic plan for the Scientific Communication Professional Interest Committee. http://tc.eserver.org/24317.html http://tc.eserver.org/24317.html Illustrations for scientific material must convey information quickly, clearly, and succinctly. They must be technically accurate as well as aesthetically pleasing. We discuss the differences between illustrations for scientific and nonscientific material and show examples of good and poor scientific illustrations. http://tc.eserver.org/24263.html http://tc.eserver.org/24263.html Van der Waarde summarizes the reasons why medicinal information provided to patients is often confusing and describes a method for evaluating its effectiveness. http://tc.eserver.org/24243.html http://tc.eserver.org/24243.html Teaching students how to write about science for the general public involves helping them research subjects, publications, and audiences. They should learn about research, organization of articles, audience analysis, and writing strategies, and use human interest, background information and examples, proper terminology and pace, and techniques to motivate readers to read the article. http://tc.eserver.org/24257.html http://tc.eserver.org/24257.html The Third Millennium will require writers to help society cope with rapid technological change. Writers frame experience and communicate it to others in way that allows them to better understand complex ideas and make them part of their own experience. More than ever, technical writers are needed to help society understand the rapid changes taking place. Technology is merging disciplines into multimedia, compressing information into a more compact space. http://tc.eserver.org/24092.html http://tc.eserver.org/24092.html In Europe, when someone gets ill, it is common to visit a doctor. Most consultations end when a doctor prescribes a medicine that can be obtained from a pharmacy. After collecting the medicine a patient has to decide if the use of this medicine is more beneficial than not taking it. In order to make this decision, and in order to take medicines effectively, information is essential. Not only the instructions about how much to take and at what times, but also the potential risks caused by interactions with other medicines and common behaviour (eating, smoking, drinking, sleeping, exercising). It also becomes necessary to know how to recognize that a medicine does what it supposes to do. Historical developments have led to a tightly regulated situation in which the patient gets a clear message that health care providers (pharmaceutical industry, pharmacists, prescribers, etc) do not care very much about informed patients.