#20582
From the Moon to the Microchip: Fifty Years of Technical Communication 
Explores technologies and technical writing discussed in this journal over the past 50 years. Describes how computer technologies were applied to gain efficiency in production. Notes that single sourcing and content management focus on text creation.
Durack, Katherine T. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Technology>TC
#26041
The Future of Technical Communication: The Perspective of a Management Consultant
This commentary summarizes the seven articles in this special issue and also argues that technical communication as a profession is in the midst of a disruption caused by low-cost innovators. Technical communicators can counter this trend by drastically reducing costs and increasing productivity in current operations. But the most valuable strategy is the difficult task of pursuing customer knowledge, which is difficult to replicate by those with little access to customers. Working for the customer and providing them with the information they need to be successful in using products and systems is critical to the future of technical communication.
Hackos, JoAnn T. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Management>TC
#28778
Geoff Sauer on tc.eserver.org, the Largest Tech Comm Index Online
Geoff Sauer is one of the founders of tc.eserver.org--the largest online index for all works related to technical communication. The library indexes works by technical communicators in dozens of categories, and allows users to add new works, rank them, and get RSS feeds of specific titles. There are over 25,000 RSS feeds generated on the site and 15,000 visitors each day.
Sauer, Geoffrey and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Interviews>TC>Podcasts
#30495
Getting It Together: Creating Procedure Guides for Chapter Officers and Managers 
The Rochester Chapter developed a set of Procedure Guides for officers and managers. The project was generated by a need to describe management tasks in order to recruit members for chapter positions, and to aid officers and managers in doing their jobs. This session demonstrates how other chapters can benefit from the Rochester Chapter's experience and develop a set of customized leadership guides.
Doremus, Jean S. and Kathleen B. Aughey. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Management>TC>STC
#31885
Going from Word to Wiki: A Few Thoughts
An overview of how one technical communicator moved a Word document to a wiki, and some of the issues involved.
DMN Communications (2008). Articles>TC>Wikis>Microsoft Word
#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
#14134
Guidelines for Technical Edits 
The purpose of the technical edit is to ensure that all materials produced by the Documentation department are as complete and technically accurate as possible. Each document will also pass through a peer edit by a member of the Documentation department after the technical edit is complete, so as a technical editor you do not need to be concerned with issues of style and grammar. Your main focus should be on the technical accuracy of the document. The first step, of course, is simply to check the document for any errors. We need to make sure w have correctly described each feature of the software, as well as the overall design and purpose of the forms and systems we are discussing. Beyond checking for errors, however, we want the documentation we produce to be as helpful to the user as possible. For the purposes of the technical edit, this means not only checking for inaccuracies, but asking whether the document has all the information that is necessary to use the software successfully.
#20334
Handling Ethical Dilemmas on the Job
Experts in ethics will suggest approaches to ethical dilemmas in the field of technical communication and on the job with the 'Ten (+/-) Commandments of Ethics.'
Epp, Barbara E., Shirley A. Hancock, Jeffrey L. Hibbard, Connie Kiernan, Lawrence D. Kunz and Daniel W. Voss. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC>Ethics
#30498
Have Chapter Meetings that Members Love to Attend!
To improve your chapter meetings, begin by forming a vivid ideal of how you would like the meetings to be. You can realize your dream if you: (1) find out what chapter members want, (2) form an enthusiastic team to do the many tasks involved, (3) publicize meetings beyond your membership list, (4) ensure good presentations, (5) energize the audience for lively meetings, and (6) keep looking for ways to meet your members' wants. For advice and encouragement in doing these things, participate in a support group with leaders of other chapters.
Dean, Morris. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>TC>Community Building>STC
#23700
Helping Each Other into the Future
About 50 NY Metro chapter members and friends gathered at the Parsippany Hilton on Thursday, April 11, to glimpse the immediate future in the world of Web development and online help. The result was a lively meeting with five simultaneous conversations on different aspects of help.
Parker, Anne Kennison. MetroVoice (2002). Articles>TC>Planning
#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
#23494
High-Tech Communication from Finland
Technical communication is still quite a young field in Finland, and only a few people have been in the field for more than a decade. The average age of a Finnish technical communicator is probably around 30, and most of us have four or five years’ experience and an academic background in languages. Estimates of how many technical communicators there are in Finland are hard to come by, but our guesstimate would be anything from 500 to 1000 (and growing). Even though most of us speak Finnish as our native language, English is the main language of technical communication, since most of the products are exported. Localizability is one of the key elements in Finnish technical communication.
Lahti, Maria. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>TC>Regional>Scandinavia
#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
#29438
Hockey and the Art of Technical Communication
If STC would fund an appropriately intensive study of the NHL, I have no doubt we could inspire dramatic changes in technical communication; the contrasts between the NFL and NHL approaches have profound consequences for our work.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (2001). Articles>TC
#30500
How can business address a local shortage of competent technical communicators? Identifying and educating resources available within the community provides one solution. The intent of this paper is to give a brief account of a project that was undertaken jointly by participating businesses and the Dallas Community College System to address a shortage of technical communicators in the immediate area.
Schoemaker, Carlos P. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>TC
#26251
Hosting the Traveling Exhibits: A Primer
In April 2005 the Vermont Chapter STC hosted the STC traveling exhibits, which include award-winning entries from the five major STC competitions: the international technical art competition (ITAC), international technical publications competition (ITPC), international online communication competition (IOCC), Society newsletter competition, and Society public relations competition. If your chapter, like ours, is in a small market, you probably don’t get the opportunity to network with technical writers from different industries or to see documentation for other markets. Hosting the traveling exhibits is a great way to see what other technical writers are doing in the field.
Myers, Patricia. Tieline (2005). Articles>TC>Community Building>STC
#31739
How Can I Become a Successful Technical Writer?
The best thing you can do to develop your skills and ability with technical writing is to actually do some technical writing. Find an open source project, such as WordPress.org or Pligg, and write some documentation for it. Most open source projects have poor documentation, so they provide excellent opportunities.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing
#30747
How Can We Attract More Members to Our Meetings?
Make the meetings fun--after a long day at work, we need to relax. If you can help them relax at the meeting, you are a step ahead. Some chapters use a relaxation technique at the beginning of their meeting. One California chapter president responded on the listserv that he wears a Santa suit at his chapter's December meeting, so don't be afraid to try something new!
Laurent, J. Suzanna. Tieline (2008). Articles>TC>Community Building>STC
#23385
How Do You Believe You Add Value to the Development of an Information System?
In recent months, as part of my doctoral research, I have been interviewing technical communicators, users and developers of information systems to try and find out if in fact the work of a technical communicator is of value to those developing and using information systems. The interviews demonstrated clearly that technical communicators do add value. This was further confirmed in Paris where I discussed my work with technical communicators at the Comtec '97 conference. The following discussion encapsulates some of the comments from participants at Comtec '97 and the interviews I conducted.
Fisher, Julie L. TC-FORUM (2003). Articles>Collaboration>TC
#31115
How Important is the Writing Part of Technical Writing?
Writing documentation isn't merely the act of pounding out dry prose. There is some creativity involved which comes from how you present the information, both textually and visually. The writing, though, needs to be easy to read, complete, concise, and to the point.
DMN Communications (2007). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing
#14348
How to Consume Research Effectively: You Are What You Eat
In this hands-on, interactive workshop, you will learn to identify and overcome barriers to using research on the job, identify sources of usable and valid research for your job, identify five basic research concepts and terms everyone should know, and apply practical decision-making methods for knowing whether to use research on the job.
Kleimann, Susan D. and Kenneth D. Keiser. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Research>TC
