October 15, 2001, through January 15, 2002  

This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from October 15, 2001, through January 15, 2002.

Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2002). Articles>History>TC

Peek Into the Past: 90 Years of Technical Communication    

Take a look at your bookshelf: what is the copyright date of your earliest book on technical communication? I doubt whether you will find anything much earlier than 1965. I describe and comment briefly on several well-reputed technical writing books published between 1908 and 1965. Then I lead into the changes that have been occurring in the technical writing scene, and the impact these changes have had on us as professional technical communicators.

Blicq, Ronald S. IEEE PCS (2000). Articles>TC>History

Review: Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century  

Ever wonder about the relationship between academia and the corporate world? Or if you are on the corporate side (as I am), have you wondered why academia operates as it does? (And vice versa.) If so, Reshaping Technical Communication: New Directions and Challenges for the 21st Century offers great insights that may help you gain an understanding of how each world operates, why they operate as they do, and how the two worlds influence and can alter the future of technical communication.

Staples, Jeff. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Reviews>TC>History

Same Methods, Different Disciplines: The Historian and Linguist as Technical Communicators  

Can a liberal arts degree be parlayed into a career in technical communication? The presenters explain how they did precisely that, applying the overarching principle: 'Same method, different discipline.' This paper provides examples of how a history major (lead author Maureen Hogg) and an English major (co-author Dan Voss) drew upon the skills they honed as undergraduates in their respective majors to advance their careers as technical communicators at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation in Boulder, CO, and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Orlando, FL, respectively. In Part 1, Hogg takes several principles of historiography and shows how she applied them in developing a series of information products on Ball Aerospace's landmark Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) program. In Part 2, Voss shows how principles of rhetorical analysis he learned in a course on linguistics became the linchpin in a year-long integrated strategic communication campaign that helped Lockheed Martin land a major contract to build the next-generation air-to-ground missile system for the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.

Hogg, Maureen and Daniel W. Voss. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>TC>Linguistics>History

September 1, 1999, through November 30, 1999  

This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from September 1, 1999, through November 30, 1999. Special emphasis has been placed on documentation in the category Technical Manual Specification & Standards (TMSS); however, other documents with widespread appeal are also included.

Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2000). Articles>History>TC

September 1, 2000 through November 30, 2000  

This report covers specifications, standards, and amendments received from September 1, 2000, through November 30, 2000.

Bach, Claudia. Intercom (2001). Articles>History>TC

Seventeenth-Century Technical and Persuasive Communication: A Case Study of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc's Work on a Method of Determining Terrestrial Longitude    

Finding a method to determine terrestrial longitude was critical in the early seventeenth century as countries attempted to establish territorial boundaries. The magistrate and natural philosopher Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637) spent much of his life working on a solution to this problem. As an early technical communicator, he was concerned with the criteria of acceptable observations, the standardization of materials and methods, and the communication of results. He refined a variety of strategies to obtain these observations and ensure their accuracy. He persuaded missionary priests to make observations throughout the Levant by promising patronage and gifts or stressing practical applications in the solution to the problem of longitude and church calendar reform. Although Peiresc did not resolve the issue of determining longitude, his efforts did provide the basis for work by later astronomers.

Tolbert, Jane T. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>TC>History

The Society's First Members  

In this article, two original members of the Association of Technical Writers and Editors (TWE), a parent organization of the Society for Technical Communication, discuss how the profession and the Society have changed since TWE's inception.

Rutkowski, Ed. Intercom (2002). Articles>TC>History

"Something in Motion and Something to Eat Attract The Crowd": Cooking With Science at the 1893 World's Fair    

Studying past examples of successful technical communication may offer insight into strategies that worked with technologies and audiences in an earlier time. This article examines the texts documenting a controversy before and during the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Ellen Swallow Richards, chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bertha Honore Palmer, president of the Fair's Board of Lady Managers, had distinctly different visions of how cooking technology should be presented. Palmer invited Richards to create a Model Kitchen in the Woman's Building, but Richards wanted to avoid gendering the new knowledge of nutrition and she fought to control her exhibit. The multimedia Richards used in her resulting Rumford Kitchen exhibit reminds us that sometimes an entertaining but familiar atmosphere might be the best way to introduce threatening new knowledge and technology, particularly to our increasingly international and intergenerational audiences.

Lippincott, Gail. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>TC>History>Rhetoric

STC's Evolving Conference  

This article discusses the impact of STC's annual conference on the professional development of technical communicators.

Rutkowski, Ed. Intercom (2001). Articles>TC>History>STC

STC@50: STC Members Share Their Stories  

In commemoration of STC's 50th anniversary, several Society members share anecdotes about their experiences in STC and the technical communication profession.

Babcock, Elizabeth. Intercom (2003). Articles>TC>History>STC

The Structure of Technical Communications Revolutions

Professions change their ways of doing business when their paradigms -- their ways of seeing -- change. Technical communication went through one such paradigm change when the engineer-as-writer-and-reader became the technical-writer-as-writer and the user-as-reader in the early 1950's. In the 1990's, the technical communication paradigm is again changing, and this change will mean: the form of computer documantation will become more plastic; the concept of readability will become more of a design issue with the rise of document prototyping; audience analysis will become much less haphazard and dependent upon stereotypes; and the role of the technical writer will increase in visibility, responsibilities, and opportunities. John Carroll's new book on minimalist documentation, The Nurnberg Funnel and Edward Tufte's Envisioning Information are harbingers of this new paradigm change.

Brockmann, R. John. ASTC (1995). Articles>History>TC

Teaching the History of Technical Communication: A Lesson With Franklin and Hoover    

The first part of this article shows that research in the history of technical communication has increased in quantity and sophistication over the last 20 years. Scholarship that describes how to teach with that information, however, has not followed, even though teaching the history of the field is a need recognized by several scholars. The article provides and defends four guidelines as a foundation to study ways to incorporate history into classroom lessons: 1) maintain a continued research interest in teaching history; 2) limit to technical rather than scientific discourse; 3) focus on English-language texts; and 4) focus on American texts, authors, and practices. The second part of the essay works within the guidelines to show a lesson that contrasts technical texts by Benjamin Franklin and Herbert Hoover. The lesson can help students see the difference in technical writing before and after the Industrial Revolution, a difference that mirrors their own transition from the university to the workforce.

Todd, Jeff. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>TC>History>Education

Technical Communication - Evolution

The history of communications dates back to the pre-historic times when our ancestors used to communicate with the help of signs, flags, drums, fire, making odd noises. Those were the times when any language was not developed to communicate effectively.

Malik, Suman Lata. Technical Communications Group (2002). Articles>History>TC

Technical Communication from 1950-1998: Where Are We Now?      

The changes in technical communication education between 1950 and 1998 have led to disciplinary maturity: the development of academic programs and of a body of innovative research.  This disciplinary maturity parallels the professional identity and growth of numbers of technical communication practitioners.  As a thriving multidiscipline with many direct research and pedagogical connections to the workplace, technical communication can uniquely influence workforce values, providing a new, evolving disciplinary model for higher education.  However, technical communication’s disciplinary maturity also means a movement away from practice and from the service course, the foundations of technical communication as a discipline and the sources of its workplace influence.

Staples, Katherine E. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>TC>History

Technical Communication Has a Bright, Exciting Future!  

What did Henry Ford do? He learned from other people’s experiences as well as his own. He took risks. He saw failure as a lesson, and he applied everything he learned to perfect the product, the process, and the policies that shaped the American automobile industry. In short, he was a great innovator. And, because he was so willing to share the lessons he learned, he became an inspiration to many others. The field of technical communication has a bright and exciting future because we’re innovators, just like Henry Ford. We work constantly to perfect the product, the process, and the policies that shape our profession. Technical communication work is being performed in more diversified environments than ever before, with experience, skills, and talents that vary widely. We know that there will always be a need for trained people to explain new technology, processes, and products so audiences can better understand or use them, so our future is bright and exciting. Technical communication enjoyed sustained growth for the last eight years of the 20th Century, but times are different now. We entered this new millennium with high expectations for continued success only to have our hopes crushed by tragedy as America was thrust into uncertain times. We’ve learned that 2002 is going to be a lean year and that many companies have fewer people to do more work. To prepare for the future, there are a couple of things I think technical communicators should do.

Laurent, J. Suzanna. STC Puget Sound (2002). Articles>TC>History

Technical Communication Has Come Into Focus Because of the IT Industry

How has technical communication evolved over the years into what it is today? How big an industry is it and is there a count of the number of people working as technical communicators?

Menezes, Frederick. STC India (2003). Articles>TC>History>India

Technical Communication in the 21st Century: Where Are We Going?      

Instead of offering a predictive “history” of the future, this essay explores how we arrive at our attitudes toward the future and the effects of such attitudes toward current practice. We greet the future with attitudes prepared by myths, master narratives that guide our vision of who we are and what we are becoming. One key myth in our discipline, the myth of immediate communication, proves an unreliable guide to the future. Readings in science fiction serve to demonstrate how a critique of the immediacy myth might proceed. The essay argues for a critically informed, open-minded approach to the future, an approach that encourages an honest self-criticism within the discipline.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>TC>History

Technical Communicators Go to the Moon  

This article highlights the contributions of technical communicators to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mercury and Apollo programs, which culminated in 1969 with the landing of men on the moon.

Rutkowski, Ed. Intercom (2001). Articles>TC>History

Technical Communicators vs. Developers Through the Ages

For technical communicators, usually busy looking ahead, the new milennium is an occasion to review our history and achievements so far, and the development of our slightly strained relationship with those who tend to emphasize the T and disregard the C in TC: the developers.

Wigestrand, Henrik. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>TC>History

Trends for 2000: Moving Beyond the Cottage  

This article is one of two cover stories detailing trends in technical communication 2000. JoAnn Hackos predicts that technical communication will move from a 'cottage' industry--one that is dominated by independent craftspeople with a personal vision of their product--to a corporate industry. To survive in this team-oriented, cost-effective environment, Hackos suggests that technical communicators take note of some of the trends guiding the profession from a cottage to a corporate industry:

Hackos, JoAnn T. Intercom (2000). Articles>TC>History

Trends for 2000: Thriving in the Boom Years  

This article is one of two cover stories detailing trends in technical communication for 2000. Saul Carliner outlines trends in business, technology, writing and design, and the profession of technical communication, and examines their impact on technical communication jobs and organizations in general.

Carliner, Saul. Intercom (2000). Articles>TC>History

Twenty-Five Years of Technical Communication

What hasn't changed in twenty-five years? There are a couple of things--things that aren't likely to change in the next twenty-five years either. Technical communicators will always have to prove the value of what they do. We'll discover new ways in which to contribute, but the need to prove our value will persist.

Kunz, Lawrence D. Carolina Communique (2004). Articles>TC>History

Two Centuries of Progress in Technical Communication    

A common aphorism in the halls of education is that the writing skills of Americans decline over time. Compared to the "golden age of letters," so the argument goes, each subsequent generation of writers is worse than the last. Although contemporary readers and educators commiserate over encounters with bad writing, a fair comparison of 18th century American exemplars to modern American exemplars reveals a significant advance in clarity, an advance that technical communicators can be proud of. To demonstrate the advances in expository writing over the past two centuries, the author compares what the authors of the U.S. Constitution did with their limited resources to what modern professional communicators do with their abundance of resources. Many of the communication problems that were pervasive when the U.S. Constitution was created have since been remedied by insights emerging from the fields of linguistics, human factors, and cognitive psychology, among others.

Connatser, Bradford R. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>TC>History>United States

The Voices of English Women Technical Writers, 1641-1700: Imprints in the Evolution of Modern English Prose Style      

The first books and the first technical books published by English women during the 1475-1700 period can be useful in teaching students about the emergence of technical style or 'plain style.' If we examine the style of these women writers, long ignored by canonical studies, we can see that plain English existed before Bacon and received its impetus not from science, but from the utilitarian attitude that pervaded the 1475-1700 period. These women writers provide a microcosm for studying the rise of modern English prose and what we now call technical (or plain) style. They also provide an efficient way to expose students to early published works by women and their contribution to the history of technical writing. Examining style from such a perspective helps students see that technical communication was a prevalent kind of writing before Bacon and the Royal Society. Thus, technical communication--and the style of technical communication--studied from this unique historical perspective deepens students' awareness of the roots of technical communication as it contributed to the history of English discourse.

Tebeaux, Elizabeth. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>History>TC>Gender