Lack of Annual Report Analysis on a Social, Political and Historical Basis

One area of rhetorical analysis of business writing that seems to be neglected is the analysis of annual reports on the social, political, and historical level. An admittedly-brief four hour review of on-line technical journals and academic articles on the subject of annual report analysis failed to produce a single article directly related to this subject. The only articles that I did find dealt with the analysis of contemporary annual reports on a financial basis. However, my research did uncover an article on the teaching of the conventions of business writing, such as annual reports, and an article on reconstructing the image and narrative in distressed organizations.

Remali, Peter. Michigan Tech University (1998). Articles>Writing>Business Communication>Reports

Language and Usability

If usability is part of technical communication, language – the building block of technical communication – is an important part of the usability of a web site or software application. The better a product communicates, the more helpful it is, the easier it is to use.

Quesenbery, Whitney. IEEE PCS (2005). Articles>Usability>Writing

Language: The Ultimate User Interface

Words. Language. Meaning. They’re a nutritious part of your complete website. So why do so many webmakers treat language like an afterthought?

Hayden, Julia. List Apart, A (2000). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Last Rites for Readability Formulas in Technical Communication    

Some reading researchers and technical communicators assume the efficacy of readability formulas. Reading researchers use such formulas to equalize the reading difficulty of texts used in experiments. Results of an informal Internet survey indicate that some professional writers and editors use readability formulas that are integrated into word-processing software. This article proposes that readability formulas fail to predict text difficulty. The results of an experiment demonstrate that "text difficulty" is a perception of the reader and therefore cannot be objectively calculated by counting syllables, word length, sentence length, and other text characteristics.

Connatser, Bradford R. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Formulas

Review: Law and Internet Cultures

Kathy Bowrey's Law and Internet Cultures critically deconstructs the law in the context of legal culture, and especially looks at how U.S. law, practice, and culture has influenced technology law. Bowrey, a lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, writes as an "Australian author" but her analysis clearly contains a global perspective as she looks to global structures and laws in other countries such as the United States. The book's analysis draws upon an incredibly broad range of literature including but not limited to traditional "literature" (e.g., Orwell's 1984), economic analysis, communications theory, and cultural studies. She stretches her analysis, connecting the heretofore disconnected (like Foucault, Coombe, Mandeville's travels, Napster, Grokster, etc.) and makes these horizontal connections in the context of discussions of verticality--like globalization, international standards, international patent norms, and global governance. The reading will be difficult for folks without a solid background in information technologies and law (and is just plain difficult for reasons mentioned below), but Bowrey does provide at least brief definitions and description of acronyms where need be. She tends to begin chapters with details and then brings things together at chapter's end--but this strategy seems to work for the complex subject matter. This is a great book for reading out of order or skipping to particularly relevant sections. Each section of each chapter can hold together on its own. Numerous diagrams and illustrations add to the flavor of this unique and much-needed book.

Rife, Martine Courant. H-Net (2006). Articles>Reviews>Legal>Technical Writing

Layout Tips for Technical Papers in Microsoft Word 2000

Here are some tips that I have gathered for making technical publications in Microsoft Word 2000. The tips are written for someone with experience using MS Word who needs a boost on the basic techniques for specific layout problems. In developing and documenting these techniques, I have in mind a regular, technical conference paper with columns, equations, and figures. There is an accompanying MS Word document that gives examples of these techniques.

Krumm, John. Microsoft. Articles>Writing>Software>Microsoft Word

Learn the Techniques of Writing Before You Write

Writing is an art form. You must understand this art form before you can begin to challenge yourself and grow. Not many people would pick up a cello and start playing right away, without any knowledge of the basics of music, but the same does not hold true with writing. In fact, many people perceive writing to be some sort of inherent talent, without the need for training and hard work. Of course, some writers have a natural gift for creating structured and meaningful works with only minimal revision, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

McKay, Carolyn. Writer's Block (1996). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Learn to Read Technical Writing!

Why is my daughter not being taught to read technical literature? Practical things like reading a VCR manual or a pamphlet on health.

Kamath, Gurudutt R. IT People (2003). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing

Learning the Fine Art of Reviewing

If you asked me what the most painful part of being a technical writer is, my answer would be: 'Getting reviews on time. Getting good feedback and inputs on your work.' For me technical writing has been very pleasurable because I hardly got any review comments. My morale has therefore been very high. Project managers, developers and others are so busy trying to come up with good software (read trying to fix all the goof-ups and bugs!) that they usually tend to give documentation lesser importance. User manuals, who reads them anyway? We do not have time for it!

Kamath, Gurudutt R. IT People (2003). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>Technical Writing

Learning the Hard Way: How I Learned to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

I used to believe that if you knew a subject well enough and were passionate about it, you could pen a masterpiece. But it was two years of working as an IT journalist (and never really understanding or liking it!) that actually taught me how to write.

Dower, Sophia. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Writing>Journalism>Technology

Learning to Speak With, Not To, Readers

I think that most journalists prefer giving lectures to having conversations. But today it seems clear to me that the creative-writing class was the more valuable experience. As tough as it was, I learned more in that 'conversation' than I could ever have learned in my own lecture.

Conley, Paul. Blogger.com (2006). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Learning to Write: Learning about Sustainability  

I had been involved with a program at Clemson to integrate laptop computers into the engineering curriculum. In this pilot project, I had taught first-year writing since 1998 to engineering and science majors using their own laptops in classrooms equipped with ethernet connections and a video projector. This proved to be a rich environment for sharing work and collaborating among ourselves. I wanted to see whether we could extend our collaborations to other Clemson classrooms. Mary Haque (a professor in Clemson University’s Horticulture Department) and I decided that my first-year composition classes could collaborate with her horticulture classes.

Longo, Bernadette. Kairos (2001). Articles>Education>Engineering>Writing

Legal Communication in Technical Communication Programs: Worth Thinking About?    

What, if anything, should technical communication programs teach their students about the nature of law and the production of legal discourse? When is technical writing also legal writing, and vice versa; when is legal writing (really) technical? Are there distinctions worth maintaining and dissolving here? Do lawyers' relationships to, and problems with, legal writing contexts and processes parallel in important ways technical writers' relationships to, and problems with, technical writing contexts and processes? If they do, is a conversation between the disciplines worth institutionalizing, at least experimentally, in each other's programs?

Stratman, James F. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Business Communication>Legal>Technical Writing

Lengthen Your Planning and Shorten Your Text

Writing for the Web requires your old skills, but you must change your approach and alter the writing process.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Let It Flow

To become a more fluent writer, try these strategies.

Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Let the User Write the Documentation  

Teaching non-writers how to write can be challenging, especially when they are adults using new software to do their jobs. But who knows best how to write about their jobs than the end users. Through field experiences and case studies, this paper describes methods and approaches for eflectively including the end user in the documentation process, as well as educating experienced writers who are new to the system.

Doyle, Diane J. and Janet M. Samuelson. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Education>Writing

Leveraging Complex Content for the Support Chain  

The support chain is becoming increasingly important as we begin to understand the deep underlying economic trends of the last half-century.

Osnat, Rani. ComTech Services (2001). Articles>Content Management>Technical Writing

Leveraging the Power of Google to Perform Research

As a writer, there is undoubtedly no better tool for researching than Google. This article focuses on how to use Google to find analyst research, important data and other factoids that will round out the quality of your white papers.

Stelzner, Michael A. WhitePaperSource (2006). Articles>Writing>Research>Search

Life: A User's Manual

With his back towards the reader, a bucket over his head, hands and feet tied up by SGML, CALS and company standards, and half choked by all the possibilities of the latest computer system the writer tries to produce manuals and instruction books for unsuspecting readers!

Forsslund, Lars. TC-FORUM (1998). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing

The Limits of the Apprenticeship Models in WAC/WID Research

One of the most significant developments in writing research over the last twelve years has been the large number of naturalistic studies of writing in the disciplines (college-level) and in the professions (non-academic writing). A number of these are based on the metaphor of apprenticeship, most recently the theory of 'cognitive apprenticeship' drawn from research in situated cognition. The learning and teaching of students in schools or colleges, as well as workers in non-academic settings, is compared to the learning and teaching of apprentices in pre- or early-industrial societies, who learned on the job while doing progressively more complex and central tasks, under the watchful eye of a master or expert. A central advantage of the apprentice metaphors is that it allows us focus on actions and motives that the official school curriculum and traditional theories of education (and their metaphors of 'banking' or 'transmission') find it difficult do discussthe 'hidden curriculum' that many have studied. Yet metaphors of apprenticeship--drawn from earlier versions of capitalism--are, I would argue, severely limited in their capacity to explain the ways newcomers learn new genres in late capitalist work environments, to theorize, in other words, the relation between formal schooling and industrial society. I want to suggest here three basic ways that theories based on the apprentice metaphor are limited.

Russell, David R. Iowa State University (1998). Articles>Writing>Writing Across the Curriculum>Tropes

Link Location That Works

Where to put links on a web page? That's a standard dilemma for content writers. Best to establish a policy and make sure all writers on your site follow it. That has an added advantage of standardising the 'look' of your pages.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Hypertext>Writing

Listen To Me, Not Jakob Nielsen

A response to Jakob Nielsen's 2007 "Write Articles, Not Blog Postings." Nielsen's article is also chock-full of bad information. Why bad? Because most of it is made up. The length of the article requires you to really read it. You can't scan it. The problem is, most people scan online.

Oliphant, Matthew. Usabilityworks.org (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging