Canada

Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric

The CSSR's purpose is to promote the study of the theory and practice of rhetoric in all periods and languages, and its relationships with other fields of enquiry and realms of practice.

Technostyle

Technostyle is the journal of the Canadian Teachers of Technical Writing (CATTW) / Association canadienne des professeurs de rédaction technique et scientifique (ACPRTS). Technostyle presents articles and reviews of interest to teachers, practitioners, or researchers involved in technical, academic, professional, scientific, and governmental communication. We are pleased to announce an upcoming special issue of Technostyle on the expertise of professional writing and its development.

Welcoming "Joe Canadian" into our Living Rooms: the Spaces of Canadian Advertising

The question of space has been a preoccupation of writers in critical theory for some decades. From the reconsideration of architectural practice which focuses on the user, to a broader interest in the physical locations of the production and consumption of culture, writers are paying increasing attention to the effects of the spatial on our engagements with cultural forms as a means of expanding our understanding of the meanings of those forms themselves.

Editors' Association of Canada

The Editors' Association of Canada promotes professional editing as key in producing effective communications. Its 1,600-plus members, salaried and freelance, work with individuals and in the corporate, technical, government, non-profit, and publishing sectors.

Job Bank

A list of positions currently available for technical communicators in Western Canada.

STC West Coast Canada Job Bank Mailing List

The job bank mail list is open to anybody who is a current member of the STC. It is implemented as a Yahoo group but you do not need to be a Yahoo member to be on the list.

Job Futures for Authors and Writers (including Technical Writers)

A discussion of career prospects in writing, including technical writing.

Risk Communication and Government: Theory and Application for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Research has shown that public perceptions of risk are constantly changing and evolving as the dynamics of public opinion shift in response to the environment in which we all live.

The Competitive Advantage of Technical Communication: The Western Canadian Research Project

The Western Canadian Research Project intends to show western Canadian businesses how to improve their performance through the effective use of technical communication. The project consists of intensive research into the current perception and use of technical communication by business and government, and into the current state of the technical communication profession in the region. The project analyzes and presents this primary research in a report, and concludes with a series of publications and events designed to achieve the project’s objective: improved business performance.

Professional Development Issues in Canada

The Canadian Issues Committee (CIC) was created by STC in 1990 because it was becoming apparent that Canadian technical communicators sometimes had unique concerns resulting from the political, legal and geographic constraints peculiar to Canada, of which STC was unaware. Identifying these concerns and attempting to do something about them has been an ongoing commitment of the STC staff and Board of Directors and of the CIC. This panel discussion allows for direct input from members regarding such concerns, and also provides an opportunity to inform the Canadian membership what has and is being done on their behalf.

Ground Floor Perspective on the Usability Job Hunt

This is a guest written article by Berna Tural, a recent college graduate from Carleton University in Ottawa. She is looking for a job in the usability field. I asked her to tell me more about her experiences so that WebWord readers would understand what it is like to be on the ground floor in usability. Similarly, I wanted people to see the other side of the hunt.

STC Alberta: Jobline

A directory of job advertisements maintained by the Society for Technical Communication's Alberta Chapter.

STC Eastern Ontario: Jobs Listing

A directory of job advertisements maintained by the Society for Technical Communication, Eastern Ontario Chapter.

STC Montreal Job Bank

The STC Montreal is a great way to advertise your job posting to a highly targeted audience of qualified technical communicators. The job bank is a service provided to STC MontrÃ©al members by the MontrÃ©al chapter of the STC. The job postings are forwarded to registered members as received from the employers.

Finding Solutions For Your Challenges: All Canadian Multidisciplinary Progression

Learn lessons from this all-Canadian cast of contributors:

Say It Write: power writing for the 90s

Multimedia Issues in writing for the screen

Tips and Techniques for Managing Complex Technical Proposals

So You're Writing Exhibit Labels

Wordless Manuals--Replacing words with pictures

Managing SAP Documentation and Training Projects

Workable Approaches to Competitive Evaluation-- Tips and techniques for checking out the competition

Online Design Tips

Good Business Sense for the self-employed writer

Marketing Technical Communication Services Effectively

During 1993 and 1994, three Western Canadian chapters of the STC collaborated on a research project, funded by Western Economic Diversification and the STC, to discover how clients and practitioners view technical communication. As one of the final products, we commissioned a half-hour presentation designed to market technical communication services. At this session, we describe the project and deliver the half-hour presentation. We invite the audience to evaluate the presentation as a marketing tool.

Franglais in Canada: Does It Facilitate or Impede Clear Expression?

Pits the Pragmatic Many against the Snobbish Few in an attempt to discover what, if anything, Franglais contributes to clear expression. Is lexical and grammatical cross-pollination a sign of the type of dynamic evolution that enhances communication or a sign of a form of bastardization that impedes clear expression?

What Makes a Text Canadian: The Citizenship of Its Author or the Culture-Specific Insight of Its Prose?

Assigning nationality to a text is common practice — a method of categorizing a chaotic assembly of works into easily recognizable, and saleable, slots. The citizenship of an author is considered, by some, to be an adequate marker of the type of texts he or she creates. Yet the notion that Canadian authors produce 'Canadian' texts is problematic and restrictive. It presupposes a definitive Canadian culture on which the author may draw, an inability of the author to supersede his or her cultural inputs, and an acceptance that individual voices can speak for a diverse nation. So why do we gather unlike texts under the 'Canadian' umbrella? Unity is comforting, but diversity is reality in the realm of Canadian literature.

Statement of Principles for the Management of Copyright in the Digital Environment

As the twin technologies of computing and telecommunications revolutionize the way in which knowledge and information is recorded, accessed, disseminated and stored, the modes of communication among scholars and researchers are changing rapidly. But just as these technologies can make possible the wide dissemination of copyright material that may violate the rights of the owner, so the technology can be used to prevent reasonable and necessary access to knowledge. Such access is essential to the generation of new knowledge. If access to information for research, teaching and study purposes is constrained, Canada's long-term economic and cultural growth will be hobbled.

Your Rights When Being Interviewed

Journalists are bound by federal and provincial laws on privacy, trespassing and defamation. They also have to follow a set of journalistic ethics and codes. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Radio and Television News Directors Association, for instance, have developed several industry codes of ethics to deal with disputes and complaints. As well, media outlets may have their own formal or informal rules or conventions that their reporters must follow. The journalistic standards and practices of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), for instance, can be downloaded from the CBC-Radio Canada web site. Here, we outline: what your rights are, under the law and according to common journalistic standards; what your options are when the law doesn’t protect you; and what to do if your rights are violated.

Results of Usability Testing Research on Plain Language Draft Sections of the Employment Insurance Act

The Department of Justice Canada and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) are working jointly on a new 'plain language' version of the EI Act – a version with the potential to be more reader-friendly and usable. This is a profoundly important, precedent-setting initiative with implications for legislative drafters and users of legislation across the country. The usability testing was commissioned to help provide strategic insight into plain language legislative drafting so that drafting efforts can be as effective as possible and speak to the realities and unique needs of key legislative user groups. Simply put, the purpose of the testing is to provide a solid foundation for wise decision-making to guide plain language drafting. To this end, the testing gauged how efficiently users of different versions of the EI Act found needed information, understood it, and applied it to an intended purpose.

STC Toronto and Southwestern Ontario Job Bank

A job listings directory maintained by the STC Toronto Chapter.

Société Québécoise de la Rédaction Professionelle

La Société québécoise de la rédaction professionnelle (SQRP) est née en 1993 de l'association de spécialistes travaillant dans divers domaines de la rédaction.

STC Canadian Issues Special Interest Group

The Canadian Issues SIG was created to explore the issues that are unique to Canadian Technical Communicators, and to raise the awareness of the need for technical communications in the Canadian market today.

Official Bilingualism Has Its Costs--and Opportunities

Since the inception of Canada's Official Languages Act in 1968, official bilingualism is estimated to have cost Canadians approximately $60 billion. Today, the cost of translating federal government documents and operating various programs, such as French language training for federal public servants, is estimated to be some $4 billion annually. And these figures do not take into account the cost of publishing bilingual documents and providing bilingual services at the provincial and municipal levels, or similar costs incurred by private enterprises. While these statistics periodically provoke intense debate in Canada on whether this is money well spent, the fact is that this country's bilingualism requirements have been a boon to at least one group of people employed in the communications field: French-language translators.

The Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (CATTW)

The largest Canadian association for technical writers. CATTW/ACPRTS (Association canadienne des professeurs de rédaction technique et scientifique) has the unique mandate of encouraging research and discussion about technical communication in both of Canada's two official languages. Our association also actively encourages interdisciplinary and community-based research.

Montréal Technical Writers Forum

This list is a place where we can discuss issues relating to the technical writing profession and everything else in between! While the membership might weigh heavily with Montreal/Quebec based writers, anyone can join in on the discussion, regardless of where they are from!