Typography is the study and process of typefaces; how to select, size, arrange, and use them in general. Traditionally, typography was the use of metal types with raised letterforms that were inked and then pressed onto paper. In modern terms, typography today also includes computer display and output.
#31787
To teach students how to write for the workplace and other professional contexts, technical writing teachers often assign writing tasks that reflect real-life communication contexts, a teaching approach that is grounded in the field's contextualized understanding of genre. This article argues to fully embrace contextualized literacy and better teach workplace writing, technical writing teachers also need to contextualize how they assess student writing. To this end, this article examines some of workplaces' best assessment practices and critically integrates them into an introductory technical writing classroom through a method called student-centered assessment instruments. This method engages students, as workplaces engage employees, in the assessment process to identify local requirements for writing tasks. Aligned with theory and practice, this method is not only an effective classroom assessment method, but becomes an integrated part of students' genre-learning process within and beyond the classroom.
Yu, Han. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Technical Writing>Assessment
#24181
Perhaps the most overlooked teaching principle is the one stating that we learn by linking new material to known material. If we cannot connect what we must learn to what we already know, we can hardly anchor it in our mental schemata and thus make it our own, at least durably. Moreover, our motivation for learning would at best be extrinsic (some sort of obligation, perhaps): Why would we want to learn material to which we cannot relate? Even if we could learn the material without context—by memorization, for instance—we could not recognize situations where this unconnected knowledge applies. For all practical purposes, it would be useless.
Codone, Susan K. Intercom (2004). Articles>Education>Instructional Design
#21091
Continuing eBook Classroom Studies
Acceptance of eBooks improves at Ball State University. Improvement of visual quality and 'no testing' helps a higher percentage of graduate students recommend eBooks for further classroom use. Many students found reading text material "satisfying & easy." More studies planned for the K-12 population.
Wiggenhorn, Susan. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Education>Online>eBooks
#18479
[Continuing to] Mind the Gap: Teaching Image and Text in New Media Spaces 
Our panel presentation for Computers and Writing 2002 was consciously modeled on conversations that we have had with each other over the past several years as our paths have crossed in our individual journeys from the edges of our own distinct disciplines into the nebulousness of interdisciplinarity. We have made this journey as scholars, teachers, and students, and have discovered along the way that new media spaces have blurred the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines and the hierarchies that support them. Because the connections forged between disciplines can be tenuous in nature, their maintenance requires continuous conversation and exchange of ideas and resources.
Gossett, Kathie, Carrie A. Lamanna, Joseph Squier and Joyce R. Walker. Kairos (2003). Articles>Education>Multimedia
#20760
Contracting and Consulting for Policies and Procedures Engagements 
As the number of persons employed by some U.S. organizations declined since the late 1980s, so have employment opportunities for Policies & Procedures (P&P) practitioners. During this period, the number of contractors and consultants has increased to meet the needs of newly changed organizations. A useful way for P&P practitioners to learn how they can provide contracting and consulting services is to understand three roles in leveraging such services: an extra pair of hands, expert, and collaborator.
Urgo, Raymond E. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Business Communication>Policies and Procedures>Technical Writing
#25369
Contracts are the oil that keeps business running smoothly. If you are running your own web design business, you should think of a contract as a business tool that can help you communicate clearly with your clients.
Fine, Scott. Wise-Women (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Contracts
#22231
Contracts: An Introduction to the Skills of Legal Writing and Analysis
Contracts is a computer program designed for first year undergraduates studying Obligations in Glasgow University's School of Law, written by Paul Maharg and Professor Joe Thomson. It aims to improve students' written work.
#13842
A Contrary View of the Technical Writing Classroom: Notes Toward Future Discussion 
Rather than acting as training departments for students’ future employers (a mission reflected in most textbooks and journal scholarship), technical writing programs should be teaching skepticism, critical thinking, and paradigm-breaking. They should be highlighting the agendas and “narratives” inherent in any text, rather than sustaining a positivist faith in neutrality and objectivity, because students who understand the power of language to shape the workplace (not simply to transmit information) turn out to be the most effective, most successful professionals. This article questions the widespread, largely uncritical importing of corporate paradigms into the technical writing classroom and calls for the university to remain separate from the corporation in its purpose. The article goes on to describe a recently developed senior seminar that challenges students’ assumptions about scientific and technical writing, including their own. Through courses like this, it is hoped that students will enter their professions as savvy, questioning thinkers rather than simply as efficient, problem-solving doers.
Bushnell, Jack. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>Education>Writing
#28135
India's medical tradition and knowledge base can be traced back to the Vedas (c.5000 BC), especially the Atharvaveda. The works of Charaka and Sushruta (c.2000 years ago) are well known. Parts of this ancient knowledge have been passed down generations by word of mouth and through the gurukula system. However, documentation about the incidence of diseases, the state of health of the people, medical practices and health care delivery in India during the period prior to the 18th century is meager, the sources being mainly the notes, memoirs and travelogues of visiting travelers. During the colonial period (c.1615-1930) western medical practices took roots in the country. The colonial powers recognizing that 'knowledge is power', commissioned surveys and studies about the terrain, fauna, flora, climate, environment, customs, and indigenous health practices, etc. in different parts of India. Officers of the Indian Medical Service (IMS) wrote over 1400 books, reports, tracts and papers covering a wide range of medical and health topics. Such sources together with the tacit knowledge of the officers involved contributed to the 'colonial knowledge base'. This paper discusses briefly this knowledge base and lists the writings of the IMS officers in the fields of (1) materia medica, (2) botanical studies including Indian medicinal plants, and (3) medical topography of India.
Neelameghan, Arashanipalai. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Knowledge Management>Biomedical>India
#30416
Control Charts, Quality Assurance, and Information Development
The purpose of this paper is to explore a method that allows information developers to measure the quality assurance being invested in the products they create. A successful project achieves a balance between the time it takes to produce information, the associated cost, and the quality of the end product.
Murphy, Stephen W. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Information Design>Assessment
#30343
Control Costs of Translation with Advance Plan
The liability of a translated manual is several times greater than the English version. This increased liability can be tied directly to the accuracy of the translation.
McBride, Bill. Boston Broadside (1993). Articles>Language>Translation>Project Management
#27339
Control the pace of the story by varying sentence length.
Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Grammar>Rhetoric
#23496
Controlled Language - Risks and Side Effects
Controlled Language (CL) is a controversial issue for linguists, editors, readers, but also for firms. Costs, marketing and sales figures are at stake. Why did I select 'risks and side effects', from the numerous problems involved, for my contribution? I am convinced that CL will be successful because positive / financial arguments prevail. Consequently, we will have to avail ourselves of CL, and identify and realize the risks involved and potential vicious side effects.
Janowski, Wladyslaw. TC-FORUM (1998). Articles>Language>Localization>Controlled Vocabulary
#23476
Controlled Language and Translation Memory Technology: A Perfect Match to Save Translation Cost
It goes without saying that controlled language makes it easier not only to understand a text, but also to translate it into another language, thereby reducing translation cost. This positive effect can be even more increased by the use of professional translation tools. By "translation tools", I do not mean machine translation systems such as Logos or Systran, but rather terminology database and translation memory applications. Typical examples of such tools are MultiTerm '95 Plus and Translator's Workbench.
Brockmann, Daniel. TC-FORUM (1997). Articles>Language>Localization>Controlled Vocabulary
#25310
Controlled Languages in Industry
A Controlled Language is a form of language with special restrictions on grammar, style, and vocabulary usage. Typically, the restrictions are placed on technical documents, including instructions, procedures, descriptions, reports, and cautions. One might consider formal written English to be the ultimate Controlled Language: a form of English with restricted word and grammar usages, but a standard too broad and too variable for use in highly technical domains. Whereas formal written English applies to society as a whole, CLs apply to the specialized sublanguages of particular domains.
Wojcik, Richard H. and James E. Hoard. Oregon Health and Science University (2005). Articles>Language>Technical Editing>Controlled Vocabulary
#23479
Controlled Siemens Documentary German and TopTrans
The following paper is a machine-translated text from German into English. And at the same time it explains the technology applied.
Lehrndorfer, Anne. TC-FORUM (1998). Articles>Language>Localization
#20897
Controlled Vocabularies: A Glosso-Thesaurus 
'There is a singular lack of vocabulary control in the field of controlled vocabularies,' Bella Hass Weinberg, professor of library science at St. John's University in New York, is fond of saying. To help you cut through the maze of verbiage often found in this field, we have created a glossary of terms.
Fast, Karl, Fred Leise and Mike Steckel. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>Controlled Vocabulary
#30417
Controlling Quality, Controlling Costs
By developing a strategic plan, finding out if we are producing the right learning products in the most efficient way, and changing to a minimalist document design, we can meet the challenges of the present business environment. Since many of us are now expected to produce more with less while maintaining or improving the quality of the products we produce, we need to manage our function better. By following the suggestions in this paper, you will be able to: communicate the importance of your function; get control of your function; demonstrate how you add value to your companies' products.
Mattingly, William A. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Management>Quality>Assessment
#31874
Review: Convergence and Emergence: 2008 IA Summit
The 2008 IA Summit was held April 10–14, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Miami, Florida, shown in Figure 1. It had the highest attendance in the conference’s nine-year history: Over 600 people signed up for the conference run by ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science and Technology). All the signs are that information architecture (IA) is a community and a practice that is growing, and that its sister disciplines—interaction design (IxD) and experience design—are well-represented at the conference—not just in terms of attendees, but also speakers.
Kelway, James. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Reviews>Information Design>Interaction Design
#28552
Single sourcing, XML, and other forms of multimedia have changed technical communicators' work processes and on-the-job duties. Beyond the requirements for traditional skills in writing, editing, and designing, technical communicators must now play enhanced roles within professional environments including organizing, creating, and managing information. To help simplify the complex tasks of creating multimedia documents, in this article we examine the impact that new technologies have had on the technical communication profession. Referring to a wide variety of sources about the fundamental changes to our profession, we synthesize information regarding managing multimedia documents. Although in this article we focus on object management, with an emphasis on the tasks, skills, and tools required of authors of such documents, in future articles we will address object creation and object presentation.
Mott, Richard K. and Julie Dyke Ford. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Information Design>Single Sourcing
#24105
Conversation by Blog: Expanding Personal Technology into the Academic Community
In the last two years, individuals on the Web have begun to maintain personal Web sites which are referred to as Weblogs (blogs). A blog is distinct from other forms of electronic documentation in that it functions as a public, electronic diary, consisting of short, frequently-updated personal reflections and reports of activity. A typical blog is composed of daily entries of no more than a paragraph. Blogs are often accompanied by and supplemented with image galleries, curricula vitae, and archives of past postings. Blogs are also subject to trends: for example, many blogs in December include Christmas wish lists. Like e-mail and unlike other traditional forms of publication, blogs often include a comments feature which allows the reader to engage in discussion with the blog's writer and other readers by directly attaching a posting to the daily or topical entry. Although this approach to Web site design has been widely adopted by technophiles under the age of thirty, it also holds promise as a mechanism for a conversational form of knowledge development that previous technologies have not readily facilitated. This paper outlines the potential expansion of the blog as a venue for professional and philosophical discussion by the visual communication design community and other similar professional groups.
Radzikowska, Milena. University of Alberta (2003). Articles>Writing>Online>Blogging
#25492
Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up"
The 'blogosphere' has been claimed to be a densely interconnected conversation, with bloggers linking to other bloggers, referring to them in their entries, and postingcomments on each other's blogs. Most such characterizations have privileged a subset of popular blogs, known asthe 'A-list.' This study empirically investigates the extent to which, and in what patterns, blogs are interconnected, taking as its point of departure randomly-selected blogs. Quantitative social network analysis, visualization of linkpatterns, and qualitative analysis of references and comments in pairs of reciprocally-linked blogs show thatA-list blogs are overrepresented and central in the network, although other groupings of blogs are moredensely interconnected. At the same time, a majority of blogs link sparsely or not at all to other blogs in the sam-ple, suggesting that the blogosphere is partially interconnected and sporadically conversational.
Herring, Susan C., Inna Kouper, John C. Paolillo, Lois Ann Scheidt,Michael Tyworth, Peter Welsch, Elijah Wright and Ning Yu. (We)blog Research on Genre Project, The (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#30806
Convert Atom Documents to JSON
Converting an Atom document to JSON might, at first, appear to be a fairly straightforward task. Atom is, after all, just a bit of XML and XML-to-JSON conversion tools are widely available. However, the Atom format is more than just a set of XML elements and attributes. A number of subtle details can make proper handling of Atom difficult. This article describes those issues and demonstrates a mechanism implemented by the Apache Abdera project to convert Atom documents into JSON and produces a result that is readable, usable, and complete.
Snell, James. IBM (2008). Articles>Web Design>XML>Ajax
#30418
Converting and Delivering 750,000 Pages on CD-ROM
The SIS Conversion Team and Electronic Media Development Team support the Service Information System development by providing data on CD-ROM for Caterpillar customers. This unique project covers eighteen different publication types, requires conversion of 750,000 pages and more than a million gray scale and line art images. The targetted data includes Parts Manuals and a variety of technical documents that were written to cover all Caterpillar machines and engines built since 1977. The conversion to electronic images and SGML-tagged text, and subsequent EMD processing and distribution via CD-ROM required extensive development efforts and a significant investment in leading edge technologies.
Bennington, Roger. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>CD ROM
#24787
Converting Documentation to Multimedia
Multimedia has proven its ability to sell products and educate users. But can it also perform tasks traditionally done with conventional paper documents? Yes. This demonstration shows how several hardware and software documents were converted to multimedia and provides a plan for converting your documents. You learn whether to display, speak, or just eliminate existing text. You see how to replace action words, descriptions of motion, and arrows with animation. YOU see how sound can guide rather than distract the user. You also learn to use interactivity to give control to the user. Along the way you see the compromises needed to keep the project on schedule, within budget, and down to size.
Horton, Katherine W. and William K. Horton III. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia
