The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is an international professional society for the advancement of the theory and practice of technical communication. It has hundreds of local chapters (also known as 'communities.'
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The Chicago Chapter STC Institute for Professional Development (IPD) is a good example of how STC chapters can help bridge the gap between theory and practice by partnering with colleges and universities to offer credit courses for those with little or no experience or prior course work in technical communication. Such partnerships help the local STC chapters by enhancing awareness of our profession in their geographic areas (and building STC membership and involvement), by serving the educational needs of its newer members, and by providing teaching and mentoring opportunities for its more experienced members. Above all, by bringing together teachers, researchers, and practitioners of technical communication to design, plan, and implement courses, the Chicago IPD models the very type of teamwork that has become essential for success in today’s world.
Abbott, Christine. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>Professionalism
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Choices, Challenges, and Constraints: Documentation and Newsletters Over the World Wide Web 
Providing timely information to diverse users on different platforms can challenge any document delivery system; however, the World Wide Web provides an effective solution for some applications. While the Web presents some extra problems and challenges that other media do not, the results justify the resources required. This paper describes and evaluates an implementation of Computing and Information Services documentation on the World Wide Web.
Ray, Eric J. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online
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Choices, Challenges, and Constraints: Putting Documents on the World Wide Web
A case study of the Unidata Program Center’s efforts to move information into online formats on the World Wide Web. Types of documents placed on line are discussed, as is the appropriateness of the medium for those documents. The conversion process is looked at. Obstacles to placing information online are also reviewed.
Hicks, Matthew B. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Publishing>Web Design
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Choose More Than a Job… Choose How You Want to Work
Technical communicators can be found in various working environments, including consulting firms, traditional companies and organizations, and in entrepreneurial ventures. Each environment has advantages and disadvantages that you should consider. As a technical communicator, you have the ability to choose the working environment that is right for you during different stages of your career.
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Chunking Content: Toward a Rhetoric of Objects
We need to develop a rhetoric of objects to understand the new way in which we must create and deliver content over the Web. We are facing a new multiplicity of audiences—niche groups, and even individuals, to whom we offer customization and personalization. With our new tools and new ways of thinking about what we create, we are inventing informative objects that address the needs of our audiences, letting go of the concept of a document, as we plunge into a world of small chunks of content. In this presentation, I consider how this new approach to technical communication affects our ideas of audience, invention, arrangement, style, delivery, memory, and character—the canons of traditional rhetoric.
Price, Jonathan R. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Rhetoric
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Cinderella’s Slipper—Does It Fit Americans and Europeans?
This paper represents an international study of IBM customers in the U. S., England, and Germany to see what effect the layout of a technical document has on usability for an audience of Americans and Europeans. The results indicate that while Americans and Europeans want most of the same usability features, they do not agree on all features. Communicating effectively with readers from different countries requires that writers work closely with international readers who represent the readers of their document; interview people who represent their audience; work with a document designer before starting the first draft; and test the draft document on representative users.
Ryan, Suzanne V. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Usability>Publishing
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Circles of Leadership: Resources for Chapter Committee Managers
Every chapter relies on volunteers for its success. The secret to successful chapters, then, starts with recruiting the right people, training them well, delegating to them carefully, nurturing them along the way, and rewarding them for a job well done.
Brown, Dennise C. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>TC>Community Building>STC
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Clarifying Abstract Concepts Through Multimedia: Principles for Technical Communicators
Multimedia can sometimes convey meaning in ways that text and graphics alone cannot. This paper offers two principles for understanding how multimedia can clarify abstract concepts. The first principle is that multimedia is excellent for conveying any kind of change, such as change in quantity, size, shape, or relationship. The second principle is that multimedia can help present complex concepts by providing information in both the visual and auditory modes simultaneously. These principles can guide technical communicators in evaluating whether multimedia is a cost-effective way to present their information.
Garb, Rachel and Claudia M. Hunter. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>TC>Multimedia>Visual Rhetoric
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Clicking for a Job: Using Job Search Web Sites in a Technical Communication Job Search
Technical communicators should use job search Web sites and other Internet resources (i.e., listservs and email networking) as part of their overall job search strategy. In using job search Web sites, technical communicators should choose carefully from four main categories of such sites: general job search sites, field-specific sites, professional organization sites, and specific employer sites. Each of these categories requires specific consideration. Job seekers should take into account the specific characteristics and purposes of the site and its users. To get the most effective results, technical communicators should also take special care when choosing keywords for job searches.
Bloch, Janel M. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Interviewing>Online
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This panel brings together three consultants to discuss the link between the client and consultant. Their individual papers provide the background; 'Create Your Consultant Image,' 'SmartStart Guides,' and 'Managing Client Relationships.'
Woods, Joyce F., Nancee E. Master and Karen Steele. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Consulting>Communication
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Client-Vendor Communications: What to Talk About to Get the Job Done
This progression presents a structured approach to client-vendor communications that can enhance quality; ease frazzled nerves; and result in win-win situations for clients, vendors, end users, and their organizations. Participants will discuss how clear, structured communications can strengthen their roles as clients and vendors of publication products and services. Participants will review the checklist that this vendor developed for use from initial contact to contract to project completion. Discussion will address how participants can develop their own customized checklists.
Shenouda, Judith E. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration
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Cliffnotes To Keep You From Cliffhanging
Understanding organizational behavior and using creative problem solving are as much a part of being a technical communicator as is expertly applying the English language. Recognizing this, the authors-two senior technical communicators—have identified several typical, but not predictable, organizational problems that involve technical communicators. Solutions will be provided when the paper is presented at the conference.
Modrey, Laurie and Emily A, Sopensky. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Planning
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Coach Your Staff to Better Performance 
Use coaching techniques to help employees reach more ambitious goals, faster and easier, or overcome performance problems. The coaching model is both an attitude and a way of communicating. Use coaching techniques to inspire and motivate people to accomplish more, with less stress and greater satisfaction. A coaching relationship supports the self-worth of each individual and provides a range of benefits to an organization. Coaching empowers others to seek and deliver their best.
Agnew, Beth. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Management>TC
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As a technical communicator, I am the bridge between those who create ideas and those who use them. Because I recognize that the quality of my services directly affects how well ideas are understood, I am committed to excellence in performance and the highest standards of ethical behavior.
STC Rocky Mountain Chapter (2004). Articles>TC>Professionalism
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"Coffee Stains": How to Remove the Blots Quickly and Easily
Trainers and others in the professional development field have a dual mission (among other responsibilities): to identify written 'coffee stains' and, equally important, to find and use as many effective approaches as possible to get the word out to the largest number of users.
Houser, Barbara J. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>Writing
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Collaborating in Project Management, Long-Distance
From early 1993 through July of 1994, three STC chapters jointly managed a research project on Technical Communication in Western Canada. Based in Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver, the managers were thousands of miles apart, relative strangers and simultaneously engaged in running their own businesses. In this volunteer assignment, they involved committees within their own chapters. As team building and collaborative arrangements become more prevalent in technical communications projects, it can be instructive to look at how such a farflung research project fared. We will relate this experience briefly to some research results reported in Technical Communication.
Jones, Sheila C. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Project Management>TC>Collaboration
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Collaborating with Tools for Single-Sourcing 
A discussion of single-sourcing using FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher.
Bhatia, Neeraj and Frederick Menezes. STC India (2001). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Adobe FrameMaker
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Collaboration via Desktop Videoconferencing: Designing Interactive Environments
Recent studies suggest that classroom collaboration is not always successful. We designed a course that motivates students to provide adequate help for writers. In this course college students studying to become technical communicators mentored high school students in language arts and content area courses. In order to overcome barriers of schedules, distances, and resources, we created a multimedia system that combined face-to-face communication and networking in one configuration. We collaborated with University of Minnesota groups, local high school personnel, US WEST Communications, Inc., and Compression Labs, Inc. in the development of the system.
Duin, Ann Hill, Linda A. Jorn and Lisa Mason. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Online>Videoconferencing
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Collaboration Via Desktop Videoconferencing: Evaluating Mentoring Environments
Based on the need for mentoring, we developed a multimedia configuration that fostered one-on-one connections. In this study, we examine these connections in terms of what strategies mentors use when mentoring and how mentors respond to students. The two case studies indicate that neither of the subjects took full advantage of the multimedia system or the environments in which it functioned: neither mentor chose to manage the computer screen so that they could adequately see their student or chose to monitor the environments in a manner beneficial to their students. However, mentors tended to differentiate between weak and strong writers in this environment.
Duin, Ann Hill, Linda A. Jorn and Lisa Mason. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Mentoring>Videoconferencing
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Collaboration Via Desktop Videoconferencing: Implications for Technical Communication
From our case studies of technical communication college students collaborating via desktop videoconferencing (DTV) with high school students, we learned that DTV requires that collaborators manage a great deal more than text on a computer screen. Collaborators reliant on viewing computers as conveyors of text alone must learn new strategies for connecting interpersonally with people viewed on screen. Collaborators must macro-manage technology while they micro-manage dialogue about writing.
Duin, Ann Hill, Linda A. Jorn and Lisa Mason. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>TC>Online
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Collaborative Writing In Segmentalist Organizations: Commitments For Team Success
Many large, hierarchical organizations are segmentalist in their approach to management. Nonetheless, such organizations are capable of supporting integrated, team approaches to particular types of communication problems. For such approaches to be successful, however, there must be strong managerial commitments to team support. This paper discusses how committed leadership, specific production guidelines, and empowerment enhanced the activities of an Air Force writing team assembled to help revise and edit Air Force Policy Directives containing corporate level guidance on a variety of topics.
Rice, Rodney P. and James Waller. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Management>Collaboration
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There is no question that feedback from customers is a vital input to any information-development process. To try to develop good and useful information without knowing how customers use (or intend to use) it is to work in a vacuum. To produce and deliver information and to ignore the follow-up activity of checking customers use of and satisfaction with the information is nothing less than gross negligence.
Grice, Roger A. and Lenore S. Ridgway. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>User Centered Design>Assessment>Surveys
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College Curriculum and the Assessment of Recent Graduates
Technical communicators and academics share an interest in higher education program assessment because the quality offiture employees is at stake. If universities fail to adequately educate, on-the-job training must pick up the slack. This paper describes Michigan Tech's efforts to learn what skills their recent graduates use, and where they learned these skills.
Jobst, Jack W. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>TC>Assessment
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Color in Technical Documents for Paper, Web, and PDF
Traditionally, technical documents have been produced in black and white because the cost of color reproduction on paper is high. With new delivery options of the Web and PDF, color is suddenly available at no cost online. And new digital printers make color on paper increasingly affordable. When opportunity knocks, issues tend to follow. Writers will find that using color is a learning experience. There is a new alphabet soup: RGB, CMYK, GIF, JPEG, CSS. There are new buzzwords: spot colors, process colors, digital printing. There are new techniques for representing color in Web pages and in PDF documents intended for paper or screen. Our presentation focuses on practical techniques, not graphic design.
Jackson, Ken and Sonya E. Keene. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Color
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Combating Isolation as a Self-Employed Technical Communicator: Beyond Working Hours
Small, independent business owners never really stop thinking about their businesses; after all, your latest and greatest client may be on the stair stepper next to you at the gym. However, you know that sometimes you need a change of scenery, a change of activity, a chance to unhinge the hips that sometimes feel they are permanently fixed in a sitting position. Plus, occasionally, it’s necessary to realize that there is a world out there that is full of interesting things that have nothing to do with publication deadlines, document management, or online help. Yes, really, there is.
Teich, Thea. STC Proceedings (2000). Careers>Freelance>TC
