The Rhetoric of Typography: The Persona of Typeface and Text    

Provides strong empirical support for the notion that readers ascribe personality attributes both to typefaces and to text passages. Establishes a foundation for investigation of the interactions between typeface and text personas.

Brumberger, Eva R. Technical Communication Online (2003). Design>Typography>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric

Rhetorical vs. Instrumental Approaches to Teaching Technical Communication    

Survey and anecdotal evidence indicates that universities do not prepare students well for writing in the workplace. One important reason for this failure is that rhetorical theory dominates the teaching of technical communication in the academy. Though extremely influential in the academy, rhetorical theory is inappropriate for teaching some kinds of important workplace communication (instructions, online documentation, computer-human interfaces, indexes), and it does not address important skills that practicing technical communicators need. Instrumental discourse differs from rhetoric in its purpose, in its absence of reasons and argumentation, in its task-oriented approach, in its emphasis on accessibility, and in its emphasis on economics. As a result, instrumental discourse is much more appropriate for the genres and skills that practicing technical communicators use, and it offers significant advantages to students, and in the long run, to the academy itself.

Moore, Patrick. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Rhetoric

Rigor in Usability Testing    

Usability testing is an evaluation method used by technical communicators that can combine aspects of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. This article compares and contrasts the standards and techniques between these two methods of inquiry with particular emphasis on maintaining rigorous tests in regard to validity and reliability of the findings. Whether an evaluator relies on quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or both, should depend on the questions the research or evaluation seeks to answer. Both methods have well-established practices meant to ensure the validity and reliability of their findings. Not only should usability evaluators be competent within the method of inquiry they apply, they also need to help clients understand the legitimate application and limitations of their findings.

Hughes, Michael A. Technical Communication Online (1999). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods

The Role for Technical Communicators in Open-Source Software Development    

Although it claims to adhere to user-centered design principles of participatory design and democratized technology, open-source software often fails to effectively address the usability needs of typical software users. In many cases, it embodies a system-centered design approach facilitated by the efforts of developer-users. In addition to the existing participation in open-source projects in the classroom, technical communicators should actively critique open-source software and promote user-centered design principles in open-source software projects.

Yeats, Dave. Technical Communication Online (2008). Articles>TC>Programming>Open Source

Role of the Highlights Video in Usability Testing: Rhetorical and Generic Expectations    

Despite the proliferation of books and articles dealing with usability testing as a sub-field of technical communication, there remains one artifact that is underdefined: the usability highlights video. Several sources suggest that usability testers should deliver a video to their clients, but there is no common description of the contents of this video or the rhetorical purpose it fulfills. In this article, we examine the use of the highlights video as described in the literature, but we go further to discover some ways practicing usability professionals understand the role of the highlights video. Through the use of generic conventions, rhetorical theory, and industrial practices, we attempt to draw conclusions that point to some common uses of the highlights video that can instruct both teachers in the usability classroom and practicing usability experts as they create videos for client projects.

Yeats, Dave and Locke Carter. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Usability>Testing>Video

Role Playing on the Web: Guidelines for Designing and Evaluating Personas Online    

This article starts from the premise that humans communicate through a series of roles that they assume appropriate to their rhetorical purposes. Even when speaking face to face, they present a version of themselves that they deem suitable for the time, place, and situation. When this rhetorical principle is applied to Web design, it provides powerful insights and strategies for designing and evaluating online communication. We begin this article by tracing how the tradition of rhetorical role playing has become incorporated into the electronic medium. We then present a series of guidelines in the form of prompts or questions as starting points for effective Web design.

Coney, Mary B. and Michael Steehouder. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Web Design

The Roots of SGML: A Personal Recollection    

One of the inventors of the markup language that evolved into Standard Generalized Markup Language describes the origins of SGML and provides an anecdotal history of markup language development from the late 1960s to the 1980s.

Goldfarb, Charles F. Technical Communication Online (1999). Articles>Information Design>SGML>History

The Scientific Style Manual: A Reliable Guide to Practice?    

Is the scientific style manual a reliable guide with regard to the organization and content of the typical scientific article? The answer is, yes and no. Style manuals do provide much sound advice based on their authors' personal experience. However, they also pass on some advice at odds with recently published literature regarding how scientists actually conduct research and write up their findings. This article presents a revised model for the scientific article, a model base don information in recently published research on communication in science.

Harmon, Joseph E. and Alan G. Gross. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Style Guides>Scientific Communication

Screen Captures in Software Documentation    

While screen captures are the most widely used illustrations in manuals, there is almost no literature on their role and design. In this paper we draw together practice, theory and empirical research to advance a taxonomy that identifies these roles and designs. We suggest that screen captures in software documentation can help the user to switch attention, develop a mental model of the program, verify screen states, and identify and locate window elements and objects. Four important design areas (coverage, positioning, size, and cueing) are distinguished and empirical findings discussed. Research has substantiated the claim that screen captures speed up task completion, but others have yet to be proven. We believe that a more refined approach, afforded by the taxonomy, is likely to improve practice and research, and yield strong evidence supporting the use of screen captures in software documentation.

van der Meij, Hans and Mark Gellevij. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Software>Documentation>Screen Captures

Review: Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age  

If you like to think about your work philosophically, or even if you don't, David M. Levy's book tackles some of the big questions in our profession: paper versus digital, reading versus viewing, libraries versus the Web, brick and mortar schools versus distance education. And the great thing about the book is that he thinks you don't have to choose between one or the other in each of these apparent dichotomies; in fact, what's needed is a balance between the two.

Crawley, Charles R. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Reviews>Publishing>Online

Seeing Clearly    

On the morning of 29 August, Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama with winds clocked at 140 miles (225 km) per hour and more than a foot (30 cm) of rain. Although the hurricane spared New Orleans, the major population center of the area, a direct blow, the storm surge caused several of the cityï¿s levees to fail, flooding 80% of the city with up to 20 feet (6 m) of water fouled by sewage, oil, and other pollutants. It will be many years before the coastal areas of southeast Asia and the U.S. Gulf Coast have rebuilt and recovered from this year's disasters. Likewise, it will take time for us to create better disaster plans and disseminate them to the public, and for the value of those plans to be perceived. Neither of these facts makes the rebuilding, recovery, and planning any less necessary. We must do all we can to ensure that they happen as quickly as possible. We should see clearly that we can't afford to do any less.

Hayhoe, George F. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>TC>Risk Communication>Southern US

Shaping the Future of Our Profession    

This article examines the implications of greater professionalism for the future directions of technical communication and the role of academic programs and professional societies in shaping the future of the profession.

Davis, Marjorie T. Technical Communication Online (2001). Articles>TC>Professionalism

Single Source in Practice: IBM's SGML Toolset and the Writer as Technologist, Problem Solver, and Editor    

Describes how single sourcing adds layers of complexity, problem solving, and project management to the writer's task. Cautions that single sourcing is often a response to a documentation requirement for the market, not to the writer's need for less complex tools.

Kramer, Robert. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Single Sourcing and Chinese Culture: A Perspective on Skills Development Within Western Organizations and the People's Republic of China    

Discusses the current state of technical communication in China and analyzes key Chinese cultural values compatible with single sourcing. Reports on a skills survey conducted among Chinese and U.S. participants.

Wiles, Debbie. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>China

Single Sourcing and the Technical Communication Career Path    

Considers how most technical writing uses a craftsman model and evaluates the applicability of that model to single sourcing. Proposes a technical communication career path with distinct job responsibilities for junior and senior writers.

Albers, Michael J. Technical Communication Online (2003). Careers>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Single Sourcing: It's About People, Not Just Technology    

Cautions that failing to focus on the people in the organization may diminish the success of a single-sourcing initiative. Covers changes that need to occur in the organization to support a single-sourcing initiative and ways to address issues of change.

Rockley, Ann. Technical Communication Online (2003). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Situated Learning in Cross-Functional Virtual Teams    

This paper reports an interpretive study of three cross-functional teams in a single company. The teams were virtual because each was composed of workers located in a small southern U. S. town and a northern U. S. city. The conceptual framework of situated learning within communities of practice guided the interpretation of transcripts of interviews with 22 managers and team members. The results suggest that virtual teamwork creates special demands that require workers to devise local practices for coordinating their work with remote team members. Through different combinations of remote and face-to-face communication, using a variety of communication media, the learning of work practices became situated in the virtual community rather than imposed by managers or specially designed coordinating technologies.

Robey, Daniel, Huoy Min Khoo and Carolyn Powers. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Collaboration>Workplace>Online

Situational Editing: A Rhetorical Approach for the Technical Editor    

Argues that the rhetorical approach to communication considers situations individually and is necessary for technical editors because their work comprises a series of individual rhetorical decisions. Proposes a rhetorical theory of technical editing.

Beuhler, Mary Fran. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Editing>Technical Editing>Rhetoric

Stepping Lively: Reformatting the Gap Between Student Writing and Professional Writing    

Teachers of technical writing are urged to use computers not only for influencing the process of writing but also for designing and formatting the product of writing. Engineering students at a Midwestern university now submit final drafts of senior projects in commercial-style formats, thus increasing their range of skills in the act of preparing final written products and adopting some conventions of communicating in the workplace. Reformatting student writing to mimic commercial-quality writing not only increases the scope and responsibility of writing instruction, but also better prepares students to adapt to communication situations in the workplace.

Kumpf, Eric P. and Joseph T. Emanuel. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Education>Writing

"Stepping Lively": Reformatting the Gap Between Student Writing and Professional Writing    

Teachers of technical writing are urged to use computers not only for influencing the process of writing but also for designing and formatting the product of writing. Engineering students at a Midwestern university now submit final drafts of senior projects in commercial-style formats, thus increasing their range of skills in the act of preparing final written products and adopting some conventions of communicating in the workplace. Reformatting student writing to mimic commercial-quality writing not only increases the scope and responsibility of writing instruction, but also better prepares students to adapt to communication situations in the workplace.

Kumpf, Eric P. and Joseph T. Emanuel. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Education>Writing>Business Communication

Strategic Planning at a Government Laboratory: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Technical Information Department's Experience with Planning     

While acknowledging all the ways in which LLNL has failed to make optimal use of strategic planning tools, the authors believe that this planning process has helped their organization to disengage from the everyday 'work harder' perspective and to refocus on the 'work smarter' or 'putting the ladder against the right wall' goal, insofar as they have been able to do. The authors maintain that however imperfect one's strategic planning process is, it is nevertheless the best way to focus management attention. When a plan is flawed, its existence enables others (whether employees, upper management, or interested reviewers) to criticize and thereby improve it. Each year's plan further serves as the foundation for a better plan the next time around, defined in whatever way makes sense to the management team.

Peterson, Steve and Mara Niels. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management>Project Management>Government

Strategic Planning in a Government Organization: The Experience of the Technical Information Division at NRaD    

This article describes the development of a technical information organization's strategic objectives and its plan to achieve these objectives. The responsibilities of the organization span the continuum of information, that is, from its development to its retrieval and use. Professional technical communication skills include writing, graphic design, photography, multimedia, videography, and library science.

Cathcart, Margaret E. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management

Strategic Planning in a Nonprofit Organization: STC's Rochester Chapter Thinks Strategically    

Strategic plans are at the heart of successful organizations. This is also true for such organizations as STC chapters. In this article the authors discuss the processes used by members of the Rochester Chapter and the results achieved, when the chapter developed its first strategic plan in 1994.

Boyd, Mary C., Lori A. Marra and Sandra J. Swanson. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management>Planning>STC

Strategic Planning: An Introduction to This Special Issue    

We must do strategic planning to ensure our survival as publications professionals in our organizations. A strategic plan looks ahead at least five years and encompasses all of the organization's activities. Most importantly, strategic planning requires a commitment to change. The articles in this special issue provide examples of strategic planning techniques and their implementation.

Breuninger, Charles L. and JoAnn T. Hackos. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management

Strategic Planning: How 'Bifocal Vision' and a Living Document Create Success    

Technical communication managers may not be practicing strategic planning because they receive mixed messages about the need to plan and the need to be flexible and receptive to change. Yet today's manager must have ?bifocal vision: the ability to both commit to a plan that creates operational efficiency and to anticipate (and participate in) its change. A strategic plan must be understood as a living document--created to be updated. This article integrates current management theory on strategic planning with the author's experiences in strategic planning as an information systems manager. Written and oral communication have significant roles in creating, disseminating, and implementing strategic plans. Vision and mission statements, workplans and project management, steering committees and status reports are the means to 'live out the plan.' Finally, the article provides recommendations for technical communication professionals.

Kryder, Leeanne G. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management>Project Management