Current scholarship tells us that skills in teaming are essential for students and practitioners of professional communication. Writers must be able to cooperate with subject-matter experts and team members to make effective decisions and complete projects. Scholarship also suggests that rapid changes in technology and changes in teaming processes…

Writing courses are increasingly popular in higher education. This paper presents a pedagogic approach that combines theory and practice, in an accessible way, to help students appreciate the interrelation of styles and contexts, and develop skills for writing in a range of genres. The approach is characterised as "adaptive application".…

Explores the relation of word and image on the level of both theory and practice in Edward Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information." Establishes two dissonant strands in Tufte's work, a positivist strand and a postmodernist strand. (RS)

Discusses the need for a model for technical documents that expresses the relationship between the various technical genres and their rhetorical contexts. Advocates the use of James Britton's model, with its criteria for classifying documents as well as its rationale for a scope and sequence for teaching technical writing. (SR)

Articulates two different conceptions of writing that come from ancient Greece (classical and sophistic) and uses them as a field in which to compare two writing scenes involving reader response and software documentation. Explores whether these scenes are the same, similar, or absolutely different and whether they imply similar, different, or…

Discusses the way in which technical communication has achieved a complexity that reflects quality as well as quantity as it matures into a significant field of study supported by both an historical base and a developing theoretical framework. (NH)

Traces the term "logos" from the ninth to the fourth century B.C. to distinguish between its general meaning and its technical definition within classical rhetoric. Shows that Aristotle's "pistis" of "logos" refers, not to an appeal to logic, but to the argument or speech itself, which reinstates all three proofs of…

Considers how visuals are constructions that are products of a writer's interpretation with its own "power-laden agenda." Reviews the current approach taken by composition scholars, surveys richer interdisciplinary work on visuals, and (by using visuals connected with the Human Genome Project) models an analysis of visuals as rhetoric.…

Argues that R. A. Harris, in applying linguistic theory to technical writing, undermines his purpose by introducing irrelevant distinctions between competing syntactic theories and by failing to exploit the full potential of applications he mentions. Uses the passive construction to illustrate how linguistics can be used to advantage by technical…

Describes the creation of an Advisory Board for forging an alliance between technical communication education and industry. Discusses the influence the board had on program development and the insights both industry and academia gained from the alliance. (PRA)

Describes a new pedagogical model in the teaching of technical writing based on "technical writing as enculturation." Examines this model's relationship to the workaday world and its roots in classical, especially Ciceronian, rhetoric. Argues that this model's roots in both the modern and classical world enhances its usefulness. (HB)

Analyses concepts from speech act theory to clarify the most effective use of first and second person pronouns in two types of structures frequently found in professional communication: commissives and directives. (KEH)

Describes the collection of the citations to Carolyn Miller's "A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing." Reviews the text to reveal her knowledge claims, and identifies authors who have cited those claims. Organizes these intertextual connections around three broad topics: teaching, rhetorical features, and communities. Illustrates…

Outlines a broad-based rationale for the role of rhetorical study as a means of linking the student technical communicator's understanding of both knowledge and practice, making the technical communicator a valuable contributor to and member of the workplace. (SR)

Suggests that the report for decision making shares some common ground with the proposal, the report of scientific experiment, and the persuasive essay, yet these genres differ. Argues that recognizing these differences is necessary for effective inquiry, pedagogy, and decision making. Claims that complex problems for decision making require a…