We're not just technical writers. We’re also supposed to be advocates for the people who use what we’re documenting. We can’t assume that they know what we know. Not even close. Nesbitt, Scott

An excellent writer with more experience is better than an excellent writer with less experience. An average writer with great tools knowledge is better than an average writer with average tools knowledge. That said, I think there’s a point of diminishing returns. O'Keefe, Sarah S.

Coworking is the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space. Spinuzzi, Clay

This article analyses the transformation of the familiar, linear scientific information chain into an interactive scientific communication network in response to concomitant changes in scientific research and education. Societal conditions are seen to lead to the concept of strategic research world-wide: research dominated by "economy of scope". Strategic research leads to transnational research enterprises - universities and other research institutions-with a focus on return of research capital investment, and thus on intellectual capital. This development calls for new ways of knowledge management that in turn has consequences for scientific communication. Roosendaal, Hans E. and Peter A. Th. M. Geurts

Information technologies, particularly the personal computer and the World Wide Web, are changing the ways that scientists communicate. The traditional print-based system that relies on the refereed scientific journal as the key delivery mechanism for research findings is undergoing a transformation to a system much more reliant on electronic communication and storage media. This article offers a new paradigm for communication in science, and suggests how digital media might bring new roles and functionalities to participants. The argument is made that behavioral and organizational determinants are as important factors as technological capabilities in shaping the future. Hurd, Julie M.

Since its inception in the 17th century the research journal emerged as the formal communication method in the sciences. The last half of the 20th century has seen stresses develop on the journal system due to the explosion of scientific research, increasing subscription costs, and technological advances. New models, taking advantage of digital technology, have demonstrated that great improvements are possible if the scientific community is willing to embrace change. Two methods for significantly changing the model are suggested: adopting an e-print moderator model which decouples the dissemination of information from its review, and shifting the costs of publication from the reader to the author and sponsoring agencies and organizations. Gass, Steven

As freelancers, we all face the problem of feast or famine: sometimes we're overwhelmed with work, and can hardly find time to think, let alone keep up with our other responsibilities, but other times dust gathers on our computers while we wait for new work to arrive. Clearly, marketing our services and finding new clients is important to avoid the "famine" part of the freelance lifestyle, but what do you do when too much work is arriving? Hart, Geoffrey J.S.

Argues that communication scholarship must play a crucial role in the field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), preparing writers in developing countries to address local and global audiences. Reports a participatory action research intervention designed to improve the report-writing skills of governmental social service workers in a developing country through the use of a workshop. Dysart-Gale, Deborah, Kristina Pitula and Thiruvengadam Radhakrishnan

Examines new developments in interactivity for online authors and developers. Suggests the metaphor of procedural architecture for authoring strongly interactive technical documents. Considers rich internet applications and gaming as emerging forms of interactive technical communication. McDaniel, Rudy

Examines how open source software (OSS) relates to offshoring. Discusses how technical communicators can use OSS to display value in offshoring. Presents strategies technical communicators can use to display the value they add. St. Amant, Kirk R. and Robert Cunningham

Explores how to have a technical community adopt a new communication strategy that challenges the common practice of PowerPoint. Reveals the sources of resistance to that communication strategy. Finds that resistance is diminished when learners see the strategy being used effectively by someone with credibility in that learner's community. Neeley, Kathryn A., Michael Alley, Christine G. Nicometo and Leslie C. Srajek

Professionalism is a recurrent topic of discussion - formally and informally - among technical communication scholars and practitioners. In the diversity among our programs and approaches to technical communication, the difficult issues surrounding certification in technical communication is a professional goal that major stakeholders have typically considered too complex to be addressed. Increasingly, however, many of these stakeholders agree that we can no longer continue to ignore these complex issues. In an earlier article, the author have described twelve issues that must be addressed and tasks that must be undertaken to move the profession towards meaningful certification. In that discussion, the author also suggests approaches to begin the work on each of these steps. In this present discussion, the author addresses the first of this steps-codification of the bodies of knowledge through the development of an encyclopedia of technical and professional communication. In order to accomplish this, the author describes the categories of knowledge in the field and the editorial and organizational structure of the project. Rainey, Kenneth T.

The following is a response to Clay Shirky's new article Fame versus Fortune (a follow-up to his 2000 essay The Case Against Micropayments) which takes aim at the 9-week-old BitPass payment system. I'm a long-time advocate of micropayments, an advisor to BitPass, and my online comic The Right Number is mentioned in his first paragraph, so I'm hardly a disinterested party. Still, I hope my arguments will help illuminate why I think that Shirky's logic is flawed, and why his caricature of the idea of micropayments bears little resemblance to the reality being created right now. McCloud, Scott

Some electronic commerce projects promise dramatically lower transaction costs, so that we can achieve "micropayments", "microintermediation", and so forth. An even more advanced idea is the use of very small granularity markets for the allocation of computer and network resources. To what extent are such things achievable? Szabo, Nick

Over the last two years I have become deeply and increasingly pessimistic about the future of liberty and freedom of speech, particularly in regard to the Internet. Walker, John

P2P creates two problems that micropayments seem ideally suited to solve. The first is the need to reward creators of text, graphics, music or video without the overhead of publishing middlemen or the necessity to charge high prices. The success of music-sharing systems such as Napster and Audiogalaxy, and the growth of more general platforms for file sharing such as Gnutella, Freenet and AIMster, make this problem urgent. Shirky, Clay

I predict that most sites that are not financed through traditional product sales will move to micropayments in less than two years. Users should be willing to pay, say, one cent per Web page in return for getting quality content and an optimal user experience with less intrusive ads. Once users pay for the pages, then they get to be the site's customers, and the site will design to satisfy the users' needs and not the advertisers' needs. Nielsen, Jakob, Kara Pernice Coyne and Marie Tahir

Since 2001, harsh criticism of PowerPoint’s presentation slide structure has surfaced in several popular publications. Because Microsoft PowerPoint controls 95% of the market for presentation slideware (Parker 2001), its default structure certainly deserves scrutiny. However, what is more important than analyzing the default structure of PowerPoint is to analyze the slide structures that people actually use. For that reason, in technical communication, the key question is the following: what slide structures are commonly used for presenting science and technology? Garner, Joanna K., Michael Alley, Allen F. Gaudelli and Sarah E. Zappe