Diana Patterson

Chairman's corner with candidates required SIGDOC '88: a commentary on half the sessions

R. John Brockmann gave the Joseph T. Rigo Award I.,ecture which presented some examples from the history of technical writing from the U.S. Civil War to the present, commenting on significant contributions. The paper was very well supported by slides, and John delivered it in his inimitable style that evokes authority and engages the audience. Brockmanns paper was not only entertaining but important; his point was that technical writing as a field has sufficient history that those of us involved in it should stop reinventing wheels, and obscuring the contributions of our sources. We must further the progress of our science by knowing the past so that we can relegate it to the prologue.

Book Review: The Writer's Almanac by John Brockman and Bill Norton. Menlo Park, CA: Info Books, 1988, [viii],184 pp.

The Writers Almanac is obviously, from the title, a loving allusion to Benjamin Franklins Poor Richards Almanack, that American classic of pithy sayings and homely wisdom. Most of Poor Richards sayings are original, with a few old saws, whose authors are lost in time. The 1988 version is a book of quotations, with illustrations. The quotations are listed under topics, and the author, but usually not the work, are given beneath. The list of quoted great ones is impressive; those most often appearing are Brookman and Horton.

7.9S

This was the Silver Jubilee of the International Technical Communication Conference (ITTC 25), and the largest crowd ever gathered in Dallas, Texas in May for the occasion. Since most registrants only signed up at the last minute, the conference overflowed into not one, but two hotels, with the odd person at still others.

BIG D attracts record breaking crowd of technical writers & illustrators

Some of the success of automated documentation, unavoidably, depends on the final output terminal. All UPPER CASE LETTERS HAVE A TENDANCY TO MAKE BLOCKS OF SOLID TEXT TO BE EXCEEDINGLY DIFFICULT TO READ (AND FULLY JUSTIFIED TEXT MAKES THINGS EVEN WORSE). You want an upper and lower case terminal, clean, even printing, and, probably, the capability to change print faces and paper stock. Not many terminal manufacturers are sensitive to these requirements.