Text, ConText, and HyperText presents recent developments in three related and important areas of technical communication: the design of effective documentation; the impact of new technology and research on technical writing; and the training and management of technical writers.The contributors are all authorities drawn from universities and industry who are active in defining and analyzing the role of computing in technical documentation and the role of documentation in the development of computing technology. This first synthesis of their diverse but related research provides a unique conceptualization of the field of computers and writing and documentation.The book first examines techniques for writing online documentation and the value of usability testing. It presents new research into the impact of human factors in screen design and designing online help, and looks at the impact of desktop publishing on documentation, and at visual literacy and graphic design.Artificial intelligence and documentation processing are then addressed with discussion of data acquisition, automated formatting in expert systems, and document databases; the uses of HyperText in documentation; and the future of technical writing in this new environment.Text, ConText, and HyperText concludes by examining the training and management of documentation groups: how they "learn to write" in industry, management of large-scale documentation projects and their effect on product development; and the "two cultures" of engineering and documentation.Edward Barrett is a Lecturer in the Writing Program at MIT. Text, ConText, and HyperText is included in the Information Systems series, edited by Michael Lesk.

Information technology is changing the way we write. Special features such as outliners, spelling checkers and graphic facilities have transformed word processors into document processors; document processors have, in turn, integrated with other electronic resources such as e-mail and the Internet to provide a complete writing environment. The New Writing Environment examines the knowledge that is needed in order to develop, use and evaluate computer-based writing environments. The emphasis is firmly on practical issues: tasks performed by writers at work, problems they encounter, and documents they actually produce. Writing is defined within a wide social and organisational context, in order to give an accurate assessment of how the new technology affects the social and cooperative aspects of authorship. The result is a wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the relationship between writing and computers.

This collection of essays continues Barrett's investigations into implementing networked online systems described in his first book Text, ConText, and HyperText, with a more focused emphasis on specific hypermedia systems. In four parts the 22 essays take up designing hypertext and hypermedia systems for the online user; textual intervention and collaboration; new roles for writers; and sensemaking and learning in the online environment.In his introduction, Barrett analyzes the design of networked online systems as part of a collaborative process, asserting that the online environment fosters collaboration by using computer technology to support interaction among those who design, use, and write software. The first five essays present a genealogy of hypertext development, assess various hypertext designs, discuss users' wants and needs, and analyze the "rhetoric" of hypertext applications in light of new models for computer human interaction. Seven essays then take up new, important online systems for information retrieval, document production, and training in the online environment. Included are a first time full scale analysis of the Athena Muse hypermedia system developed at MIT, the hypertext environment Intermedia, developed at Brown, the University of Maryland's Hyperties, and the Educational Online System for document production and training technical writers, now in its second year of use at MIT. New roles for writers and productivity gains provided by online environments are the subject of the next six essays. The final four essays discuss instructional efficiency and the failures of instructional materials. Novel proposals are described for addressing the needs and strategies of learners, for supporting cooperative work in creating, revising, and testing a software program, for evaluating online help systems, and for eliminating ambiguity in online text. The Society of Text is included in the Information Systems series, edited by Michael Lesk.

In this volume, methodological, cultural, technological, and political boundaries felt by writers are analyzed, translated, and challenged in a way that will appeal to researchers, theorists, graduate students, instructors, and managerial audiences. Instead of extracting rules from previous research, the contributors, working from multidisciplinary perspectives, describe and analyze the social and technological contexts surrounding nonacademic writing. Their essays present a formative rather than summative outlook toward future research on nonacademic writing. Collectively, these chapters articulate a unique perspective toward nonacademic writing that considers: * The centrality of emerging communications technologies in nonacademic writing research and the need for a socio-technological perspective. New technologies reshape the concept of text and significantly impact the writing process and written products in nonacademic settings. * The relationship between the academy and the workplace. A number of chapters challenge us -- sometimes from opposing perspectives -- to scrutinize our role as writing educators in preparing students for the workplace. Should we support the interests of corporate employers, or should we resist those interests? Should we enculturate students in workplace writing practices by placing them in these environments, or should we examine the tacit knowledge gained by workplace professionals and deliver this via classroom instruction? * New theory, new research agendas. Contributors from diverse fields offer new theoretical lenses or use established lenses in innovative ways, expanding the agenda for nonacademic writing research. This volume represents the vision the social landscape demands for research and pedagogy in nonacademic writing.