Who can resist? Open a good thesaurus such as an authentic Roget’s and feel theurge to splurge—to slather, plunk down, shell out, and squander the bounty ofwords related to whatever notion you have in mind. I confess that the aptly namedthesaurus (from the Greek for “treasure house”) unleashes my own prodigality, as if I’d bagged the goose that lays the golden synonyms.

Ah, but spender beware. Writers as diverse as Simon Winchester (The Professor andthe Madman) and novelist Stephen King warn that words plucked from a thesaurus—especially as intended synonyms—are bogus and ill-spent. Don’t open the damnthing in the first place, they advise. After all, other than in technical areas, true syn-onyms are rare. Most closely related words develop their own nuances as people usethem. Therefore the dizzy application of a thesaurus’s undefined offerings tends tobe inappropriate, arcane, pretentious, or downright ludicrous, so they tell us.

Winchester, writing in The Atlantic Monthly (May 2001), tarred Roget for “our cur-rent state of linguistic and intellectual mediocrity.” In 18 pages of what thesauruslovers would call a rant, he argued that Roget’s seduces the masses with an easysolution to word choice; and yet, “…because the users are ill-versed, and becausethe book offers no help at all in discovering what anything means, the word chosenwith each presto! is often wrong.”

“Each time such a wrong is perpetrated,” said the Oxford-educated Winchester, thelanguage “becomes a…measure more decayed, disarranged, and unlovely. And that,I suggest, is why all Rogets [sic] should be shunned.” Winchester allowed that thethesaurus might be used to jog the memory or solve a crossword; “but one never,never relies on it to help with the making of good writing.”

So decreed Winchester. And King (On Writing) seconded the motion, which ineffect says to toss the great treasury—with its 330 000 terms organized into 1075categories (6th edition)—to the nearest junkyard dog.

But hold on just a minute.

Roget’s Great GiftIf I were to throw any thesaurus to the dogs, it would be the type commonly bun-dled with word-processing programs—the low-rent, censored, lazy person’s list of pedestrian synonyms. Talk about seductive. I pity anyone who might judge thesplendor of true thesauruses by these click-and-fix aids for memo writers. Theyhave nothing to do with the beneficent genius of a retired doctor named Peter Mark Roget.

Adore Your ThesaurusBy Arthur Plotnik

Inside

From the Editor 2

Highlights of the AdCom Meeting 3

Tools of the Trade 5

Flocci...pilification 10

Good Intent, Poor Outcome 12

Thinking Globally, Acting Locally 13

Net Notes 14

Masters of Style 16

Chapter News 18

Business Economics in Finland 19

Translation Trials Teach 20

Professor Grammar 21

IPCC 2005 Call for Papers 23

IPCC 2004 24

ISSN 1539-3593

NE

WS

LE

TT

ER

Volu

me

48 •

Num

ber 4

July/August 2004

(continued on page 6)

trol (OFAC) ruled on 2 April that theIEEE’s publishing process is exemptfrom OFAC regulations and licensingrequirements for scholarly paperssubmitted by authors from Cuba,Iran, Libya, and Sudan. The InstituteOnline, 9 April 2004.

The AdCom will meet again this yearafter IPCC 2004 in Minneapolis,Minnesota, 2-3 October. PCS mem-bers are always welcome at AdCommeetings.

PotpourriTiny URL The full URL for the door-way to IEEE Web profiles is 100 char-acters long. By using the free serviceat http://tinyurl.com, I reduced it to24 characters: http://tinyurl.com/yqfsd.Try it, you’ll like it.

Shakespeare’s Coinage: Phrasesattributed to Shakespeare and likely so:

• Foregone conclusion• Full circle• One fell swoop• A sorry sight

reprinting? The deadline is 31 Augustbut I’d appreciate hearing from yousooner.

If you want to be notified when eachedition of the new electronic news-letter becomes available on the Web, go to http://tinyurl.com/yqfsd and

include your e-mail addresson your IEEE Web profile.

AdComA new standards develop-ment study committee isbeing chaired by past-presi-dent Mark Haselkorn, whois PCS representative to the

U.S. Technical Advisory Group forISO/IEC Joint Technical Commit-tee 1/Subcommittee 7. IEEE is bestknown around the world for its stan-dards and PCS can contribute to their development, especially in areas related to software and tech-nical documentation, and in theprocess achieve visibility within and outside IEEE.

The U.S. Department of the Treas-ury’s Office of Foreign Assets Con-

This IssueItems of note: The call for papers forIPCC 2005 in Limerick, Ireland, is onp. 23; the IEEE Engineering Manage-ment Society is coordinating a trackfor this conference. Returning secre-tary Muriel Zimmerman covers thehighlights of the May AdCom meet-ing on p. 3.

I’m still interested in receiv-ing proposals for single arti-cles or short-lived columnsfor the remaining two issuesof this Newsletter. See theinformation for authors far-ther along in this column.

Auld Lang SyneYou must have heard by now thatNovember/December will be the lastprint issue of this Newsletter. I’mseeking both ideas and input to make it a memorable swan song issue. Doyou have any “ancient” photos ofPCS people or activities? Untold stories of a forgotten or unnoticedevent? Extra-fond recollections of a long-ago society article worth

July/August 2004From the EditorN e w s l e t t e r

Rudy Joenk

2

• PCS IEEE Professional Communication Society Newsletter is published bimonthly by the ProfessionalCommunication Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. One dollar per member per year is included in the society fee for each member of the Professional Communication Society. Printed in U.S.A. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices.

• Copyright 2004 IEEE: Permission to copy without fee all or part of any material without a copyright notice is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and the title of this publication and its date appear on each copy. To copy material with a copyright notice requiresspecific permission; direct inquiries or requests to the copyright holder as indicated in the article.

• Postmaster: Send address changes to IEEE Professional Communication Society Newsletter, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08855.

• Editorial correspondence: Rudy Joenk, 2227 Canyon Blvd. #462, Boulder, CO 80302-5680, +1 303 541 0060, rjjoenk at ieee.org. Articles, letters, reviews, and proposals for columns are welcome.

IEEE ProfessionalCommunication

Society

OfficersEd Clark, President

e dot clark at ieee.orgLuke Maki, Vice President

luke dot maki at ieee.orgMuriel Zimmerman, Secretary

m dot zimmerman at ieee.orgSteve Robinson, Treasurer

srobinson at ieee.org

StaffRudy Joenk, Editor

(continued on page 8)

Deadlines are the 15th

of the odd-number

months.

of being part of IEEE. He told usabout IEEE societies that are similarin size to PCS—Broadcast Technol-ogy, Reliability, Education, SocialImplications of Technology, andOceanic Engineering—and for each society he identified a “secretweapon” that provides income, oftenconference income, sometimes publi-cations income. Peter Staecker sup-ports the PCS goal of playing a majorrole in distance learning initiatives,providing continuing education forIEEE members.

Tom Wiener, chair of the IEEESociety Review Committee, urged the AdCom to begin work early onthe required five-year IEEE review(2005 for PCS), thinking of thereview as an opportunity to makelong-range plans.

for service on the Awards Board. Heinvited us to submit proposals fornew medals, and suggested that weinvite IEEE awardees to make pre-sentations at our conferences.

Peter Staecker, IEEE TechnicalActivities Board (TAB) treasurer,attended both days of the meetingand provided particularly helpfulcomments on a variety of matters ashe listened to our discussions. In hispresentation he reviewed the recentproblematic financial history of IEEEand the associated high costs for PCS

Thanks to Luke Maki, PCS vice president and Boeing engineer, theAdCom was able to meet at Boeingin Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, 21-22May 2004. The theme of the meet-ing—at least for me, returning asPCS secretary after a five-yearbreak—was rethinking the way thatgoals can be accomplished. We beganwith a tour of the Boeing plant wherethe V-22 Osprey is produced. Theproduction process for the plane has been completely revised, basedon consultations with experts whodesign manufacturing processes forthe Japanese automobile industry. Inseveral presentations from guests atthe AdCom meeting, we also receivedideas about altered ways in which we might accomplish our goals.

Three Guest PerspectivesDov Jaron, IEEE Awards Board chair, provided an overview of majorInstitute honors, focusing on medalsand technical field awards (http://www.ieee.org/awards). He urged PCSmembers to submit nominations forthose awards as well as to volunteer

Highlights of the May AdCom MeetingBy Muriel Zimmerman

3

N e w s l e t t e r

Volume 48 • Number 4

Below: Boeing’s conference table was clear before we settled in.

Below: Boeing’s South Philadelphia sitewas the location of our May AdCom

meeting; PCS vice president Luke Makimade the arrangements.

Left: Beth Moeller; Peter Staecker, TAB treasurer; and Tom Weiner, president,IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society.

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July/August 2004

N e w s l e t t e r

ConferencesIPCC 2004 is scheduled for 29 Sep-tember–2 October at the RadissonHotel Metrodome in Minneapolis,Minnesota. Bernadette Longo is con-ference chair, and reception sponsorsinclude University of MinnesotaDepartment of Rhetoric, Universityof Washington, Rensselaer Polytech-nic Institute,MinnesotaState Uni-versity atMankato, and MercerUniversity.Apple Com-puters willsupply equip-ment for theconferencecomputerroom, andBoeing hasmade a sig-nificant dona-tion towardthe publica-tion of pro-ceedings. Thepreliminaryprogram as well as online con-ference regis-tration is avail-able on the con-ference Website (http://ieeepcs.org/ andclick on IPCC2004).

IPCC 2005 is scheduled for 10-13July 2005 in Limerick, Ireland. Con-ference chair is Marj Davis, and thecall for papers is posted on the con-ference Web site (http://ieeepcs.org/limerick/); also see p. 23 of this News-letter. The theme of the conference is Ceangail, Gaelic for tying or con-necting together, emphasizing the

importance of technical communication inconnecting engineers,educators, managers,and communicators ina global community.

IPCC 2006 is sched-uled for 23-25 Octoberat the Gideon PutnamHotel and Confer-ence Center, SaratogaSprings, New York;Beth Moeller is confer-

ence chair. IPCC 2007 is scheduledfor 1-3 October in Seattle, Wash-ington; Mark Haselkorn is confer-ence chair.

EducationThe PCS Web site contains extendedinformation about goals and plannedinitiatives for training and continu-ing education (http://ieeepcs.org/resources_training.php). The WebEdinitiative committee solicited pro-posals for a tutorial Web site to sup-port the needs of authors for whomEnglish is a second language. Fiveresponses were submitted. Unfor-tunately, the budget submitted by thegroup whose proposal was selectedwas beyond the PCS limit. AdCommembers discussed the possibility ofvideotaping workshops at IPCC 2004

Above: Luke Makiarranged the AdComdinner, but this isn’t

where he took us.

Below: “Uncle Senior” and “Slick StanMan” Mark Haselkorn in Bistro

Romano’s production of The Alto’s [sic]:Like the Sopranos, Only Lower. BillAlbing was featured as “Big Kitty.”

Right: Resting beforehors d’oeuvres,

PCS vice presidentLuke Maki hosted

the AdCom dinner atthis dinner theatre,

where Bill Albing andMark Haselkorn were

unexpectedly given bit roles.

(continued on page 11)

5

Tools of the TradeN e w s l e t t e r

Peter Reimold and Cheryl Reimold

Volume 48 • Number 4

care about those momentous find-ings? Or the people from accounting?Gripping as they may be to you, thefacts by themselves mean nothing toyour listeners unless you can demon-strate how the facts affect their livesand work.

In fact, you can take it as given thatthe interests of your non-technicalaudience will always be differentfrom yours. Those are the words thatshould guide as you plan your talk.They will lead you to a differentquestion. Instead of “What am Igoing to tell them about this?” youwill ask “What would they want toknow about it?”

Ask the Magic QuestionsPut the subject of your presentationaside for a moment and focus exclu-sively on your potential audience.Who are they? What do they do?What departments do they represent?Why are they coming to your talk?

Now select about five peo-ple from that audience. Thenumber does not matter somuch as the spectrum ofinterests they present. Tryto get as broad a range aspossible. One by one, imag-ine each of those people

standing in front of you asking thefollowing questions:

1. What do you want to tell me?2. Why does it matter to me?3. How does it affect what I do?4. How can it help me do my job

better?5. What do you want me to do with

this information?

Part 3: Magic QuestionsYou have been told to give a presen-tation on your project to people fromdifferent areas of the company. Whatis the first question you ask your-self? If you are like most people, it is “What on earth am I going to tellthem about it?”

That question is the reason most presentations go off the rails. Why?Well, it sends the presenter straight to the subject of the talk to look forthe most interesting or importantdetails of it. And here is the sad part:The features that most fascinate thetechnical expert (you) are almostguaranteed to send the non-technicallisteners (your audience) into loud,painful yawns.

Say you’re presenting the results ofwork done to resolve customer com-plaints on your company’s top-sellingproduct. Your analysis of specks con-taminating a recent sampleshowed a few of them tobe bits of ABC instead ofthe anticipated EFG. Thatis most surprising to youas it suggests the presenceof certain unexpected min-erals in the water used toprepare the product. Thediscovery is important to you inanother way as it was made on thenew spectroanalytical machine youhad persuaded the company to buy.You are pretty sure the old machineswould not have detected the tinyamounts of ABC.

How much do you think the salesrepresentatives in your audience will

If you answer those questions rigor-ously, in complete sentences, twothings will happen: First, you willprobably find that your answers toquestions 2 through 4 will cause youto modify your answer to question 1,which will become the main messageof your presentation. The subsequentquestions may force you to sharpenthe focus of that main message oreven to change it altogether if youcannot make it fit the interests of the listeners. Second, you will havethe essence of a successful presenta-tion in front of you.

Your answers to your five listeners’questions will produce the core of anaudience-driven presentation. Builton their interests and needs, it willnaturally become a talk they willwant to hear.

Their Language, Not Yours“That’s all very well,” you may bethinking. “But what if I have some-thing I deeply want to tell these peo-ple, whether or not they want to hearit?” Our answer is simple. If you canshow them that your message touchestheir lives, interests, work, or needs—positively or negatively—they willlisten. If you can’t, they won’t. Yourchallenge is to tell your story in theirlanguage.

Next time, we will see how to begindoing just that.

Cheryl and Peter Reimold have beenteaching communication skills toengineers, scientists, and business-people for 20 years. Their latestbook, The Short Road to Great

How to Give Technical Presentations to Non-Technical Audiences

The interests of your non-technical

audience will always be differ-ent from yours.

(continued on page 11)

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N e w s l e t t e r

Roget (1779-1869) had the sort ofrestless intellect that solved London’swater filtration problem, invented thelog scale for slide rules, and organ-

ized an immense collection of wordsinto categories, according to the ideasthey represent. The first such collec-tion, Roget’s Thesaurus of English

Words and Phrases (1852), launcheda fleet of editions that he and his suc-cessors improved over the decades. It also prompted a host of (generally

Adore Your Thesaurus(continued from page 1)

Roget’s International Thesaurus. 5th ed., indexed.Robert L. Chapman, ed. New York: HarperCollins,c1992, 1141 pp. The HarperCollins versions are heir to the original Roget’s. For the 5th edition, found inmost libraries, Chapman overhauled the Victorian cate-gories, building a postmodern framework (1073 cate-gories) for 325 000 related terms. Many special lists,such as gods and goddesses, manias and phobias. The6th edition (Barbara Ann Kipfer, ed. HarperCollins,2001, 1280 pp.) is in stores and some libraries, withfurther updating, additional lists, and hundreds of quotations.

Bartlett’s Roget’s Thesaurus. 1st ed. Roger Donald, ed.Boston: Little, Brown, hardback 1996, 1488 pp.; paper2003, 1456 pp. This newly classified and Americanizedthesaurus—organized by concept, like Roget’s—con-tains some 325 000 references in 848 main categories.

Quotations from Bartlett’s vast archive exemplifyselected words. The massive index is all-inclusive,covering all the entries, synonyms, lists, and quotes.

Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary Form.2nd ed. Princeton Language Institute, ed. Barbara AnnKipfer, head lexicographer. New York: Dell, paper1999, 957 pp. A good choice as far as relatively port-able, A-Z thesauruses go. It includes a conceptualindex to 17 000 main entry terms and an impressive450 000 synonyms (many repeated) attached to them.

Webster’s New World Roget’s A-Z Thesaurus. 4th ed.Charlton Laird. Michael Agnes, ed. New York: JohnWiley, 1999, 894 pp. A synonym dictionary with frequent “synonym studies” and brief definitions to aid usage. The classification scheme presented up front is of limited use. Cross references, antonyms,special lists.

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp. “PlumbDesign Virtual Thesaurus.” In this otherworldly the-saurus, related words float around a chosen term; when clicked on, they become the center of the shift-ing matrix. An ingenious presentation echoing—albeit slowly—a mental process of word association.

http://www.m-w.com/home.htm. Quick look-ups of synonyms, related words, and antonyms contained inMerriam-Webster’s New Collegiate Thesaurus.

http://www.wordsmyth.net. “Wordsmyth DictionaryThesaurus.” Definitions, synonyms, and related wordsat one site for some 50 000 headwords. Neither the latest nor largest in vocabulary, but its advancedsearches and quick links help target words.

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/ARTFL/forms_unrest/ROGET.html. One of several sites offeringProject Gutenberg’s digital transcription of Roget’s(1911 edition, supplemented 1991). Searchable byheadword or from the full text.

Choices for your shelves

On the Internet

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Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

more forceful words; avoid repeti-tion of words; escape clichés andworn modifiers; help describe theso-called indescribable; refine yourintended meanings (via relatedthemes); and soak up the sheerplenitude of language. Do not lookto a thesaurus to supply newlyminted phrases, fresh and surprisinguses of a word, or novel imagery.Nor can it tell you how felicitous(or ridiculous) a word would be in your context.

• Look up the definition andusage of an unfamiliarword before employing it.Roget-bashers can’t imag-ine that anyone would takethis obvious step. Use agood dictionary, not just the briefdefinitions offered in some collec-tions. Look-ups can be tedious, butwords looked up are words attained,whether they turn out to be motsjustes or not.

• Don’t fish in the categories, swim inthem. The thesaurus organizes eachcategory by parts of speech: nouns,adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc.Don’t cast in only one pool for themost creative solution. Dive intoseveral listings, then do the samewith the nearby antonyms, or oppo-site meanings. A fresh way ofdescribing wild laughter? Lookunder lamentation with all its teary-eyed terms.

• Don’t grab all the words that fit.“He knelt before me, obsequious,unctuous, groveling, fawning, toad-

inferior) imitators bearing Roget andthesaurus labels, many of them meredictionaries of synonyms.

The 150-year-long success of the cat-egorized (classified) Roget’s confirmsits value to word-seekers. In contrastto an alphabetized dictionary of syn-onyms, where one seeks a mot justeby slogging door-to-door throughrows of words, a genuine Roget’slays out a map, as it were, of thematicprovinces, villages, and streets. Usingthe index one can shuttle from a sin-gle-word clue (say, bright) to a neigh-borhood (light) teeming with relatedterms; or, via the classified arrange-ment, wander thematic roads towardone’s destination, choosing well-marked trails and exploring unknownand thrilling language along the way.

That, I think, is the magic of Roget’sfor writers: Traveling from theme totheme, directed by cross-referencesand other clues, one lives amongword families, discovers Shangri-las of exotic terminology, beholdsclashes of synonyms vs. antonyms,finds adventure even in misusedwords. Shun this wonderland ofexpression? A writer would have to be mad, unhinged, moonstruck to do so.

But so might that writer, before set-ting off, want to consider these tipsfrom a weathered Roget’s traveler:

• Understand your quest and the lim-its of Roget’s. Use a thesaurus tofind those good words you can’tquite recall; discover more fitting or

ying, truckling,….” So many juicywords crop up, you’ll want them all.Make a choice based on nuance,texture, rhythm, and sound, keepingin mind your audience’s frame ofreference.

• Search your brain as well. Don’ttruckle to the genius of Roget. Asyou consider the thesaurus’s sugges-tions, keep pumping your ownsynapses for related words and

offbeat associations. Onetrick is to flip the thesaurusto a section that has nothingto do with your original category. The terms theremay suggest loopy, figura-tive alternatives to a syno-nym. For example: I want

to convey bright light; I flip (randomly) to the Violence sec-tion and find terms like savage,brutal, barbarous, uproarious,scorching—one of which mightbe more forceful than, say, lucent,luminous, or resplendent.

• Use new and older editions. Whilenew editions have added handy fea-tures and thousands of new terms,many of those terms are alreadyoutdated colloquialisms, such asyucky. I like the option of resusci-tating quaint terms—even quaintslang—from the older editions.

• Take chances. Yo, this ain’t Oxford,where word-bunglers fear towelwhippings and social snubs. Stickyour thumb into that thesaurus andpull out a plum. If now and then itproves a prune, you’ll have learned

Use it right, and you’ll

love Roget’sbounty.

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July/August 2004

N e w s l e t t e r

From the Editor

But don’t throw out the boat with thebilge water. For all writers therecomes a time when, abandoned bytheir muse, adrift like the AncientMariner, they pray for the wallop of a favorable word, a word to billowtheir sails and push them along. Forthousands of authors Roget’s hasanswered that prayer; and if it pushedthem in new and unintended direc-tions, so much the better for readers.

something—and both you andEnglish will survive.

Recently the novelist Alan Furstweighed in against Roget, saying thatrather than succumb to “thesaurusi-tis,” he chose to repeat an apt modi-fier (“billowing”) throughout hisbook. Okay, so you can’t always findan alternative for a good word, evenin the mighty seas of the thesaurus.

Reprinted with permission from The Writer, October 2002; ©ArthurPlotnik.

The author is a contributing editor toThe Writer and a former publishingexecutive who has written six books,including The Elements of Authorshipand two Book-of-the-Month-Clubselections: The Elements of Editingand The Elements of Expression.

Phrases often attributed to Shakespearebut not likely so:

• Cold comfort• Laughing stock• It’s Greek to me• The naked truth

Jennifer Vernon, NationalGeographic.com, 22 April 2004.

Ad on a British Web site for a profes-sional copy writing service: “We’llshow the devastating impact thatlively and totally memorable copycan have….” Peter Carnell in WorldWide Words, 22 May 2004.

Pikes Peak was named for explorerZebulon Pike, but in 1891 the U.S.Board on Geographic Names recom-mended an end to using possessivesin place names, and in 1978 theColorado legislature agreed, so noapostrophe. The Denver Post, 17 May 2004.

Accompanying a child’s report cardwas a letter from a Montana (U.S.)school that began: “Dear Parent’s:….” Scott Swanson in World Wide Words,15 May 2004.

On a Melbourne, Australia, contestentry form: “Incomplete and incom-prehensible entries will be illegible.”David Ashton in World Wide Words,10 April 2004.

Winner of the Atlantic Magazinecontest to describe “people who leavelong rambling messages on answer-ing machines and then rattle off theirphone numbers at lightning speed in the last second”: numblers (shortfor number mumblers) by GregoryPierce. The Denver Post, 9 May 2004.

Being somewhat critical of LynneTruss’s endorsement of punctuationrules in Eats, Shoots & Leaves, JohnRosenthal wrote in The New YorkTimes (3 May 2004) “…the point of

punctuation [is] not to spin a web ofarcane rules, but to remind us to write(and think) clearly. It’s obvious thatforce-feeding the rules of punctuationisn’t working.”

Among the rules Truss iterates in her“Zero Tolerance Approach to Punc-tuation” book is this: Apostrophes are used to indicate the plurals of letters (R’s) and the plurals of words(don’t’s) but are no longer needed inthe plurals of abbreviations and dates(CDs, 1980s).

“This once-in-a-lifetime event sellsout every time!” Heard on KMZT inLos Angeles. Greg Carter in WorldWide Words, 1 May 2004.

You’ve just been dying to slip a pil-crow into your writing, haven’t you?Actually, it would be more appropri-ate to put it into something you’reediting. The pilcrow (¶) is the para-graph symbol and you can extract it

From the Editor(continued from page 2)

9

Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

From the Editor

Always give credit to the author or artist.

The Newsletter issues on our Website (http://www.ieeepcs.org/activities_publications_newsletter.php) can be used as examples. Issues areposted about one month after distrib-ution of the print version and nowhave active e-mail, Web, and table-of-contents links.

I prefer to receive articles by e-mail;most WordPerfect, Word, RTF (richtext format), and ASCII files areacceptable. My addresses are in theboilerplate at the bottom of p. 2 alongwith our copyright notice.

DeadlinesThe 15th day of each odd-numbermonth is the deadline for publicationin the succeeding odd-number month;the deadline is 15 September for theNovember/December issue.

and shorter articles may be appropri-ate. Write about what you know,things that you’re familiar with. Ifyou live outside North America, con-sider writing about technical commu-nication in your country. You needn’tbe a PCS member to contribute.

If you use a wp program, keep yourformatting simple; multiple fontsand sizes, customized paragraphingand line spacing, personalized styles,etc. have to be filtered out beforebeing recoded in Newsletter style.Headers, footers, and tables lead thecasualty list. Embed only enough formatting and highlighting (bold-face, italics, bullets) to show me your preferences.

If you borrow text—more than a fair-use sentence or two—from previ-ously published material, you areresponsible for obtaining written per-mission for its use. Ditto for graphics.

from the ANSI character set with Alt-0182 (on your numeric keypad). Morethan you ever wanted to know aboutcharacter sets is available at http://www.alanwood.net. Suggested byMichael Brady, 8 April 2004.

Whereas search engines like Mamma.com find matches to key words andphrases, new anti-plagiarism softwaretools can cross-check whole docu-ments with Internet material and evenproprietary academic and media data-bases. They “fingerprint” a documentand quickly recognize patterns foundelsewhere. Reports indicate that ini-tially about 30 percent of input froma school is less than original, but thatproportion soon decreases when stu-dents catch on. May Wong (AP) viaThe Denver Post, 7 April 2004.

Computer Haiku

A file that big?It might be very useful.But now it is gone.

Aborted effort:Close all that you have worked on.You ask way too much.

There’s more at http://www.funny2.com/haiku.htm; Sony has replacedsome of the Microsoft error messageson its Vaio computers with Japanesehaiku.

Information for AuthorsOne thousand words makes a nicepage-and-a-half article, though longer

MLA Auto-Generator (MLAGEN) by Patrick Do is a free Windows program that quickly formats the lists of works or references cited in your documents in accordance with the latest MLA (Modern Language Association), APA(American Psychological Association), Chicago, CPE (Certified ProfessionalEditor; Canada), or Turabian style guidelines.

MLA Auto-Generator works with all modern versions of Windows; it is a freeprogram offered under the GNU General Public License. You can find moreinformation and download it from http://mlagen.sourceforge.net/.

MLA Auto-Generator

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N e w s l e t t e r

Floccinaucinihilipilification

WordStar arguably is a godfather inthe genealogy of modern word proc-essing. Developed in the late 1970s, it was the first commercially suc-cessful word processor not tied to a hardware platform, as were theIBM, Wang, and other dedicatedword processors of the time. In 1981it was bundled with the OsborneCP/M-based portable computer andthereby became the first word proces-sor widely available to the generalpublic. In 1982 it was adapted to run under MS-DOS and by 1985became the word processor most sold to individuals.

But then WordStar lost its marketshare to the more skillfully hawkedWordPerfect. By 1990, when Micro-soft Windows 3.0 was launched tobecome the de facto standard operat-ing system for personal computersworldwide, WordStar was a shadowof its former self, its declinehastened by its late arrival ina Windows version and bythe lack of user-friendly con-version utilities that wouldenable other word processorsto read WordStar files. Acumbersome WordStar filterwas included with earlier MicrosoftOffice file converter packs that nowhave been discontinued, and theOffice 2003 file converter pack doesnot include a WordStar filter.

So, experienced wordsmiths may rue the demise of WordStar, notbecause it was any better than theword processors that replaced it, but

because newer word processors can-not read old WordStar files. That was the dilemma that historian AnneBartlett faced in 1996. Her new com-puter ran Windows 95 and offered all the applications sheneeded in her writing. But it couldn’t read thetext files that she hadwritten only a few yearsearlier using WordStarrunning under MS-DOS.Fortunately, an expertwas at hand: her hus-band, Henry, a high-school teacher whohad taught himselfBasic and Pascal so he could writeprograms for computer simulation inteaching and for databases used inschool administration. Could Henrywrite a program that would enableher new computer to read old Word-Star files? He could.

He wrote a little command-line conversion utility thateventually became a Word-Star Converter that he furtherimproved on the basis of feed-back from Anne and fromother users. Then he bought

Borland Delphi, taught himself Win-dows programming, and posted aWindows version of the WordStarConverter as freeware on his HABitWeb site, along with other utilitiesthat he had developed to solve thevexing small problems that computerusers often face. The HABit utilitiesreflect Bartlett’s programming equiv

alent of minimalism in art in thateach of them supplies only what’sneeded and no more. For instance,the WordStar Converter comprisesonly 221 kB, operates from a simple

dialogue box in Windows,and produces text filesthat can be read by any

modern word proces-sor. The lack of a final

interface to a proprietaryapplication is intentional,as adding one wouldmake the utility largerand would constrain itsuse. Indeed, as Bartlettreasoned early wheninteracting with the users

of his programs in schools, the needsof users always should come before the wishes of programmers.

Unsurprisingly, Anne and HenryBartlett live in northern Tasmania, thesouthernmost state of and an islandoff the southeast coast of Australia, a country in which necessity has longdriven do-it-yourself improvisation.As Henry remarks, “If I can, I tend to‘roll my own’ rather than looking forsomeone else’s solution.”

There now are 16 HABit utilities, allfreeware downloads from http://www.hotkey.net.au/~hambar/habit/. Asidefrom the WordStar Converter, myfavorites are HABCal, an on-screenperpetual calendar; HABEdit, aNotepad replacement with extra fea-tures; and HABExam, a disk searchutility. HABit also offers free soft-ware for schools and a Karaoke

WordStar ReviverBy Michael Brady

Small utilitiesthat solve

small problems

11

Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

Presentations (IEEE Press–Wiley,2003), is available at ieee.org, inbookstores, and from Amazon.com.Their consulting firm, PERC Com-munications (+1 914 725 1024, perccom@aol.com), offers businessesconsulting and writing services, aswell as customized in-house courseson writing, presentation skills, andon-the-job communication skills. Visittheir Web site at http://www.allaboutcommunication.com/.

Manager developed in antipodeancooperation with a colleague inSweden. And Henry Bartlett now isdeveloping other utilities in responseto user requests. He remains thescholar of Chaucer’s CanterburyTales, gladly learning and gladlyteaching; the HABit Web site isrefreshingly devoid of the gobbledy-gook so common on software sites; a visit to it is worthwhile even if youdownload nothing.

Changing Needs (guest editor LaurelGrove), tentatively scheduled forSeptember 2005; and CommunicationIssues in User-Database Interaction(guest editorsHock ChuanChan andKeng Siau),with a tenta-tive publica-tion date ofMarch 2006.

The mosturgent upcom-ing business isthe change from print to electronicformat for the PCS Newsletter. Forthe final print Newsletter, editor RudyJoenk is recruiting photos, untold stories, articles, and recollections of PCS in bygone days, with a 31August deadline.

Muriel Zimmerman is PCS secretary.

Transactions on Professional Com-munication are in process: CaseStudies for Teaching TechnicalCommunication (guest editors Julia Williams and Judy Strother),

scheduled forDecember2004; Expand-ing the Bound-aries of E-Collaboration(guest editorsNed Kock and

John Nosek),tentativelyscheduled forMarch 2005;ResearchReality Check:ChangingGoals,

in Minneapolis and repackaging con-tent for online continuing educationcourses.

StandardsPCS hasbecome amember ofthe United

States Tech-nical AdvisoryGroup (TAG)working onstandards forsystems andsoftware doc-

umentation. Mark Haselkorn is PCSrepresentative to TAG, with BillAlbing as the alternate. AdCom mem-bers are pleased to participate in this

important ini-tiative. MarkHaselkornrecommendsthe Standardssection of the IEEEComputerSociety Website as a goodplace to learnabout these

issues (http://www.computer.org/standards/).

Editorial Advisory CommitteeFour special issues of the IEEE

Thomas Orr

Kirk St.Amant

Bill Albing

Julia Williams

PCS president Ed Clark

PCS treasurer Steve Robinson

Highlights of the AdCom Meeting(continued from page 4)

WordStar Reviver(continued from page 10)

Tools of the Trade(continued from page 5)

12

Five is a visual limit. When presentedwith five items or fewer, we knowinstantly how many there are, withoutcounting. When presented with morethan five, we must usually count toascertain their number. Knowing howmany items there are in a list is noobjective in itself, of course; if it

were, numbering items in along list would suffice tomake it readable. The visuallimit of five is an indicationof our capacity to process theitems nonsequentially, anessential condition I wouldargue, to understand theirrelationship fully.

Many, many lists that would benefitfrom such a global processing includemore (sometimes many more) thanfive items: lists of features or benefitsfor products, bulleted lists on slidesand also long sequences of slides nototherwise structured, lists of links on the home page of Web sites, para-graphs composed of long sequencesof short sentences, etc. Even the 22rules of Strunk and White’s Elementsof Style, useful as they are in isola-tion, are just so hard to remember as a structured whole.

Fortunately, our short-term memorycompensates in depth for what itseems to lack in breadth. How can we effectively convey more than fiveitems at a time? By grouping theminto a hierarchical structure. Threegroups of three items, for example,are considerably easier to process andremember than a single group of nine,as both the number of groups and thenumber of items per group are lessthan five. Through grouping, we haveturned sequence into recursion.

What could be simpler than a list,bulleted or otherwise? You merelygather some thoughts, then presentthem in sequence to your audience,one after the other. Yet this apparentsimplicity, as often can be deceptive:Keeping things simple is a difficulttask. As I write these lines, I amattending a large conference,and I am struck yet again byhow lists are misused andabused by presenters andconference exhibitors alike.

Lists, especially displayedones, suggest that items arecomparable, that they belongto a common set. Ensuringthat this be the case is a first steptoward making effective lists. Phras-ing these comparable items in a com-parable way (so-called grammaticalparallelism) is the next. Contrary towhat software applications such asPowerPoint might suggest, bulletedlists hardly tighten loose thoughts;consistency of visual presentationdoes not guarantee consistency ofcontent.

Still, even well constructed lists(those exhibiting parallelism of bothcontent and form) may be hard toprocess, simply for being too long.What “too long” means dependspartly on the list’s purpose; a longalphabetized list, such as a phonebook or font menu, remains manage-able. But as soon as the audiencemust grasp all items together, that is, be able to play with them in ran-dom order, not just in sequence, listshad better be kept short. How short? I recommend that they include nomore than five items—a severe limit indeed.

Unsurprisingly, recursion is limited,too. When asked, the participants inmy training programs readily agreethat this limit is three. For example,they can easily visualize whereSection 2.3.1 fits in a document’sstructure, but find Section 2.3.1.4much harder. In other words, wewould do well to structure our docu-ments in no more than three levels(such as chapters, sections, and sub-sections), with no more than fiveitems at each level. Such a restrictedapproach still provides 5 ✕ 5 ✕ 5 =125 subsections, so it is unlikely tocramp our style.

A limit is not a target; sometimeseven five items—or three levels—are too many. A table of contents that runs on many pages no longerprovides the expected overview andmight usefully be limited to two lev-els, such as chapters and sections,perhaps with a local table of contents(sections and subsections) at thebeginning of each chapter. Similarly,we cannot expect attendees of an oralpresentation to remember three levelsof preview; two is a maximum, one(a few main points) being preferable.

For communicating information in an accessible and memorable way, Ihave not seen anything better yet thana well-designed tree, balancing depth(levels) and breadth (items)—androoted in solid ground for content.

Dr. Jean-luc Doumont teaches andprovides advice on professionalspeaking, writing, and graphing. Forover 15 years he has helped audi-ences of all ages, backgrounds, andnationalities structure their thoughtsand construct their communication(http://www.JLConsulting.be).

Long, Long Laundry Lists

No more thanthree levels,

no more thanfive items ateach level.

July/August 2004Good Intent, Poor OutcomeN e w s l e t t e r

Jean-luc Doumont

13

access only to overall ideas and can-not serve as a substitute for a human-translated text.

Next, students can engage in a com-parative research exercise in whichthey first review the coverage a news-paper in their country gives to a par-ticular event. Then they use SYSTRAN

to examine how online newspapersfrom different nations cover the sameevent, and they write short paperscomparing how cultural differencesmight affect international discussionsof this occurrence. Through such anexercise, students learn how differentcultural perceptions can affect cross-cultural discussions of an event.

This Web page option can also pro-vide a foundation for understandinghow translation factors affect local-ization. Translation deals with texts;localization deals with texts and otheraspects that might need to be recon-figured to meet the expectations ofanother cultural group. Localizersmight therefore work on items suchas the visual design or the layout ofmaterials (e.g., a Web page), andtranslation factors can affect theseactivities.

In the case of Web sites, images thatcontain text (e.g., buttons) can beproblematic because localizers mightneed to recreate those items to dis-play translated texts. In other casesproblems can result from text expan-sion—a situation in which morewords or longer words are needed totranslate an idea from one languageto another. The English word Warn-

conversion, press the Enter key, andreceive the translation Qu’est vers lehaut? Students then copy this Frenchexpression into the Text box and con-vert it from French back into English.The result is What is upward?—a literal translation of the Frenchexpression, which was a direct trans-lation of the original English idiom.Instructors can then explain howcomputer-based translation is limitedand should not be used as a substitutefor actual linguistic ability.

Such MT programs can, however,produce a general overview of ideaspresented in another language. To

appreciate this application,students should first accessthe online version of a news-paper written in another language. (One example isthe Web site for the Frenchnewspaper Le Monde,http://www.lemonde.fr.) The instructor then asks students how many of themcan understand the informa-tion presented on that site

and how linguistic limitations affecttheir ability to understand the ideasand opinions of another culture.

After this discussion students returnto the SYSTRAN site, type the URLfor Le Monde into the Web page box,and translate the text of the site fromFrench into English. This use of MTallows students to overcome somelinguistic barriers when researchingother cultural perspectives. Instruc-tors, however, need to caution stu-dents that this approach provides

Today’s technical communicator is a part of a growing global forum.Participation within this forum isoften restricted by language, how-ever. In some cases individuals mightnot be able to review items written in another language. In other caseslinguistic factors might affect howmaterials need to be redesigned, orlocalized, for other cultures. Techni-cal communication students thereforeneed to understand how linguisticfactors can affect professional success.To introduce students to those con-cepts, instructors can use exercisesinvolving machine translation (MT).

When used appropriately,MT can be a valuable communication tool, butinstructors need to familiar-ize students with best usesof such technologies. Oneresource for achieving thisobjective is the SYSTRAN

Web site, http://systransoft.com. First, however,students must understandthat there is no substitute for person-ally learning another language; instruc-tors should teach students about thelimits of MT and how those limita-tions can cause miscommunication.

To explore MT limitations, instruc-tors can use an exercise that exam-ines differences between the literaland the intended meaning of expres-sions. For this exercise studentsaccess the SYSTRAN site, type theidiomatic expression What’s up? intothe Text box, select English-to-French

Teaching with Machine TranslationBy Kirk St.Amant

Machine trans-lation provides access only to

overall ideas and is not a substitute

for a human-translated text.

Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

Thinking Globally, Teaching Locally

(continued on page 15)

14

PlanningThe first step in any Web site devel-opment process is planning. Theorganization needs to know what itwants to accomplish with the site. Is it looking for:

• More foot traffic to their location?

• An informational resource for theirtarget audience?

• A sales tool offering online sales?

• A value-add for vendors and suppliers?

Once the purpose and goals aredefined, the organization can map out what it wants the site to look like.We find that using an organization-chart structure works best. This helpsorganize the pages on the site and letsthe designer know how many linksshe or he needs to accommodate thehome page design.

DesignAfter a site map is created, the organ-ization needs to hold a design meet-ing with the developer to discusslikes and dislikes and the image theorganization wants to portray online.At this stage the designers shouldalso discuss color palettes and anybranding requirements the organiza-tion may have.

Instead of directly creating a fullyfunctional site based on the design,the designer can create two or threesnapshot designs that the organizationcan show around the office. This sig-nificantly reduces costs by eliminat-ing programming of a design the

It’s been a while since I last coveredcreating information or e-commerceWeb sites on a shoestring budget(September/October and November/December 2000). From much of theliterature out there, however, it wouldappear that it is not possible to createa Web site for a small organization(one earning less than USD 50 mil-lion annually). Unfortunately, smallbusiness owners read those books andfeel that a Web site is out of theirreach when, in reality, a Web site isdefinitely within their reach.

As the owner of a Web site develop-ment company, I work with smallbusinesses and nonprofit organiza-tions on a daily basis. We often findthat the benefits of a Web site to asmall nonprofit organization mayexceed, on a proportional basis, thebenefits of a Web site to a multina-tional corporation. That is why I findit disheartening to review new booksabout Web site development, only tolearn they suggest that creation costsstart above USD 250 000. It is possi-ble to create a basic informationalWeb site for less than USD 5000.

The process for creating a small siteis very similar to the one used to create a large site, just on a muchsmaller scale. There are five basicphases to site development: planning,designing, programming, testing, andmaintenance. This column coversmethods small organizations can useto minimize their costs. For smallsites, it is better to hire a consultantthan to try to do it in-house. The endresult is well worthwhile.

organization may not like. Organi-zations often review these snapshotsand ask for tweaks. Not until the finaldesign is approved should a program-mer become involved.

ProgrammingThe programming stage is where itall comes together. In theory, theorganization has been collecting con-tent (images, text, etc.) for each pageon the site map while the designerhas been working on the design. Thisis another area where the organiza-tion realizes cost savings. More con-tent provided by the organizationmeans less content development forthe developer. Organizations oftenhave all the material they need for the Web site, they just need to pull ittogether and organize it.

A small site requires less program-ming simply because there are fewerpages to create. In addition, there arefewer variations from the design ofone page to another. This allows theprogrammer to create a template onwhich the pages are based, savingtime and keeping costs low.

TestingWhen the programmer has completedthe design, the organization is pro-vided with a beta site to review. Thisis a chance for both the programmerand organization representatives to gothrough the entire site, make sure alllinks and images appear, verify thatforms work and results are sent to the appropriate locations, and checkthat all dynamic content is correctlyimplemented.

Web Sites on a Shoestring Budget

July/August 2004Net NotesN e w s l e t t e r

Elizabeth Weise Moeller

15

tools for the organization to keep thedata current or they can suggest toolssuch as Macromedia Contribute toallow the organization to update thesite on its own without “breaking”the site.

There is no reason that an organiza-tion need take in millions of (U.S.)dollars per year to have its own Website. With the use of consultants whospecialize in this area, a small busi-ness or nonprofit organization can

have a site professionally done withinits budget.

Elizabeth Weise Moeller was presi-dent of PCS 2002-2003. She ownsInteractive Media Consulting, LLC(+1 518 587 5107, beth@imediaconsult.com), a World Wide Web andInternet training firm in SaratogaSprings, New York, which providesWeb site design and Internet trainingfor businesses in the Northeast.

ing (1 word, 7 letters), for example,becomes Mise en garde (3 words, 10letters) when correctly translated intoFrench. (Note: SYSTRAN will trans-late Warning as Avertissement.) Ifitems such as buttons are designed to accommodate an English termexactly, those items might need to becompletely redesigned to accommo-date text expansion resulting fromtranslation. To work effectively withlocalizers, students need to viewmaterials in terms of both texts andvisuals, and MT can facilitate such an understanding.

In one exercise students would useSYSTRAN’s Web page function totranslate pages containing images that display text. In the resultingtranslations the text of the pages willbe converted but not the text that was integrated into images. Studentswould next review what items were

translated and what items remaineduntouched. This prompts them to view materials in terms of text and images, and this perspectivehelps them realize how both factorsaffect cross-cultural communication.Instructors can then ask students tobrainstorm methods for providingvisual materials in an easy-to-localizeformat.

In a second exercise students reviewtext-based images that were not trans-lated and try to determine whether anitem or the layout of the site needs tobe reconfigured to accommodate textexpansion. From this point studentsdiscuss how they might have initiallydesigned the site to accommodatetranslation, text expansion, and local-ization. Through such an activity theylearn why it is important to keeptranslation and localization in mindwhen creating original materials.

Used correctly, machine translationcan be an important tool for technicalcommunicators. MT-based exercisescan provide students with a founda-tion for understanding and appreci-ating translation and localizationprocesses. Such an understanding canhelp students succeed in their careersand become more informed partici-pants in global forums.

The author is an assistant professorwith the Institute of Technical andScientific Communication at JamesMadison University in Harrisonburg,Virginia. He has a background inanthropology, international govern-ment, and technical communication,and his research interests includeintercultural communication, onlinecommunication, and international e-commerce. He can be reached atstamankr@jmu.edu.

After the beta site has been reviewedit “goes live” and is visible to every-one using the Web.

MaintenanceOne thing often forgotten is that Websites are dynamic, “living” docu-ments. They need to be updated oftenand content should be refreshed when-ever possible; this can be as simple askeeping a calendar up to date. Webconsultants can provide dynamic

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Teaching with Machine Translation(continued from page 13)

16

5 Pentad Regeneration6 Hexad Structure-Function-

Order7 Heptad Enchanting Virgin8 Octad Periodic Renewal9 Ennead The Horizon

10 Decad Beyond Number

The very design of the table of con-tents at once reinforces the simplicityand suggests the complexity of thesubject covered, inviting the reader to learn progressively. As Schneidernotes, the Greek words provide morethan numerical order: They “repre-sent a process of unfolding cosmicqualities and principles” (p. xxix). To

fail to open the doors tothe chapters is to depriveoneself of ten enjoyable,illuminating experiences.

Schneider’s choice of epi-graphs and aphorisms isunerring in its power todrive home whatever point

is at hand. For example, MarilynFerguson’s “Our biggest failure is our failure to see patterns” (p. xxvi);Shakespeare’s “The wheel has comefull circle” (p. 16); Aristotle’s “Theaim of art is to represent not the out-ward appearance of things, but theirinward significance” (p. 75); andfrom the Talmud, “If you wouldunderstand the invisible, look care-fully at the visible” (p. 78).

The book cannot be read passively. It irresistibly demands active involve-ment—often in the form of writtenreactions to Schneider’s flawless

with strategies that work, like (1)chapter titles that entice the reader in; (2) epigraphs at the start of eachchapter and relevant aphorisms inter-spersed passim in sidebars that keepthe reader focused; (3) ample marginsand white space that encourage thejotting down of marginalia; (4) aplethora of interactive exercises thaturge involvement at every turn; (5) an abundance of apt graphics to illus-trate content; (6) an astonishing vari-ety of subjects in the real and theoret-ical worlds that confirms the author’sstature as a Renaissance person; (7)sentences that satisfy because of theirrefreshing lucidity and commonsense; (8) fascinating,little-known facts, (9) a comfortable, unpreten-tious tone that puts thereader at ease, makingher or him receptive towhat Schneider offers;and (10) a profoundinsight into the nature ofthings, of virtually every aspect oflife, that enlightens the reader. Whatmore could a person expect from awritten document?

Here are some of the delights ofSchneider’s masterful book. Asalways, how a person says somethingis every bit as important as what aperson says.

His chapter titles, for example, are:

1 Monad Wholly One2 Dyad It Takes Two to Tango3 Triad Three-Part Harmony4 Tetrad Mother Substance

Life is complex. For some of us,however, life is child’s play whencompared to mathematics. Imaginemy joy, then, when I chanced on thefollowing books that make this intim-idating subject both comprehensibleand engaging:

1. Ian Stewart, Nature’s Numbers:The Unreal Reality of Mathematics(New York: Basic Books, 1995)

2. Mario Livio, The Golden Ratio:The Story of Phi, the World’s MostAstonishing Number [1.61803](New York: Broadway Books,2002)

3. Margaret Visser, The Geometry ofLove: Space, Time, Mystery, andMeaning in an Ordinary Church(New York: North Point Press,2000)

4. Michael S. Schneider, A Begin-ner’s Guide to Constructing theUniverse: The MathematicalArchetypes of Nature, Art, andScience (New York: HarperPerennial, 1994)

Although I highly recommend themall for their ability to make theabstract concrete—a vitally importantskill for professional communicatorsto develop, of course—I restrict mycomments here to the last book listed.

Let us explore some of Schneider’stechniques for elucidating the seem-ingly inscrutable. With a steady dedication to guiding the laypersonthrough the maze of mathematics,Schneider presents his subject matter

The Magic of Math

July/August 2004Masters of StyleN e w s l e t t e r

Ronald J. Nelson

Authentic tone, word choice, and

easily manageable sentences make for

a wonderful journey.

17

logic, insightful phrasing, connec-tions to the world around and withinus, and choice of examples—in theabundant white space provided.

Quoting Thomas Carlyle’s words(“The best effect of any book is thatit excites the reader to self-activity,”p. xxix), Schneider encourages thereader to do geometric constructionson paper or in the sand so that he orshe can “[recall] the ageless processof creation, replicating with our mindand hands the generative principlesby which the universe is evolving”(p. xxx). As geometers, we need “to discover the inherent proportion,balance, and harmony that exist in any situation” (p. xxx). So Schneidergives tips on using the three tools ofthe geometer (compass, straightedge,pencil) and has the reader draw a cir-cle, representing One. In doing so,the reader comes to participate in the first archetypal principle of theMonad—“equal expansion in alldirections” (p. 10)—and is givenexamples in nature: ripples expandingin a pond, Harold Edgerton’s crater of milk, the growth rings in a treestump. The second principle of theMonad—“the circle’s rotary motion”(p. 12)—is brought home with graph-ics and explanations of biological andinorganic processes, the rock cycle,the circulatory system, and the illu-sion of wheels (bicycle). Indeed,“Every process is characterized bycycles” (p. 15). The third principleinvolves “the area within the circum-ference” of a circle (p. 16), which isthe maximum for any shape; the cir-cle is therefore the most efficient

the human body. Hexagonal tilingpatterns linked with images fromnature and fantasy form the basis formany of the works of M. C. Escher.Heptads are intimately connected tomusic, light (rainbows), and sevencrystal systems. Octads appear inchess, in the periodic table of the elements, in the phases of the moon,and in art.

Nine is the greatest single-digit num-ber and so represents “the limit towhich the generative principles ofnumber reach.” As three trinities (3 ✕ 3), nine is thrice sacred and issynonymous with “perfection, bal-ance, and order” (p. 302). It is foundin the Egyptian Ennead, the nineworlds of Odinic Mysteries, the nine-story Mayan temple, and the nine-level pagoda. Folk sayings alsoembody nine: “A cat has nine lives,”“Go the whole nine yards,” “dressedto the nines.” After nine, we are inthe limitlessness of a new beginning,that is, 10. Ten is not a number, but“the epitome of number” (p. 324) andis the basis for the Kabalah, “an intri-cate system of letters, numbers, andsounds describing the structure of the cosmos, our body, and our innerlife” (p. 331).

Schneider sprinkles interesting facts here and there in the book, providing pleasant surprises. Forexample, 111111111 ✕ 111111111 =12345678987654321 (p. 3) and“Seven doesn’t form finite relation-ships with other numbers. When anynumber is divided by seven it alwaysleaves an endlessly looping trail of

shape, illustrated by a ring roadaround a city, drawing the wagonsinto a circle, round tables, a bird’snest, an igloo, and other circularshapes.

For Dyad, Schneider has the readerdraw a vesica piscis (the bladder ofthe fish)—also known as the man-dorla (almond in India)—therebyillustrating the basic structure of the

stoma (pairs of cells on the under-side of a leaf that enable plants toexchange oxygen for carbon dioxide;the birth portal or yoni in Sanskrit;the secret sign between Christians inRoman times and often seen today(on its side, with tail taken from partsof the two circles) on the backs ofautomobiles; and the logos of TWA,MasterCard, and CBS Television.

The range of Schneider’s subjects andgraphics to illustrate them is indeedimpressive. Various icons and logosin a tripartite pattern call for theviewer to be alert as well as remindedof stability, wholeness, and strength(yield signs, Allied Van Lines, 100%Recyclable). Tetrads take the form ofchessboards, pyramids, and squarelabyrinths. Leaves configure as pen-tagons, as do starfishes, apples, and

Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

Masters of Style

(continued on page 22)

Vesica piscis

18

July/August 2004

N e w s l e t t e r

Chapter News

PhiladelphiaBy Jeffrey Douglas

For 13 years the Professional Com-munication Society chapter of theIEEE Philadelphia Section has heldan annual student paper contest. Stu-dents are invited to submit a papercovering the technical or societalaspects of engineering. The contestgives them an opportunity to exerciseand attain recognition for their writ-ing skills. Awards were presented atthe section’s student night, 13 April.

This year an excellent set of paperswas received from students from four area schools: Drexel Univer-sity, Rowan University, SwarthmoreCollege, and Villanova University.First prize (USD 200) went toMichael Campolongo and TimOsedach of Rowan University for“Fabrication of Nanoscale Electrodesfor Molecular Characterization”; 2nd prize (USD 150) to MeganMoran and Amy Vanderslice ofRowan University for “Design andFabrication of Three-DimensionalStructures for In-vitro Bone CellStudy”; and 3rd prize (USD 100) to Leonardo F. Urbano and Jacob P.Warren of Drexel University for“Power Consumption of MobileDevices in a MANET.”

The authors of the three winningpapers chose to enter their papers in the IEEE Region 2 student papercontest also. The regional contestincludes an oral presentation and is a part of the IEEE Region 2 Stu-

dent Activities Conference, held thisyear at Cleveland State University,Cleveland, Ohio, 23-25 April 2004.Megan Moran and Amy Vanderslicetied for first place in the regionalcontest and Leonardo Urbano andJacob Warren took third place. Theother first-place paper in the regionalcontest was “Optimization of Micro-wave/Optical Interaction in a Mode-Locked Microchip Laser” by PrashantPoddar of Lafayette College.

Honorable mention in the Philadel-phia Section contest went to the fol-lowing students:

From Rowan University: AliasgarGangardiwala for “DynamicallyWeighted Majority Voting for

Incremental Learning,” and MichaelMuhlbaier and Apostolos Topalis for“Learn++.MT: A New Approach toIncremental Learning.”

From Swarthmore College: GeoffHollinger and Nick Ward for “Intro-ducing Computers to Blackjack:Implementation of a Card Recogni-tion System using Computer VisionTechniques.”

From Villanova University: CharlesMcMullan for “Artificial NeuralNetworks,” and Thong Nguyen for“Novice for Society.”

Adapted by the author from the IEEEPhiladelphia Section Almanack,May 2004.

Five authors attended and presented short summaries of their papers. Flanked by Jeffrey Douglas (PCS chapter chair and contest coordinator)

on the left and John Sudano (IEEE Philadelphia Section chair) on the right are (left to right) Michael Muhlbaier, Michael Campolongo, Megan Moran,

Amy Vanderslice, and Tim Osedach.

19

Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

the adoption of new technologies inthe market. When discussing withpossible non-Finnish investors orconsumers, the engineering-orientedFinns often speak a “different lan-guage” than the other person.

There is only one global consumerproduct originating from Finland: a mobile phone. Other successfulFinnish products, like paper-makingmachines, are capital goods. The dif-

ference between consumerand capital goods is thatcapital goods are bought byengineers. Hence, a Finnishsalesman can speak thesame language as the capi-tal goods buyers. In someFinnish companies, extrapersonnel were hired in the

’90s to write usable and readableinstruction manuals. Traditionally,engineers have written manualsexpecting that consumers understandthe same as they do. The third prob-lem in reporting about business eco-nomics in Finland is that the lan-guage of business research reportingmay be too engineering-orientedbecause it is done for those whoposed the research questions. It is areal challenge for us to write aboutbusiness research so that it can beunderstood without technical skills in management accounting informa-tion systems, for example.

Since most of the business economicsresearch is read by engineers, thewritten text seems to be shorter thanin the U.S., for example, and full of

are widely developed in Finnish com-panies. Management accounting isinteresting to managers because itshows which products are the moreprofitable ones to produce, what is the most profitable productionmethod, how a certain piece of workcould be done with the fewest fingermarks. Technology and its use in themost profitable way seem to be thedriving force in Finnish companies’interest toward business economics.In the historical perspec-tive, this is not a surprise.Finland has never been acountry full of capital to beinvested. Rather, we havehad to compete in the mar-ket with few resources. It is natural that how to getthe maximum out of theminimum—productivity—has beenan essential research question. Thesecond problem in reporting aboutbusiness economics in Finland is thatnational characteristics have guidedbusiness economics to focus on man-agement accounting and productioneconomics.

Nevertheless, marketing research,market analysis, and financialaccounting and reporting are left to a very few experts. This means thatFinnish companies are mainly ori-ented to doing what can technicallybe done instead of what is expectedto be demanded that they do. Hence,market orientation is low. The conse-quence of this has always been andseems still to be that the success ofFinnish companies is connected to

How would you imagine conductingresearch on business economics?Hands-on in the financial reports oftop 500 companies, the analysis ofstock markets, or raw material prices?Continual measurement on the vari-ables that explain growth in the mar-ket? Yes but no. This all really is partof research in business economics,but in a small and highly technology-oriented country like Finland the ques-tions asked of business researchersdiffer slightly from those set in largecountries. In this note I illustrate thecharacteristics that prevail in businesseconomics communication betweenuniversity researchers and readers in Finland.

What makes the biggest differencebetween Finland and many Westerncountries is that Finnish decisionmakers are mainly people having anengineering background. The mosttypical education of top managementof the top 100 Finnish companies isengineering and technology. Eco-nomics or law as the basic educationof the top managers has been decreas-ing for the last 20 years. Hence, whenengineers are in the position of pos-ing research questions to universitiesor researchers, they pose primarilytechnically oriented questions. Thefirst problem in reporting about business economics in Finland is that engineers define to a highdegree what kinds of research ques-tions are posed.

For example, management accountingand its applications and techniques

Business Economics in Finland Means Writing to EngineersBy Harri Kulmala

Most Finnish decision makers

have an engineeringbackground.

(continued on page 20)

20

“How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat,dead!” Hamlet's cry upon hearingPolonius behind the arras* overflowswith Shakespearian connotation andhence travels poorly into other lan-guages. In Italian, Hamlet cries “Amouse!” There is reason for the shiftof rodent species, as famed Italianauthor Umberto Eco entertaininglypoints out in Mouse or Rat? Trans-lation As Negotiation,published in English lastyear.**

Though he focuses prin-cipally on the traps oftranslation between lan-guages, he broadens thescope by observing that“translation is always ashift, not between twolanguages, but betweentwo cultures or two ency-clopedias. A translatormust take into accountrules that are not strictlylinguistic but, broadlyspeaking, cultural.”Translation, he points out,also links differing media,as text and film; hence,the Walt Disney film ver-sion of Pinocchio is atranslation of the text aswell as the illustrations ofCarlo Collodi's original.

figures, diagrams, and equations. The fourth problem in reportingabout business economics in Finlandis that texts in business researchreporting are in danger of being toosimplified and too compact, and toomany risk or sensitivity analysesmight be left out.

Four problems have been mentionedin Finnish business economics writ-ing. Is there anything good? Yes.Forward-looking research and scenar-ios are of high interest in the Finlandof the 21st century. The average rele-vance and reliability of almost allFinnish business economics reportsare high. In addition, the nationalcompetitiveness of Finland and thesuccess of many Finnish companiesin the global market are evaluated asworld class. It seems that althoughbusiness economics reporting is notyet highly versatile in Finland, it iseffective and efficient.

The challenge in Finland is to findother than technological bases fornational success. In this process,business economics research andreporting could act as support. Thiscalls not only for change in the pos-ing of research questions but also inthe style of communication.

Dr. Harri I. Kulmala is a seniorresearcher in industrial managementat Tampere University of Technology,Tampere, Finland; Harri.Kulmala@tut.fi.

Translation Trials TeachIn short, unless the writer also is theoriginator, translation always entersthe process, be it between languagesor between genre. This book is amust for any wordsmith who hasstumbled in translating ideas to texts,and that means most of us.

— Michael BradyAsker, Norway

July/August 2004

* Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4.

** Mouse or Rat? Translation As Negoti-ation, by Umberto Eco, London,Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003, GBP12.99 hardcover, ISBN 0-297-83001-5.

Business Economics(continued from page 19)

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Volume 48 • Number 4Professor GrammarN e w s l e t t e r

1. Does a word with the desiredmeaning already exist?

If it does, you can tell your contentprovider that you won’t be using thenew word in the information that youown. (If the content provider objects,you may want to involve your editorin the discussion.)

For example, the word Webinar isused to mean pretty much the samething as the formerly new and nowwell-established word Webcast. Bothrefer to a short, Web-based technicalor marketing session that is broad-cast on the Internet and open to thepublic or to some specified audience.Therefore the Professor chooses notto perpetuate Webinar. (As an aside,the Professor is sure that you noticedthat both Webinar and Webcast areblends of two existing words.)

Another example is sitelet,which is used to refer to asmall Web site or to a subpartof a large site. But the existingterm Web site has no specificsize associated with it; a Web

site can contain 10 pages or 10 000pages. So the Professor is skepticalabout the need for the term sitelet.Also, she is starting to see the termzone used to refer to a part of a largeWeb site, and she prefers it because it more clearly denotes a part of alarger entity.

But suppose you decide, perhaps inconsultation with your editor, that the new word is needed. The secondquestion to ask yourself is:

Transfer

Borrowing a word from anotherdomain or from general usage andgiving it a specialized meaning in thedomain in question. The informationtechnology (IT) world is filled withsuch terms: boot, compile, crash,grid, kernel, server, surf, virus, worm,and so on.

Commonization

Conversion of a proper noun or proprietary word to common usage.Google is now going through thisprocess (“Why don’t you google itand see what you get?”), just asXerox did in an earlier generation.

Affixing

Adding a prefix or suffix. For exam-ple, the suffix -let has become popu-lar in IT, giving us applet, servlet,and four other words in theProfessor’s list.

Clipping

Removing part of a word,as in blog from Web log.

What do these processes have to do with your heroic efforts to turn a10 000-page legacy product libraryinto an elegantly organized networkof topic-based information? Simplythat in our work as technical commu-nicators we are bound to encounternew words in our source material andmust decide whether to perpetuatetheir use. To help you make this deci-sion, the Professor suggests that whenyou encounter a new word, you askyourself two questions:

Can you define these words?

blog skin (software)captology socksifycoopetition soft skillselytics viewletmidlet Webifyportlet Webinarsitelet Webucation

Don’t worry—the Professor doesn’thave the definitions at her fingertips,either. You won’t find many of thosewords in the Merriam-Webster onlinedictionary (http://www.m-w.com/home.htm), nor in the IBM Glossaryof Computing Terms (http://www.ibm.com/ibm/terminology/goc/gocmain.htm). They are new words, andthe Professor has started seeing themin her editing work within the lastyear or so.

As many of you remember from yourcollege linguistics classes, languagesare dynamic, generating new wordsto refer to new phenomena. Newwords may arise in the social domain(adultolescent), the scientific domain(gluon), the political domain (spindoctor), and of course in our owndomain of information technology.New words are created through a fewstandard processes. You are probablyfamiliar with those processes, even if you do not know the linguisticterms for them:

Blending

Merging two words, as in breakfast +lunch = brunch, and cooperation +competition = coopetition.

New Words

Should weperpetuatetheir use?

22

July/August 2004

N e w s l e t t e r

2. Will your users understand themeaning of the new word, eitherfrom its context or from the word itself?

If not, you of course need to sup-ply a definition either inline in text,through a link, or through an easilyaccessible glossary entry. If you can’tfind a formal definition in the twosources named or on the Web, youcan propose your own definition andsubmit it to whoever manages termi-nology for your company.

By the way, while the Professorreveres the traditional and is skep-tical of new jargon, she is a fan ofnew words when they are genuinelyneeded to describe new entities orphenomena. For example, a few yearsago the term servlet was a new word,but now it not only has a well-estab-lished meaning among Java and Web developers, it also has a formal,cross-industry specification that

spells out its technical characteristics.And the Professor is intrigued by theterm captology, which refers to thestudy of how to coax users to stay on a Web site long enough for themto take some desired action, such as reading, downloading, or buy-ing. Will college computer sciencedepartments someday offer courses in captology?

New words like the ones mentionedin this lesson are continually enteringthe IT world, where they either gainacceptance and become part of the ITvocabulary or else fade away intooften well-deserved obscurity. Yourtreatment of those words when youencounter them can not only help our users understand and use ourproducts, it can also help determinewhether the words become part of the IT vocabulary of tomorrow.

Copyright 2003 by IBM Corporation.Used with permission. Professor

Grammar is an advisor to the IBMSanta Teresa Laboratory EditingCouncil. Each month she sends a les-son to the technical writers at theLaboratory. Many of the Professor’slessons are based on tenets describedin the Prentice-Hall book DevelopingQuality Technical Information: AHandbook for Writers and Editors,recently authored by the Council.

Workshops on Saturday morning (2 October) are focused on technicalcommunicators:

• An Introduction to Usability forTechnical Communicators, BrendaHuettner

• Developing Strategies to Help You Prosper in Turbulent Times,Katherine Brennan Murphy

• Grammar, Vickie Mikelonis

• Helping Users to Use Help,Stephanie Rosenbaum

• Job Search Strategies, PatO’Donnell

Register online at http://www.ieeepcs.org (click on IPCC 2004);register before 31 August to save$150 on your admission!

For the complete program and newsand updates, visit us online. We lookforward to seeing you at IPCC 2004,Communication Frontiers.

IPCC 2004 Highlights(continued from page 24)

Masters of Style(continued from page 17)

repeating decimals, 142857, mysteri-ously omitting 3, 6, and 9.” Thus, 1/7 = 0.142857…; 2/7 = 0.285714…;3/7 = 0.428571…; etc. (p. 226).

Throughout the book, Schneider’sauthentic tone, word choice (chal-lenging words are invariably accom-panied by an explanatory parentheti-cal expression), and easily manage-

able sentences make for a wonderfuljourney through the world of num-bers. It is an adventure well worth the time and energy expended.

Ron Nelson is a professor of Eng-lish at James Madison University,Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807; +1540 568 3755, fax +1 540 568 2983;nelsonrj@jmu.edu.

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Volume 48 • Number 4

N e w s l e t t e r

IPCC 2005

July/August 2004

N e w s l e t t e r

IPCC 2004

24

N e w s l e t t e r

Program Highlights andWorkshops

NAVIGATINGTHE EVOLVINGFRONTIERS OF

COMMUNICATION

29 SEPTEMBER – 2 OCTOBER, 2004

Find out how to navigate the ever-changing landscape of professionalcommunication at IPCC 2004, Com-munication Frontiers. This three-day conference will feature some of the world’s most respected andacclaimed experts whose workpushes the boundaries of science,engineering, communication, andother fields. You will also gaininsight from other communicationprofessionals, explore areas withinyour discipline that are profitable forresearch, and preview cutting-edgecommunication technologies.

Here are two of the exciting eventsthat will take place at IPCC 2004:

• Luncheon keynote address (1 Octo-ber) by William Horton, acclaimedauthor and communication special-ist, entitled “O Brave New Media,”

which will describe trends in technical communication and explain why the 21st century will be markedly different from the previous five centuries. Horton will also give a workshop entitled Visual Fluency,which explores how to effectivelycommunicate business and technicalinformation visually.

• Apple Computers will host a tech-nology room, which will allow youto preview upcoming communica-tion technologies that may rapidlychange the face of communicationwithin the next few years.

Workshops on Friday afternoon (1October) are focused on engineers:

• Can Everyone “See” Your WebSite? Beth Weise Moeller

• Making the Most of YourPresentation, Jean-luc Doumont

• Visual Fluency, William Horton

• Writing Better Specifications, Bette Frick

• Writing for Publication, KimSydow Campbell

(continued on page 22)