Journal of Business and Technical Communication

This article explores the relationship between current theoretical definitions of risk communication, the unique national role that EPA plays in defining health and environmental risks, and possible explanations for EPA's inability to persuade the city of Aspen, Colorado, to accept its plan for a massive cleanup of toxic lead mine wastes. Many explanations for the reversal of EPA's cleanup plan at Aspen could be advanced, but we concentrate on the definition of risk communication upon which EPA's internal risk communication guidelines are based—guidelines that its field representatives are invited to follow. In particular, we now explore ownership messages conveyed through metacommunication conflict with EPA's risk communication guidelines.

Workers at a Canadian industrial site read a vignette asking them to send a message to a co-worker and then rated their preferences for available message channels. We explored the respondents' preferences for either a word-processed or a handwritten message. The results indicate that (a) main effects and interactions involving hierarchical level, message length, message complexity, anticipated reaction, communication task, need for documentation, and communication across work shifts affect preferences for wordprocessed versus handwritten messages; (b) the cost control perspective can explain preferences for word-processed versus handwritten messages; and (c) scholars should distinguish between various types of written messages rather than grouping all written messages together in a single category.

To find out more about the communication needs of people in business, the author sent questionnaires to 2,200 chief executive officers (CEOs) and directors of personnel or training. I received 207 answers. Respondents believe that oral communication before a small group is important and that principles of communication should be stressed over formats for letters and memos. They believe reading and editing, as well as grammar skills, are very important. In many respects, the results of this survey are similar to those of others done across the country in the past 20 years, but there are some comments on reading, editing, and writing letters with bad news that were not part of earlier surveys.

This study investigates the effects of case and traditional assignments on the writing products and processes of community college students. Specifically, each of 57 first-year business students in three sections of a business composition course wrote in response to either (a) two traditional assignments, (b) two short case scenario assignments, or (c) two lengthy, elaborated case assignments. Participants' letters were scored using a performance criteria rating scale for determining both overall quality and specific trait quality. Results indicate that the case assignments generally produced more effective writing products than did traditional paradigm assignments. Results also indicate that the elaborated case assignments generally produced better writing products than did the short case scenarios. However, results also suggest that the writing of participants who already possess business-related experience was not as affected by assignment type as the writing of inexperienced participants. Finally, qualitative measures suggest that the writing processes and attitudes of participants. completing the case assignments were highly sensitive to audience and context, whereas the processes and attitudes of participants completing the traditional assignments were highly sensitive to organization, format, and correctness.

Formal classroom instruction and literature in the field never replace the learning that occurs from actual experience in the workplace. Recognizing this, the authors—two senior technical communicators—identify several typical, but not predictable, organizational problems that involve technical communicators and present them in a how-to, anecdotal fashion.