Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy

Introduction

But in these cases / We still have judgement here, that we but teach / Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th' inventor.

-- Macbeth (I. vii. 7-10).

Instructions do return to plague their inventor -- and their inventor's employer. Poorly-written instructions can cause financial difficulties. In the months before it was introduced, Coleco Industries' Adam Computer was heralded by many as the first affordable machine for the then-new home computer market. In November of 1983 hundreds of buyers returned their Adam for alleged defects, critics dubbed the machine the "Adam Bomb," and for the last quarter of that year Coleco posted a net loss of $35 million. At one point Coleco blamed not the hardware, but poorly-written instruction manuals.

They can also cause legal difficulties. Various Consumer Protection Laws -- among them the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act and the Consumer Product Safety Act -- require standards of labeling on manufactured products and in accompanying instructions. Industries making misleading claims about product safety and effectiveness, and offering instructions with inadequate warnings, have been found liable for both punitive and compensatory damages in the millions of dollars.

Of course, poorly-written instructions can cause injury and death. The accident at Three-mile Island nuclear reactor in 1979 was caused in part by faulty instructions. Two engineers inspected the reactor in November 1977, and warned that cooling system valves with a tendency to stick open might, under certain circumstances, drain the coolant water from the reactor core and so bring about an uncontrolled nuclear reaction or "meltdown." They urged that operators be instructed not to interfere with emergency pumps which would pour water into the reactor, should they ever engage. But such instructions were never added to the operating guidelines. When, the morning of the accident, a stuck valve did drain water from the reactor, metal tubes holding the uranium fuel began to rupture, and the temperature of the core climbed from a normal 600°F to a very dangerous 4,000°F. For various reasons the operators misinterpreted alarms; not understanding that the core was uncovered, and not having guidelines telling them to do otherwise, they repeatedly overrode the automatic safety mechanisms and turned the emergency pumps off.

The Problem of Audience

Most of us have been frustrated by poorly-written instructions, but we have not wondered why they are so poorly-written. The reason in many cases is that an author assumes his audience is as familiar with the product or the procedure as he is. Unless told explicitly to do otherwise, most writers tend to write to an audience of their own background, of their own reading level -- in a sense, they tend to write to themselves. A writer can overcome this tendency by making special efforts to address his audience -- if that audience is identifiable and homogenous. Unfortunately, audiences of instructions are extremely diverse. One user of computer software may be so familiar with the standards of software design that she does not really need to read its instructions; another may have never touched a computer keyboard; and the majority of readers possesses skills and knowledge lying somewhere between.

The best solution is to invent an audience of the lowest common denominator. Professional writers of instructions assume neither competence nor knowledge on the part of their audience; they assume, in fact, that the only skill the audience brings to the project is the ability to read. This practice has proven effective. The unskilled and uneducated reader is comforted and provided all the information necessary to perform the task. The skilled and educated reader -- who may require the instructions only to refresh her memory in certain areas -- will find the instructions a useful accessory. Because they are well-designed, she is not bothered that they are written to a reader less competent than she.

Instructions which use a standard format, which assume no previous knowledge on the part of the reader, and which are clearly written, may nonetheless be misunderstood. The only way to be sure that instructions work is to build field-testing into the writing process -- that is, observe a subject using them, note mistakes that might be caused by your prose, and adjust the next draft accordingly. Field-testing instructions is common practice in industry: most computer software programs are used and critiqued by test groups at various stages of development.

Murphy and His Law

"Murphy's Law" says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. In his book Into Orbit, Astronaut John Glenn explains the origins of the phrase: "We blamed human errors ... on what aviation engineers call 'Murphy's Law.' 'Murphy' was a fictitious character who appeared in a series of educational cartoons put out by the U.S. Navy ... Murphy was a careless, all-thumbs mechanic who was prone to make such mistakes as installing a propeller backwards" (85).

"Murphy's Law" has come to mean a humorous comment on fate, and on the uneasy relation between humans and technology. But it is interesting to recall that Murphy began as a device to help technical writers focus their prose; he presented not so much a problem in technology as a problem in communication regarding technology. Murphy remains as useful as ever: an author of instructions will benefit from asking how Murphy might interpret (or misinterpret) each step.

Performance-Oriented Instructions

Strictly speaking, performance-oriented instructions are not written to educate their reader. The reader of this type of instructions does not need to know to why the steps are performed in a particular order, or why they are performed at all. The reader needs only to know how they are performed. In short, performance-oriented instructions have two purposes:

1) to show their reader how to perform the task in question and

2) to assure the reader that she can perform the task in question.

The reader is told why she is performing a task only when such knowledge might enable her to perform it more easily or effectively. The phrasing is as unambiguous as possible; the reader may be working with unfamiliar tools and materials, and may depend upon the instructions more than she depends on her common sense.

A useful format for writing a set of performance-oriented instructions follows:

1) A specific title assures the reader that the equipment she is operating is the equipment described. A reader who is halfway through changing a dust filter on an M-1 tank does not want to be struck with doubt that the 'filter' in the instruction manual may not refer to the filter in her hand.

2) Following the title may be an overview -- that is, a brief, one-paragraph description of the procedure. The purpose of the overview is to tell the reader what to expect, and to reassure her. Toward these ends, most overviews compare the task to another which the reader has probably performed: "Installing software in a Model 57 computer is very much like installing system software in a Model 56 computer," "or performing a flight check for a Boeing 747 is very much like performing a flight check for the wheel wells of a Boeing 727."

3) A list of tools enables the reader to gather tools before beginning. The list is arranged as a column so that the reader may use it as a checklist. Each entry is specific: it will not, for instance, cite a "screwdriver"; it will cite a "six-inch, flathead, non conducting screwdriver."

4) Similarly, a list of materials enables the reader to gather materials before beginning. Materials are differentiated from tools simply in that materials can be used up. As with tools, materials are named specifically by size, quantity, dimensions and brand name; any and all particulars are cited.

5) Instructions which describe a dangerous task should include a general warning near their beginning. Here we may allow the reader some information beyond the immediate task: "DO NOT USE A TWO-PRONGED PLUG: ELECTROCUTION MAY RESULT." The reader is not only made aware of danger; he is kept aware: warnings are repeated throughout. As an author of instructions you should presume nothing and consider every case -- including children, non-native speakers and people ignorant of a danger most would take for granted.

6) Many instructions describe tasks which involve the possibility of damaging equipment or materials. In such cases a general caution is included. A general caution may be used also to alert the reader to time limitation.

The American National Standards Institute categorizes various types of dangers and recommends corresponding warnings.

For instance, a Class I sign indicates serious danger likely to result in irreversible damage or injury. It appears as the word "DANGER" spelled in white letters in a red oval outlined in white on a black background.

A Class II sign indicates danger less likely to happen, and/or which results in a less serious injury. It appears as the word "CAUTION" spelled in yellow letters on a black background.

A Class V sign identifies potential radiation hazards. It appears as "DANGER OR CAUTION" in magenta letters on a yellow background, and may be accompanied by the radiation symbol.

These symbols are usually found on signs fixed on or near the source of the subject danger. When budget permits, writers should use them in a printed instruction manual.

7) Background information may appear in a note. Labeling such information as a note makes it parenthetical: the reader knows that she may overlook it and safely complete the task. Warnings, cautions and notes should draw attention to themselves by disrupting the layout of the text. They may be set outside the standard margin; they may be set in boldface or italics; or they may be set inside shaded boxes.

8) As with lists of tools and, steps are given in sequentially-numbered order to allow the reader to use them as a checklist. Each step should begin with an imperative verb.

Each step should include the action, the object(s) of the action, and the tool and/or material necessary to perform the action. For instance: "Remove ten three-inch wood screws with six-inch non-conducting screwdriver." In some cases, the tool and/or material to be used is obvious: if the step demands the removal of screws, and the tools list at the beginning of the instructions includes only one screwdriver, most readers will know to use that screwdriver. But again, instructions are not written to "most readers"; they are written to the reader of least intelligence.

Each step should be limited to a single task: this underscores the checklist format, and ensures that the reader will not overlook a command that follows another so closely that it is hidden. The only exception to this rule occurs in the case of steps so near in sequence that separating them will confuse the reader. If, for instance, performing a certain action will produce an effect which might surprise a worker, that effect should be described as part of the step: "Turn #2 valve counterclockwise 45 degrees, releasing the coolant." Or: "Turn #2 valve counterclockwise 45 degrees; the coolant will be released."

If you suspect the reader may not understand a term, define it. Put the term in boldface or italics, and place its definition in parentheses immediately after the first use of the term. If the definition requires more than one line, and if the reader must understand the term if she is to complete the task, highlight the definition in a box or in different font -- and again place it immediately after the first use of the term. If understanding the term is not essential to completing the task, and its definition requires more than one line, use a footnote.

Performance-Oriented Manuals

Elementary school teachers are fond of presenting students with a kind of test in following directions. The top of the first page warns: "Read the entire test before answering any of the questions." A series of some fifty steps ask the reader to list three kinds of ice cream, to draw a picture of the school on the back of the paper, etc. But the last step tells the reader to disregard all previous steps. Typically, two or three students out of twenty abide by the initial command -- the remainder are working furiously when the teacher admits that the exercise was a kind of joke. But the point should not be lost on authors of instruction manuals: even after elementary school, people would rather act than read, and most will not read a manual thoroughly or even entirely. Further, people familiar with a certain procedure or equipment are likely to use the instruction manual only for troubleshooting: they will turn a machine on, test its abilities, and refer to the instructions only when they reach a dead end.

Instruction manuals are not written to be read cover to cover; they are written to allow a user to find specific information easily. Accordingly, they should have an overall organization which is logical and predictable. Toward this end, all instruction manuals share five design features: an overview of the process, a table of contents, a presentation of the process broken logically into stages, a section regarding information not essential to the performance of the steps, and a cross-referenced index.

Beyond this, instruction manuals vary greatly in length and in complexity -- from one page for an automatic coffeemaker, to several bound volumes for an aircraft flight manual. Many longer manuals are written with the aid of Structured Document Processors -- systems which automate the production of large documents which require highly standardized formats.

The following is an overview of the maintenance section from an operator's manual for a U.S. Army rough-terrain vehicle. Despite the sophistication of the equipment, the language of the instructions is simple (in fact, it is written to an eighth-grade reading level), and the tone is colloquial -- there are contractions and exclamation points.

2.7 PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE CHECKS AND SERVICES

a. Do your before (B) PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE just before you operate the vehicle. Pay attention to the CAUTIONS and WARNINGS.

b. DURING checks and services (D) of PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE will be performed while the equipment and/or its component systems are in operation.

c. Do your after (A) PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE right after operating the vehicle.

d. Do your weekly (W) PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE weekly.

e. Do your monthly (M) PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE once a month.

f. If something doesn't work, troubleshoot it with the instructions in this manual or notify your supervisor.

g. Always do your PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE in the same order so it gets to be a habit. Once you've had some practice, you'll spot anything wrong in a hurry.

h. If anything looks wrong and you can't fix it, write it on your DA Form 2404. If you find something seriously wrong, report it to organizational maintenance RIGHT NOW.

i. When you do your PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE, take along the tools you need to make all the checks. You always need a rag or two.

WARNING

Dry Cleaning solvent, used to clean parts is potentially dangerous to personnel and property.
Do not use near open flame or excessive heat.
Flash point of solvent is 138°ree; F.

Most of the numbered sections begin with a word or words which describe an area which may present a problem; if the user has trouble with a bolt, for instance, she does not need to search for the word buried in the text; she may look to the left margin.

(1) Keep it clean: Dirt, grease, oil and debris only get in the way and may cover up a serious problem. Clean as you work and as needed. Use dry cleaning solvent (P-D-680) on all metal surfaces. Use soap and water when you clean rubber or plastic material.

(2) Bolts, nuts and screws: Check them all for obvious looseness, missing, bent or broken condition. You can't try them all with a tool, of course, but look for chipped paint, bare metal or rust around bolt heads. If you find one you think is loose, tighten it, or report it to organizational maintenance if you can't tighten it.

(3) Welds: Look for loose or chipped paint, rust or gaps where parts are welded together. If you find a bad weld, report it to organizational maintenance.

(4) Electric wires and connectors: Look for cracked or broken insulation, bare wires and loose or broken connectors. Tighten loose connectors and make sure the wires are in good shape.

(5) Hoses and fluid lines: Look for wear, damage and leaks, and make sure clamps and fittings are tight. Wet spots show leaks, of course, but a stain around a fitting or connector can mean a leak. If a leak comes from a loose fitting or connector, tighten it. If something is broken or worn out, report it to organizational maintenance.

j. It is necessary for you to know fluid leakage affects the status of your vehicle. The following are definitions of the types/classes of leakage you need to know to be able to determine the status of your vehicle. Learn, then be familiar with them and REMEMBER -- WHEN IN DOUBT, NOTIFY YOUR SUPERVISOR!

Leakage Definitions for Crew/Operator PMCS

Class I: Seepage of fluid (as indicated by wetness or discoloration) not great enough to form drops.

Class II: Leakage of fluid great enough to form drops but not enough to cause drops to drip from item being checked/inspected.

Class III: Leakage of fluid great enough to form drops that fall from the item being checked/inspected.

CAUTION

EQUIPMENT OPERATION IS ALLOWABLE WITH MINOR LEAKAGES (CLASS I OR II). OF COURSE, CONSIDERATION MUST BE GIVEN TO THE FLUID CAPACITY IN THE ITEM/SYSTEM BEING CHECKED/INSPECTED. WHEN IN DOUBT, NOTIFY YOUR SUPERVISOR.

CLASS III LEAKS SHOULD BE CORRECTED IMMEDIATELY OR REPORTED TO YOUR SUPERVISOR OR ORGANIZATIONAL MAINTENANCE.

(from Operator's Manual: Truck, Forklift, DED, Pneumatic Tire, Articulated frame Steer, 4000-lb. Capacity, Rough Terrain, Army Model MHE 237 [NSN 3930-01-076-4237]) Immediately following this section is a troubleshooting table through which the reader can easily reference a given problem to any of several likely causes.

Educational Instructions

A manufacturer mixing toxic chemicals, a surgeon using a new technique for tonsillectomies, and a maintenance worker de-icing an aircraft are all operating in circumstances in which errors might be costly and even life-threatening. These procedures are complicated and/or dangerous enough that their performer should understand not only the steps, but the reasons for the steps. A reader who knows why she is performing certain operations can better anticipate, understand and respond to situations the manual does not mention. Moreover, a reader made to understand why she is performing a certain action is more likely to remember it to begin with. And the more the reader remembers the better: many dangerous procedures demand reactions so quick as to make reference to a checklist impossible.

The author of educational instructions does not need to limit steps to a single sentence. In fact, several paragraphs may be necessary to explain the consequences of particular actions -- especially when those consequences present a danger.

Many educational instruction manuals include tutorials which instruct the reader and simultaneously test his knowledge. Software programs include printed instructions which show their user what the screen should look like at every crucial juncture; if the visual on the page does not match what he sees before him, he knows to return to a previous step. And because the user is actively participating, he is more likely to remember what he learns.

Some tasks vary so much with circumstance that no single set of instructions could possibly be useful. For instance, the proper disposal of hazardous wastes by research and teaching laboratories is complicated because such facilities generate a great variety of wastes, and because types of wastes require different methods of disposal. No universal instruction manual is feasible. What is feasible is a kind of process description which allows for a range of contingencies.

Instructions and International Audiences

Audiences have a need so basic we may forget it: familiarity with the language itself. For reasons of liability discussed above, instructions are very sensitive to this need. Canada has laws requiring instructions to be written in English and French. Common Market products often give instructions in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. And American manufacturers working with Common Market countries often do the same.

Language may be the most obvious aspect of a culture, but there are many others, and an author of instructions must be aware of them as well. The United States' is a relatively litigious society -- a fact which greatly affects instruction manuals written here -- determining their intended audience, their detail, their many cautions and warnings. But such litigiousness does not exist worldwide. In Japan, for instance, lawsuits are a last resort -- the cultural assumption is that because no harm was intended, no one should be punished. (In this context, it is not surprising that by one estimate, in that the ratio of lawyers to engineers in the United States is 50 to 1, and in Japan, 10 to 1.) Consequently, Japanese instruction manuals are quite different from those discussed in this chapter. Although they may have a general warning as a preface, they carry few or none of the detailed cautions and warnings that are mandatory in American instructions. Other cultural factors come into play as well. For instance, because the Japanese regard commands as rude, steps are likely to be presented not in imperative voice ("Turn #3 valve clockwise"), but in a conditional tone ("When one turns #3 valve clockwise, the solution is released from Chamber A.").

The best advice for writing instructions to an audience from another culture is contained in a set of instructions from that culture. Of course, even instruction manuals which originate in, for instance, Mexico, may be insensitive to their audience. An author should find those written by an organization which is long-established and respected.

Instructions and New Communications Technologies

Most scientific and technical communication will be changed by emerging technologies. And instructions are likely to be altered most. New technologies are making possible instructions which do away not only with texts, but with words themselves.

Hypertexts

A hypertext is a type of computer-generated document which allows its user to choose a number of ways in which to approach it: she may skip certain portions of the text, view an example embedded in the text, review a section of the text, or refer to data relating one section to another. In short, a hypertext allows its user to cross-reference parts of the text in such a way as to discover links between them, and to find a path through the document. A hypertext instruction manual might guide its user with a series of prompts:

"Which set of skills would you like to learn?"

mouse skills
menu skills
formatting skills

"Please place the cursor on the highlighted words indicating the type of skills you would like to learn, and click the mouse."

If the user indicates she would like to learn "mouse skills," the next screen will describe various uses of the mouse. Or, if she indicates she would like to learn menu skills, the next screen will take a different path, and describe various uses of the menu. In the sense that a hypertext allows a user ready access to any portion of it, it allows the user to tailor the instructions to his own needs. Sophisticated hypertexts have embedded sound: cautions and warnings may be accompanied by a tone, so alerting a user more effectively than would print alone. Others have embedded videos -- particularly useful for demonstrating complicated procedures.

Expert Systems

Expert systems are attempts to reproduce the expertise of a human being in an electronic form. More specifically, they are computer programs working in concert with one or more databases to simulate the problem-solving and decision-making processes of a human expert within a specific field.

Expert systems are, in part, very sophisticated databases. While conventional databases contain only quantifiable knowledge, expert system databases contain knowledge gained by an expert over years of experience, and which is difficult to reduce to numbers. This "rule of thumb" knowledge enables the system to make educated guesses, to recognize promising approaches to a problem, and even to accommodate incomplete data. Expert systems are also very sophisticated intermediaries between database and user. Conventional databases have intermediaries of menus and prompts which help a user find his way to specific information. But they are simple and fairly rigid, permitting only a narrow range of questions. Expert system intermediaries, on the other hand, are flexible and amazingly responsive: they allow a user to ask vague questions, and may even help him decide which questions to ask.

In many fields, performance-oriented instructions have given way to expert systems. The technology is young, but can already claim some outstanding successes. CHARLIE locates mechanical problems from measurements of vibrations; PROSPECTOR discovered a molybdenum deposit worth $100 million; CADUCEUS can correctly diagnose complex test cases in internal medicine. One expert system has been used to suggest new avenues of research. If and how expert systems will affect more mundane activities remains to be seen. In the years ahead manufacturers may place electronic repair manuals in a kind of electronic library accessible via a wide-band communication network, giving skilled consumers and professional servicepeople the advantage of expert advice, and unskilled consumers an idea of the seriousness of the problem and the probable cost of its remedy.

Many of you will be using expert systems before long. Some of you will be designing them, or helping to design them. At present the field is expanding rapidly, and nothing like a format exists. But here as in other realms, common sense applies. Expert systems will be judged by the same criteria with which we now judge instruction manuals: source and quality of knowledge, and ease of use.

Interactive Video and Virtual Reality

Near the dawn of this century an aeronautical engineer weighed experience against observation.

"There are only two ways of learning to ride a fractious horse; one is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each motion and trick may best be met; the other is to sit on a fence and watch the beast awhile, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter system is safer, but the former, on the whole, turns out the larger proportion of good riders. It is very much the same in learning to ride a flying machine; if you are looking for perfect safety you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds, but if you really wish to learn you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial."

-- Wilbur Wright, 1901

There may now be a third way to learn to ride the horse. If the future of performance-oriented instructions might be expert systems, then the future of educational instructions is interactive video and virtual reality. Proponents of interactive video claim that it offers its users an experience less like watching and more like doing. A certain interactive video may, for instance, teach Newton's First Law of Motion by displaying an image of an object moving through a frictionless environment, and allowing the user to change the environment to an atmosphere and thus slow the object, or introduce a gravitational field and so change the object's direction of travel. The user would learn Newton's Law intuitively, and so perhaps more easily.

A still more convincing reproduction of actual experience is offered by virtual reality programs. Virtual reality may be thought of as an extension of interactive video -- providing its user visual, audio and in some cases even tactile input, and so moving him closer to the experience of performing an action. One of the first virtual reality programs was created to provide an intuitive understanding of molecular bonding. The user looks into stereoscopic lenses which show a computer-generated simulation of two molecules. The user can do more than observe the simulation; he can manipulate it. At the end of a remote manipulator arm is a baseball-sized sphere; when the user rotates the sphere, the corresponding image of the molecule rotates too. And importantly, there is feedback: if the molecule represented is prone to a certain orientation, the user will feel resistance when he tries to move against that orientation.

One advantage of virtual reality is its low cost. Architects may gain something like the experience of walking through a house without having to build it, pilots may be provided something like the experience of a mid-flight refueling without incurring the costs of an actual flight, and crucial parts of any procedure may be easily and inexpensively repeated. A second advantage of virtual reality is that it is, after all, not real. Because the aircraft it crashes and the patients it allows to die are merely simulated, pilots and surgeons may learn from their mistakes with no cost to human life. A third advantage of virtual reality is that for some tasks it provides the only adequate rehearsal. Astronauts practicing to repair the Hubble Space Telescope used a virtual reality program.

The nearest approximation we have to prehistoric and pre-lingual instructions may be offered by chimpanzees who gather termites by bending and moistening a twig, and then inserting it into a termite hole. Younger chimps can perform the action only after watching older ones -- that is, only after being provided instruction. In some form or other, instructions have been in existence as long as tools have. Indeed, instructions might be thought of as a bridge between humans and their tools. And for the first time that bridge may be about to be circumvented.

The Human Engineering Division of the Armstrong Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is investigating the possibility that pilots may be able to fly aircraft with brain waves alone. One electrode is attached to the back of the test subject's head and one is fixed beneath each ear. The subject controls the orientation of a prototype cockpit by increasing or suppressing his response to the flashing of two fluorescent tubes. Flying by brain waves seems not to be intuitive: test subjects have to learn to respond correctly. At present, "brain actuated control" is too imprecise to be trusted in an aircraft. But some engineers are already talking of a cockpit without instruments.

The overriding technical limitation of these technologies -- that they are not portable -- is about to be overcome: in 1993 the Army began troubleshooting engines with a laptop computer programmed with an expert system. There is another problem, and it is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. As with any manual, a hypertext an interactive video or a virtual reality program may be misdesigned: it may explain what you already know and fail to explain what you do not know. So although the proponents of such technologies suggest that they are valuable at times when "words fail," it may be dangerous to rely on them to heavily: at moments we need to explain a procedure without access to a video. And we need to appreciate that words may not fail us as much as we fail words.

Discussion

1. In the nineties surgeons do not speak of human organs being cut from a body; rather, they are harvested. Public aquariums are careful not to say their large marine mammals were captured; rather they were acquired. And hospitals tell the heart attack victim not that he will require operation -- but a procedure. Consider these changes in definition to our appreciation of their subject. Are they comforting and merely polite? Are they deceptive? Are they in some sense both?

2. Controversies inspire slogans and bumper stickers like the following.

split wood, not atoms
you can't hug a child with nuclear arms
save the rainforest
loggers are an endangered species
one nuclear explosion can ruin your whole day
we all live downstream
send in the clones

Because these phrases must represent an entire argument in a very few terms, those terms are necessarily representative. That is, the advice "split wood" represents and encourages a use of energy that goes beyond heating with wood. Exactly what do the words in the other slogans represent? What assumptions do they make? What other persuasive strategies are employed? Appeals to reason? to humor? to fear?

3. In 1950 C.M. Kornbluth published a short story entitled "The Little Black Bag." In it, human intelligence has degenerated greatly, but the degeneration has been masked by technology. The "little black bag" of the title, contains surgical tools usable by someone with no skill or training in surgery. The "expert systems" discussed in this chapter obviously allow non-experts to perform operations of which they would otherwise be incapable. Can you think of a situation in which technology masks or replaces a lost skill? Is this a trend which should concern us? Why?

4. John McCarthy, inventor of the phrase "artificial intelligence" and proponent of expert systems, once asserted that "even machines as simple as thermostats can be said to have beliefs." In answer to the obvious question ("What beliefs does your thermostat have?"), McCarthy offered three -- "[I]t's too hot in here, it's too cold in here, and it's just right in here.")1

Is McCarthy's use of the word "belief" unusual? Exactly how? Why might the statement be considered disturbing?

Exercises

1. Choose one of the following terms

mass
black hole
microscope
ecology
genetic
broadcast
bonding
system
evolution
gravity
focus
feedback

and write an essay tracing and describing its changing meaning over time. Especially useful will be the Oxford English Dictionary -- which dates the first use of every definition. You might also find helpful any of the various dictionaries of scientific and technical terms listed in the Further Reading section below.

2. Compose a "blue-sky" functional description of one of the following: a) a bicycle pump, b) a hand-cranked egg beater, c) a blow dryer, d) an pump-spray bottle, e) a steam iron, f) a cassette player, g) an electric toothbrush. Assume your audience has a high school education with little or no background in mechanical engineering. Be certain to choose as your subject a device whose mechanism you understand. Compose a "limited" functional description of the same tool, assuming again that your audience has a high school education with little or no background in mechanical engineering. Again, be certain to choose as your subject a device whose mechanism you understand.

3. Compose a two physical descriptions -- one for an artist, one for a manufacturer -- of one of the following: a) a chair, b) a computer keyboard, c) a pair of eyeglasses, d) a shirt or blouse.

4. Compose a process description of any activity of which you have personal experience: composing a paper, planting tomatoes, washing a window, etc.

5. Groups will compose descriptions appropriate to their projects: i.e., a group proposing to redesign a public space composes a physical description of present and proposed spaces; a group proposing a new means of classroom evaluation composes a description of a procedure.1. Compose a set of instructions using standard format for one of the following procedures:

a. changing oil in an automobile
b. lighting a fire in a woodstove or fireplace
c. any simple laboratory experiment: c.f. testing the relative hardness severalminerals, growing anaerobic bacteria, etc.

Assume "Murphy" is your audience.

6. Find a set of instructions that you consider poorly written. (You may have certain instruction manuals at hand -- instructions for using computer software, programming a video recorder.) Rewrite it according to the criteria presented in this chapter.

7. Study an instruction manual (automobile engine maintenance, computer software installation, or chocolate cake recipe), and translate it into a video script. Be sure to include camera angles and the text for a narration. Also be sure to attend to overall length: video is costly, and is likely to remain so. Which two minutes of the same procedures would be facilitated by being presented in virtual reality?

8. Research the history of a tool and compose a brief report of that history, paying particular attention to ways in which social and cultural forces shaped it (mechanical limitations, human physiological needs, inventor's whims, etc.).

Further Reading

Alberico, Ralph and Micco, Mary. Expert Systems for Reference and Information Retreival. Westport, CT: Meckler Corporation, 1990.

Allaby, Michael, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Natural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985

Basmajian et. al., eds. Stedman's Medical Dictionary. 24th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1982.

Bergman, Robert E. and Moore, Thomas V. Managing Interactive Video/Multi-media Projects. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications, 1990.

Boffey, Philip M. et. al. Claiming the Heavens: The New York Times Complete Guide to the Star Wars Debate. New York: Times Books, 1988.

W.F. Byrum, E.J. Browne and Roy Porter. Dictionary of the History of Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Committee on Energy and Commerce. Compilation of Selected Acts Within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

Cox, Gertrude M. "Expert Systems." McGraw-Hill Encyclopredia of Science and Technology, Volume 6. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992.

Douglas M. Considine. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. Princeton: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982. Sixth Edition.

Endoso, Joyce. "He's No GI Joe, but Army's TED Helps Mechanics Repair M1 Tanks." Government Computer News, v12 n12 p 62, June 7, 1993.

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1 Neil Postman, Technopoly (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 111.

Definitions, Descriptions, and Instructions
Chapter 8: Part 2

David M. Toomey with James H. Collier

Book Contents

Chapter 8: Part 2

Definitions, Descriptions, and Instructions Chapter 8: Part 2

David M. Toomey with James H. Collier

Book Contents

Chapter 8: Part 2

Definitions, Descriptions, and Instructions
Chapter 8: Part 2