Virtual resources for technical communicators: two studies of writing and reading on the Internet

During the fall, 1993, the Internet was the focus of 170 articles (R. Wright, 1993), yet few technical communicators have documented how an environment that attracts over 6000 new users per month will affect their profession. The paper describes data collected from 39 technical communicators who use the Internet and discusses its effect on their productivity as professionals. In addition, we introduce the development of online multi-user domains (MUDs) where students, professionals, and educators can interact and collaborate in real-time