Technical Communication student soliciting your help

[Alethea Otero <aotero -at- NMT -dot- EDU>]

Greetings TECHWR-L,

As an undergraduate at New Mexico Tech, I am in the process of writing
my Senior Thesis about single-sourcing.  After reading through several
scholarly references (JTBC, TCQ, STC journals and proceedings), I feel
that I've gotten only a taste of what professionals in industry really
feel about this subject.  Although the TECHWR-L archives contain
applicable discussions, I would like more insight pertaining directly to
the questions I am addressing.  Since TECHWR-L has a wealth of
knowledge, I am soliciting your help.

Would you like to help?  Below are the questions which I am
considering.  If you would like to provide some professional insight, I
would really appreciate and consider including your experience in my
thesis.  To save bandwidth, please respond offline.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Alethea Otero
aotero -at- nmt -dot- edu
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1.  What is single-sourcing (ss)?
        -How do you define it?

2.  How do technical communicators (tc) prepare their documents for ss?
        -Please discuss application, platform, and media issues.

3.  How does ss affect document design?
        -What do you have to consider now?
                * audience analysis
                * chunking
                * scrolling
                * tags for effectivity control
                * font size
                * graphics (size and quality)
                * anything else

4.  How does ss affect tcs? job descriptions?
        -Do we need more education?
        -Do we need programming experience?
        -Are we going to earn better pay with more experience?
        -Can we consider ourselves "english engineers with a technical          twist?

5.  Is ss just a phase?