What technical writing students do know and should know about typography

Abstract

This paper examines technical writing students' ratings of five typefaces' on five tone attributes like "professional" and "technical" It also examines students' written assessments of typefaces, investigating why students perceive typefaces to convey different attributes and how students relate different typefaces to different types of documents. Two main findings emerged from this analysis of both quantitative, semantic differential data and qualitative, written responses: 1) Students lack the vocabulary to make fine distinctions among text typefaces; and 2) Students sometimes make associations among attributes that experts would not agree with. Four guidelines, generated by analysis of students' responses, are discussed: 1) Choose a typeface with relatively large, open counters and large x-heights for legibility and readability; 2) Choose a typeface with no or moderate modeling for professionalism; 3) Choose a typeface with variable pitch (as opposed to a fixed pitch) - to avoid an excessively technical tone; and 4) Avoid typefaces that mimic other modes of writing to avoid distracting readers from the message.