Contracting is an integral component of both government (i.e., public) and private business. As part of the contracting process, contracting companies must submit proposals to federal agencies or private businesses; individuals who write proposals on behalf of contracting companies are known as proposal writers. Although proposal writers are central to the proposal writing process, they are only marginally represented in available literature on the contracting and proposal writing processes. Additionally, available literature is disproportionately influenced by industry and trade sources, versus academic sources, and completed by industry authorities. As a result, key findings from such reports may not reflect the feedback gathered as part of this research. This research utilized a 25-question survey with both multiple choice and free answer questions to gauge the most and least effective components of the proposal writing process. Communication and collaboration—internally within the proposal team or within the company, and externally between the company and customers, clients, etc.— were cited as both the most and least effective components of the process. Notably, however, communication and collaboration were not the most frequently encountered issues, as only 23.5% of proposal writers reported communication as a common issues. Instead, supporting resources (46.9%), time/ schedule (49.2%), and direction. instructions (44.9%) were reported as the most common issues that proposal writers encountered, although one in four participants noted that issues were not consistent across proposals.

The global reliance on fossil fuels is driving climate change and urban air pollution, both of which constitute grave threats to public health. Poor air quality has dramatically increased the incidence of respiratory illness in large cities. Climate change has brought about increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events which directly affect public safety and lead to destruction of farmland and fresh water sources. A globally scaled transition from fossil fuel combustion to low-carbon “clean” technology for power generation is necessary for both climate change mitigation and urban air quality improvement—a feat that could be feasibly accomplished through worldwide development of renewable energy (RE) infrastructure, consequently resulting in improved pub-lic health. From the perspective of advancing technical communication research, this study performs a qualitative content and frame analysis of recent newspaper articles that draw connections between RE and public health, thereby clarifying the primary messages the public receives about these two topics which are related by climate change.

Educational videos are a large part of the YouTube community, and an emerging niche of these videos is educational videos created by professionals in the field. Creating content on their profession establishes them as experts and trustworthy sources of information that audiences can turn to while researching topics relating to the field. This study includes eighteen videos from three doctors creating medical-educational content posted to YouTube. The purpose of this study was to determine if these content creators use best practices for educational videos and the common themes these videos share. The best practices were gathered from previous research conducted on educational videos. These practices are viewability, timing, accessibility, reliability, and confidence. Commonalities noted across channels were then coded to find common themes within the niche. These themes do not need to be in every video, but they should be present on two channels. These themes include formatting videos and thumbnails, styles of videos, and their use of humor and entertaining additional content. These videos also break down the negative perceptions of authority that are often attached to doctors by humanizing the doctors to the audience. Combining these best practices and the use of the found common themes strengthen the videos to create engaging and educational content.