Introduction: special issue on structuring complex information for electronic publication

To improve the structure of complex information when it is to be presented electronically, technical communicators may turn to ideas taken from object-oriented programming to clarify and revive the structure of the material in existing documents before mounting them on-line. When an organization starts moving information onto the Web, technical communicators may go through a phase transition: as the publishing system becomes much more complex, it exhibits emergent behaviors, and it demands new attitudes, concepts, and work from the technical communicator.