The award honors research that has made positive, significant contributions to technical communication practice and teaching. It rewards a lifetime of quality research in the field, a single high-quality empirical study, or a set of related high-quality studies. Menno de Jong received the Ken Rainey Award for his pioneering use of methods for formative analysis of audience response to public documents, his contribution to the training of a large number of scholars, and the significant impact of his work in expanding our understanding of best practice in the field.