An introduction to the discovery of communication as a variable in organizations is presented in this paper. The need to develop instruments adapted to gathering data on organizational communication is discussed, and a number of specific techniques that have been used for analyzing organizational communication within the framework of standard research devices are reviewed. Each of these reviews, which cover retention measures, disparity scores, readability measures, self recording methods, measures of rumor transmission, and ways of measuring network effectiveness, is followed by a brief assessment of the merits of the instrument. (Author/SH)