Academic>Course Materials

Online-Help Modeling Project

The following includes the instructions for creating a model of a small help project and how to name and send it to your instructor.

Interactive Editing and Revision Exercises

These example exercises are intended to help you better understand how to write paragraphs according to the five patterns of organization listed above. Each example exercise is followed by an assignment that asks you to use the example exercises and the textbook as a guide in writing paragraphs that are clear and well organized.

Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century

The online companion to the textbook Technical Communication in The Twenty-First Century.

Visual Rhetoric Tutorial

This interactive tutorial is designed to supplement your use of TCTC, and provides new information and activities that will enhance your understanding of visual rhetoric. This tutorial has five main sections, Visual Rhetoric, Use of Visuals, Types of Visuals, Color, and Design. With only a few variations, each section is divided into smaller three- to five-page chapters, all arranged using three basic types of pages.

Website Design Tutorial

This web tutorial is designed for students making their first web pages. No previous experience writing HTML is expected. This tutorial will introduce you to the basic concepts of HTML code and will guide you through the creation of several practice web pages. Using this tutorial you will learn the skills you need to start making your own web sites.

Manual for Teaching HU333 at Michigan Tech

A manual to introduce new instructors to issues they must consider during the term prior to teaching Technical Communication.

Introduction to Technical Writing

An introduction to technical writing, with outlined notes about writing clearly.

Videotaping Student Presentations: A Quick Start Guide

A guide to using MiniDV digital camcorders to record student presentations, then to review them on a computer and copy them to DVD for later review.

Working Day: 9 to 5

A video documentary about the appropriate use of computer technologies in the workplace, which may be useful in talking about workplace ethics.

Writing for the World Wide Web

This is a course about writing and the World Wide Web in at least two different and related ways. First, we will be reading, 'browsing,' and writing about the World Wide Web in order to understand how the web works rhetorically. Second, we will be creating web sites that are good examples of effective web sites.

Project Evaluation Form

This form shows a generic, fill-in-the-blank evaluation form for small- and medium-sized projects.

Teaching Technical Communication

Course materials and teaching suggestions for the Technical Communication classroom (as taught at New Jersey Institute of Technology); website contains current assessment criteria and goals.

Slides to Teach Scientific Presentations

Given here are free PowerPoint slides from The Craft of Scientific Presentations (Springer, 2003). These slides have been requested by more than 200 instructors around the world.

Slides to Teach Technical Writing

Given on this site are free PowerPoint slides to teach technical writing. These slides come from The Craft of Scientific Writing (3rd ed., Springer, 1996). More than 400 instructors around the world have requested these slides.

Technical Writing Guide

The format in technical writing is similar to the pyramid technique used in journalism. Information is presented quickly to the reader with the most important details in the first sentence or two.

Designing Visual Aids for a Presentation

In addition to preparing and reading documents, professionals spend much of their time communicating their ideas orally. These oral exchanges take many forms—from informal telephone conversations to speeches in front of large audiences. During their careers, most professionals are required to give formal presentations—often they must give presentations on a regular basis.

Job Searching on the Internet

Many people look for jobs today by logging on to the Internet; after all, there are well over 100,000 companies on the Web today, and many of these companies post job listings on the Internet. Many other organizations that don't have Web sites use online services to publicize their job openings. This is particularly true in computer-related fields, but, increasingly, companies in other fields are using the Internet to find potential employees.

Writing Course Evaluations that Matter

An article on writing course evaluations that measure the effectiveness of training courses, in relation to business objectives and return on investment.

Sample Memo

A PDF document intended as a resource for teachers who want help describing the memo to students. This (relatively lengthy) sample memo attempts to make an all-too-familiar document strange again by explaining what it is and how to use it.

Technical Editing: Discussion and Application Materials

Assignments to complement Carolyn Rude's Technical Editing textbook. Instructors can load the materials onto a server or student disks so that the students can respond at the computer.

Technical Illustration Gallery

These are typical samples of technical illustrations. Click on an image to see the enlarged version. Furthermore, you can view each illustration in detail with IsoView.

Graphics Gallery

A collection of technical illustrations submitted and collected by professional technical illustrators.

Technical Editing Assignments

These documents are suitable for take-home, graded assignments or in-class workshops. As whole documents created in the 'real world,' they complement the sentence- and paragraph-level editing tasks in the textbook Technical Editing.

Technical Reports

The assignment in this unit is to learn about technical reports, their different types, their typical audiences and situations, and then to plan one of your own. Specifically, your task in this unit is to pick a report topic, report audience and situation, report purpose, and report type.

Anthrax Case Research

Compare the Anthrax technical information offered at the three major sites below. Where does the information seem most credible? Where is it the most complete and detailed? Where is it the easiest to navigate and read? Write a detailed analysis report comparing the information at the three different sites.

Culturally Sensitive Community Service

A group in your class has decided to help a local homeless shelter get some computers to assist people in their job searches. Now you must approach several local charities and businesses and ask for money for the project. Begin by compiling an audience profile (see page 32) on the student body. Then write a PowerPoint proposal that persuades the audience to support your project. Deliver it to your classmates as a stand-in audience. Make sure you state the need clearly, address issues of mutual concern, support any claims with evidence, and avoid violating any constraints.

Global Communication

Your company manufactures 'dress' sneakers—fancy athletic footwear that is designed as 'business' rather than 'athletic' apparel. Because of increasingly informal corporate attire policies, your company has experienced phenomenal success, and now wishes to expand internationally. But where first?

Learn Logic

Divide the fallacies listed equally among group members. Members must write a page on each of their assigned fallacies, explaining them clearly and providing at least five examples. Each site provides some examples already; you may use three examples from the site, but must find at least two examples from everyday usage. You may look in newspapers, on TV, or on other Web sites that do not deal with logical fallacies. Take turns reading each report to your group.

Remember Enron and Andersen!

You work for a mid-sized company that has about 700 employees. It is Wednesday afternoon. You learn from a reliable source that your company has just been bought out, but the public announcement will not be made until Friday afternoon. The company’s stock is currently selling at $15 per share. It will certainly jump to $20 within hours of the announcement. You and your spouse have been saving over the past year to buy a house, and have a sizable nest egg of nearly $20,000 in the bank. Your company already has over 20 million shares of its stock outstanding, and tens of thousands of shares are traded every day. No one is likely to notice if an employee were to buy 1000 shares. What do you do? Explain your actions and reasons in writing.

What is Fair Maternity Leave?

Your division’s new manager, a woman, believes that your company’s policy regarding maternity leave is inadequate, even though the previous manager claimed it met federal minimum requirements. She designates you and 3-4 others to investigate the issue. Discover what minimum federal requirements (if any) are in place and what standards are common among other companies in your chosen industry. Designate responsibility evenly among group members and discuss your findings. Your instructor may have you compile the results as a report.

Conduct an Analysis of Your Professional Language and Culture

Take any combination of the projects below and use them to generate data for a comprehensive report on the Language and Culture of your field. You will find one sample of such a document in the Models and Templates section of the web site. Study it closely, as it is a strong example of how such a report can be written.

Start a Simulated Consulting Firm

Your group of three to four students plans to start a technical communications consulting agency. Each of you should read one of the articles found under the heading 'Getting Started in the Profession' and 'Professional Associations' (in the Web Destinations section). Take and compare notes, then collaboratively write a two to three page proposal aimed at securing a business start-up loan from your local bank. Make sure you address your business's goals, marketing strategies, and services offered. All of this information should be based on your readings. To look at some short model proposals, go to the Models and Templates section of this Web site.

Effective Business Writing

An intensive training session on how to write clear, crisp, persuasive copy for letters, memos, proposals, reports, and other business documents.

Effective Technical Writing

An intensive training session on how to write clear, crisp, technically accurate copy for letters, memos, proposals, reports, articles, papers, and other technical documents.

Communicating Across Cultures

In today's global village, you will work with people whose cultural backgrounds differ from yours. Culture refers to the beliefs, customs, and assumptions that determine perception and behaviour. For example, residents of small towns and rural areas have different notions of friendliness than do people from big cities. Montrealers and Cape Bretoners talk and dress differently, as do people who live in Vancouver, Regina, Halifax, and Toronto. The cultural icons that resonate for baby boomers mean little to members of Generation X and Y. And gender culture often creates conversational incongruence between men and women. All human beings conform to a culturally predetermined reality. Part of Canadian cultural identity, for example, has been formed by our dual linguistic heritage and by the economic and military might of our southern neighbour. Geography, weather, population density, and natural resources also contribute to cultural reality. For example, the Canadian values of courtesy, community, and cooperation may have evolved as survival strategies in a vast, sparsely populated land. Perceptions about gender, age, and social class are culturally based, as are our ideas about race, ethnicity, religious practices, sexual orientation, physical appearance and ability, and regional and national characteristics. Regardless of your own cultural biases, however, your organizational productivity and individual professional success depend on your ability to communicate sensitively and flexibly with others.

Designing a Style Guide

For this project, you'll create a style guide for at least two markedly different technical publications. Your style guide will be used by technical writers on your documentation team to get these publications in conformance with each other, as well as other publication.

Activity Theory

Activity theory was developed in the Soviet Union. The philosophical underpinnings of this theory include the ideas of Hegel and Kant, as well as the theory of dialectical materialism developed by Marx and Engels. The theory evolved from the work of Vygotsky as he formulated a new method of studying thought and consciousness. Vygotsky was working on this theory at a time when the prevalent dominant psychological theories were based on reflexology (stimulus-response - which was later developed into behaviorism) and psychoanalysis. Reflexology attempted to ban consciousness by reducing all psychological phenomena to a series of stimulus-response chains.

The Toulmin Method

When learning written argument, it is always helpful to observe how others argue effectively or ineffectively. The Toulmin method, based on the work of philosopher Stephen Toulmin, is one way of analyzing a text that we read, with an eye toward responding to that particular argument (as in a writing assignment that asks us to respond) and, ultimately, toward analyzing and improving the arguments we ourselves make.

Case Studies Online

The March 1998 special issue of BCQ included 15 original cases for classroom use. We have now run out of the print version of the journal, but this site provides .pdf versions for your use. You are welcome to download and print these for your classes. Copyright for any other use of this material rests with the ABC. Listed below are links to supplemental materials for some cases. The materials include sample student responses to assignments (with identifying information masked) as well as comments on those samples and teaching and learning notes. The materials are not intended to be answers to case problems nor models of best practices but points for analysis and discussion.

ENGL XXX: Technical Communication

A sample syllabus for instructors who plan to use Mike Markel's Technical Communication textbook.

Observing and Analyzing Faculty Webpages

You are going to build a webpage for a faculty member within the next few weeks. The intention of this assignment is to help you determine what makes an effective webpage for a faculty member—in general, as well as for faculty in a particular discipline.

Technical Communication Skills: Lecture Slides

There is more to the lectures than the basic points printed on these OHP slides. They are not a substitute for being present, paying attention, taking notes, and you know I'm right.

A Concise Guide to Technical Communication Online: Instructor Resources

Instructor's resources for A Concise Guide to Technical Communication, by Laura J. Gurak and John M. Lannon. Among your choices are links to Web sites focusing on a range of topics related to writing and technical communication, including audience analysis, ethical issues in technical communication, layout and document design, web-site development, and research. Each chapter's resources also includes teaching tips and notes you can use to supplement your teaching materials.

A Concise Guide to Technical Communication Online: Student Resources

Welcome to student resources to accompany A Concise Guide to Technical Communication, by Laura J. Gurak and John M. Lannon. First select a chapter from the pull-down menu above. Once you have selected a chapter, you can choose from the left-hand menu a variety of resources to help you understand the topics covered in the text. Among your choices are links to Web sites focusing on a range of topics related to writing and technical communication, including audience analysis, ethical issues in technical communication, layout and document design, web-site development, and research.

Peer Review

The purpose of the peer review is twofold: First, the suggestions you give to your peers should help them revise their papers. Second, carefully reading others' work should help you better reevaluate your own writing.

Description-Writing Exercises

Linked to this page are 6 high-school-level exercises that teach (through worked and scaffolded examples) how to write good technical descriptions. Also included is a set of description-writing guidelines on which these exercises depend. The summary table below links to two versions of each exercise: * A plain version suitable for classroom use as is, and * An annotated version that: * spells out the goal of each exercise and the writing issues that it addresses, * compares the exercise with others in this set, * suggests effective, relevant teaching strategies, as well as extended activities, and * notes the specific 1998 California English-Language Arts content standard(s) that the exercise most strongly supports.

Read It Or Skip It? The Textbook's Preface

An informal survey of 18 modern technical writing textbook prefaces finds 75 to 100 percent of them tell readers the books meet students’ needs, contain special topics, have unique philosophies, emphasize the practical, contain sample documents, teach specific types of writing, and contain sections on computers and/or document design. Also, 50 to 75 percent of the prefaces state the books address ethical/legal issues, oral presentations, resumes/ job applications, corporate culture, and punctuation and/or grammar. Such repetitious content in textbook prefaces reduces their usefulness during the textbook selection process.

Technical Communication Textbooks: An Opinionated Guide

This guide is intended to help teachers select a textbook for the English 314 (Technical Writing) course. Please note that the statements in the following table represent the opinions of English 314 teachers. Some features listed as advantages by other teachers may seem like disadvantages to you, and vice versa.

Content and Development

As a writer, you need to know some strategies for developing the content for a writing project: what topics and subtopics to include, what to write about, how to think of material to cover concerning a topic.

Finding, Narrowing, Outlining Topics

In a technical-writing course, the ideal starting place is a workplace problem requiring some writing as part or all of the solution. With such a project, the audience and problem are there to help you narrow the topic. However, if you begin with a topic, it's harder to narrow. You are likely to end up with ten-pound textbook on automotive plastics, residential solar energy in the home, or La Niña. Narrow the topic and some careful research—the result will be a practical, useful document that doesn't go on forever. Narrowing means selecting a portion of a larger topic: for example, selecting a specific time period, event, place, people, type, component, use or application, cause or effect, and so on. Narrowing also means deciding on the amount of detail to use in discussing those topics.

Grammar Exercises: Fragments, Comma Splices, Agreement, Parallelism

Select the sentence that avoids errors in grammar (you may have to scroll to see all of the items), and then press the Click here ... button.

Organization

This section was part of a chapter made up of the following: Content—provides strategies for thinking of useful content for writing projects, in other words, developing the content of a project. Organization—provides strategies for reviewing the sequence and arrangement of the contents of a writing project. Transitions—provides review strategies for checking the coherence of a writing project, in other words, the 'flow' of the project as created by the transitions.

Sentence-Style Revision

Problems involving sentence-style cause writing to be unclear, wordy, unemphatic, and difficult to read. But sentences with these kinds of style problems are not necessarily grammatically incorrect—--nor do they violate any of the commonly accepted standards of usage. Yes, perfectly wretched, unreadable writing can be perfectly error-free! Federal, state, and local government—as well as academicians and lawyers in general—have long been the primary resource for wordy, pompous, and just plain bad writing. However, with the Plain English Movement, William Clinton's 1998 Presidential Memorandum on Plain Language, and similar events in state and local governments— government writing is becoming less and less an easy target. This chapter reviews some of the most common sentence-style problems, showing how to recognize them and how to fix them. Surely many others exist —we've just not trapped and labeled them yet. But in the wilds of bad writing, being able to recognize and revise sentence-style problems covered in this chapter will take you a long way—and enable you to recognize other types of problems as well.

Transitions

Power Tools for Technical Communication

You may find this website rather different from the obligatory websites for other textbooks. I've packed in nearly 200 exercises, quizzes, projects, and other sorts of activities that will keep your students busy all semester!

Sample Oral Presentation Evaluation Form

A form for evaluating presentations.

Analyzing an Organizational Web Site

The Web is still so new that there is very little consensus about what an organizational Web page should be and what purpose(s) it should serve. You will start this exercise by examining some organizational Web sites (preferably organizations in your field). You will develop criteria by which to judge organizational sites, and then use those criteria to evaluate a single Web site, with the site’s creator as your audience. Your criteria will doubtless include elements like the elegance of the design and should certainly include the navigational system and other Web page practicalities. They should also include the fundamentals that are important in all technical documents: suitability to purpose(s) and audience(s), content, organization, and tone.

Audience Analysis of a Usenet Newsgroup

For this exercise, you will be working with and expanding on the concepts of audience discussed in the textbook by completing these preliminary tasks: · Selecting a Usenet newsgroup that discusses issues in your field · Writing and posting a relevant question to the newsgroup · Collecting responses to your question After completing these tasks, you will write a report in which you evaluate your success in adjusting your communication to your chosen audience. In the process of completing this assignment, you will gain a more sophisticated understanding of audience and get better acquainted with the kinds of interactions with professionals and students that are possible on the Internet.

Collaboratively Planning and Preparing a Memo

A great deal of writing in the workplace is done collaboratively, and it’s important to get practice not only in writing, but in writing with others, which can be a very different process. In this exercise, you will write a memo collaboratively with another student, following the directions for assignment 1, text pages 153- 156, in Chapter 5 (“Collaboration in Workplace Communication”). You’ll also revise an information sheet.

Constructing an Organizational Web Site

Many business people and scholars see computer-mediated communications as the inevitable future of business and technical communication. Certainly we are seeing meteoric growth on the Internet. Increasingly, companies are relying on computer-mediated communication for external and internal communication, and Web page design and construction are becoming more and more a part of what professionals do on the job. For this exercise, you will be working with a team to develop an organizational Web site.

Creating a Visual

Research in visual design has demonstrated that tables are “the best way to show exact numerical values” when the reader needs to compare those values. In other cases, when comparison of exact numbers is not vital, other visuals may be more appropriate. Effective professional communicators analyze their audience’s need for the data and the purpose of the visual to determine the best presentation.

Editing Documents Collaboratively

In this exercise, you will work in a group of four students to collaboratively edit an information sheet about your campus library. As a group you will decide what type of collaborative relationship will work best for this exercise. After reviewing and editing the document, you will individually prepare a short report about the exercise for your instructor.

Evaluating Correspondence

The ability to recognize effective correspondence is valuable. It will not only allow you to assess what may have gone wrong in a transaction, but also to plan for better communication in the future. Professional communicators understand the importance of being critical about their writing. They are able to evaluate the documents they produce, recognize potential problems, and make the necessary adjustments. They can also appreciate well written documents, learning communication strategies that they might use in the future. In this exercise you will practice your ability to evaluate correspondence. Using the criteria outlined in Chapter 14 (“Correspondence”) of Technical Communication, 5e, you will analyze a letter sent to a professional journal in your discipline. You will present your analysis in a memo written to your instructor, so you will have an opportunity to develop your own correspondence writing style.

Explaining Processes

Process explanations have become an important part of the workplace. However, professionals don’t create process explanations only for auditors. Process explanations are used to communicate sequential activities to a variety of audiences and for many different reasons. As Technical Communication, 5e illustrates in Chapter 12 (“Creating Process Explanations”), several forms of process explanations exist, though they have some common characteristics that you should be familiar with. In this exercise you will revise a set of detailed instructions into a process explanation. You have to decide what type of information is most appropriate for your audience and the purpose of your document.

Formatting a Description

A document’'s format leads readers to expect certain types of information. A memo format suggests something different from a newspaper column. Your task as a workplace professional is to meet the reader’s expectations by presenting information that readers need in an appropriate format. This computer file contains the description of a golf ball, written by a student who is an avid golfer. You can edit and format this description (or a selected portion of it) for a specific audience.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

When you take a document and put it on a computer and make it available for people to look at with their Web browsers, their browsers read the text of the document, but ignore the format. The browsers ignore places where you hit return, put words in boldface and italics, skipped lines, made headings, etc. In order to make headings, italics, etc., you must code your documents with HTML. This file contains codes and examples of HTML that will help you learn the basics you need to start constructing your own Web pages.

Organizing Paragraphs

Just as Socrates said, ‘Every discourse must be organized, like a living being . . .,’ a document must be organized in a logical, coherent fashion, with its parts ‘composed in fitting relation to each other and to the whole.’ Although research has led to more sophisticated guidelines for creating reader-based documents, Socrates’ principles are still valuable. Writing organized, coherent documents is still a primary goal for technical writers—one you should follow as you develop your professional writing style. This file contains text about the refining, bleaching, and deodorizing processes of sunflowerseed oil. Your task is to make this text more organized and coherent so that readers will understand the process.

Organizing Sentences into Paragraphs

This exercise will give you practice in organizing sentences into effective paragraphs. This computer file contains 12 sentences that you need to group, order, and connect so that you can create coherent, cohesive paragraphs.

Organizing Visual and Verbal Information

For this exercise, you will create a two-panel brochure about carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) that could be distributed with other medical literature in your campus’s health center. The text and visual aids you will use are contained in this file, though they will require significant modifications using design principles presented in Technical Communication/5e.

Researching on the Internet

There are enormous advantages and disadvantages to using the Internet as a source for research. The Internet can be a very convenient way of finding up-to-the-minute data quickly and easily; however, it can also present difficulties for researchers, as it is not edited (as newspapers and magazines are). Anyone with the knowledge and access to a server can publish anything. As a result, it’s difficult to know whether your sources are reliable. Ideally, of course, the Internet should be used in conjunction with more traditional resources like journals and newspapers. (You should generally use as many types of reliable sources as possible in your research.) For this exercise, you will be searching for information on the Internet (preferably about a topic you’re working on in this or another class) and reporting on the search and the results. Your purpose in reporting on your search will be to recommend to your audience, which should be another student or even a professor in your field, whether or not she or he should use the Internet as a source for research. If so, how can she or he use the Internet most effectively for researching in your field? If not, why not?

Revising a Memo

One of the best ways to practice writing memos, of course, is to get a job and write lots of memos to actual audiences, but practicing can certainly help. This computer file contains a memo that needs to be revised. In the current version, the main points are difficult to locate, and the supporting details aren’t well organized. You will work to improve this memo to make it work more effectively with its audience.

Revising Documents for Different Audiences

In the most effective documents, the data is presented in the way most appropriate for the readers. It matches their expectations for the document, their purposes for reading, and their level of technical expertise. When professionals create documents, they must be mainly concerned with the primary reader. To ensure that you are thinking about your readers, it is often useful to create a reader profile, identifying their key characteristics. This profile allows you to shape the material into a more reader-friendly document. During this exercise, you are going to create an information sheet about melanoma. This exercise has two major stages. First you will complete an audience analysis worksheet by answering questions about your primary audience. Then you will revise text about melanoma of the skin, creating a one-page information sheet that could be distributed to students at a campus science exhibition.

Text-Based Document Testing

Probably the most common type of document testing in the workplace is text-based. Text-based testing is common because it’s cheap and easy—with current word processors, running a test is as simple as selecting “Grammar” from the “Tools” menu in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect (6.0 or later). Text-based testing is very efficient at catching spelling errors (although it doesn’t catch homonyms, like accidentally substituting “threw” for “through”) and some grammatical mistakes. However, such testing doesn’t take into account visuals, forecasting, design, or other elements that have a great deal to do with a document’s usability. For this exercise, you will explore the plusses and minuses of text-based testing by working with a small group of classmates to test and revise a short but complex document. You will then compare your improved document to that of other groups and discuss the value of text-based testing.

Writing Technical Definitions

Regardless of what industry you work in, as a professional communicator you will encounter the difficulty of defining a new or unfamiliar term for your readers. How will you explain a new concept like random access memory? How would you even know where to begin? Technical Communication/4e presents several options you have for writing technical definitions, providing examples of both short and extended definitions. For this exercise you will construct a technical definition for a specific audience. The strategy you choose for defining the concept depends on the audience(s) you select, that audience’s need(s) for the information, and the type of document in which the definition would appear.

Reading Technical Documents

After you begin your career, your professional development activities will affect your potential to succeed. While you may engage in many activities specific to your discipline, reading and understanding professional and technical information will always be important. It would be a mistake to overlook this important skill that can be improved by developing strategic reading practices. In this exercise, you will read a scientific text—employing appropriate reading strategies—and then summarize that information for another reader who is less willing to invest time in the document. To write an effective summary, you must have a reading strategy that will allow you to quickly understand the purpose of the document, the hierarchy of its argument, its applications, and the limits of the author’s claims.

Writing for Different Audiences

For this exercise, you will be looking at as many as four texts about Java, a programming language that has recently become a phenomenon because it allows programmers to make interactive pages on the World Wide Web. You’ll examine and discuss the way these different texts approach their different audiences, then construct an article, pamphlet, or brochure about Java for an audience you choose.

ATTW Teaching Resources: Syllabi

This section of the ATTW site includes course syllabi and teaching materials for graduate and undergraduate courses in technical communication. Faculty and staff may submit and view syllabi in HTML and plain text (ASCII) format. The syllabi in the categories cover such things as home pages used in the classroom, course assignments, textbooks used, and class projects. Many of the syllabi include links to other websites and teaching materials.

ATTW Teaching Resources: Teaching Tips

This section of the ATTW site allows visitors to view and post teaching tips, including effective class activities and course assignments.

Case Studies in Instructional Technology and Design

Multimedia cases allow novices and experts to explore issues and practice in instructional design. During the course of study in instructional design, often only a few design projects can be completed. Case studies serve as a valuable supplement, providing students with opportunities to experience and respond to complex practice issues in a variety of professional settings. In the process, students reflect on relevant theories and techniques as they attempt to understand a real problem, develop a response, and consider the potential consequences. Once each year, we sponsor a case event, and invite universities across the country to advance a team. Teams analyze the case, while experts pose probling questions, evaluate case responses, and contribute their own perspectives on the cases.

Tech Comm Course Materials from CS5014

A small collection of course materials from a 1995 computer science course.

Technical Writing Workbook: Model Documents

This Workbook contains models of corporate communications that take creative, proactive advantage of the capabilities of the Web. As you work through the activities and questions for each model, think about ways in which you can apply similar strategies and techniques to your own academic and professional writing.

Technical Writing: Simulated Search Activity

This activity is meant to simulate the process of finding and evaluating information on the World Wide Web. We present it as a simulation to aid new Web users, who may feel uncomfortable with conducting an actual search. For detailed information on searching for information on the Web, as well as evaluating and citing sources, see our online guides.

Teaching the Proposal in the Professional Writing Course

Professional writing instructors and their colleagues spend a good deal of time writing, conceiving, or living off the fruits of proposals. They depend on proposals for released time, research funds, conference reimbursement, and in some cases, a significant part of their livelihoods. What they may fail to realize is that their students also live and work in proposal-heavy worlds at work, in school, or within the context of hobbies and interests. Of course, most college students do not see themselves as writers. They are not comfortable with their own writing; consequently, they do not understand the importance and power of proposals until they are given the opportunity to explore the form and its utility in their lives.

Technical/Professional Communication Summary

In this document, John December summarizes some principles and ideas that he discussed in class. He first focuses on technical communication as a process of shaping information. Then, he reviews the process of information development and techniques to shape information. Finally, he describes techniques for learning and teaching technical communication.

Creating an Instructor Kit

After you've tested the in-class exercises, polished the presentation materials, printed the handouts and workbooks, and created the data files for class, are you ready to hand over the course to an instructor? Not yet. You have one more thing to do before calling your course finished: Create the instructor kit. An instructor kit often differentiates a good course from an exceptional course. It is more than a pretty package or a finishing touch. It is an integral part of any training course that you must hand off to an instructor. The instructor kit's ultimate goal is to increase the quality of the students' experience, by helping the instructor to assimilate, set up, and deliver your course.

Conducting a Productive Web Search

There are two main types of indexes: those that are hierarchical (i.e. that lead one from a general topic to a more specific one) and those that list sources in some sort of order (most commonly alphabetical). The first type of index often contains a broad range of topics while the second are usually sources designed to address a particular topic or concern.

Cross-Referencing: Using MLA Format

This presentation teaches your students the purposes of MLA documentation, as well as methods for using parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page. This presentation is an important addition for the beginning of a research unit in a humanities course or any assignment that requires MLA documentation.

SIRCh: Science Writing Aids

Students often misinterpret the objective: 'learn how to improve writing skills' that is found among the many objectives of the C471 course. We do not have a major writing assignment in this course, nor do we critique your writing skills. On the other hand, we do introduce you to many tools that will assist in the task of writing. One of the most important things to grasp in this session is the conventions used in formal science writing, such as the use of abbreviations for journal titles and the frequent omission of article titles from the citations. The terms 'citation' and 'reference' are used in several contexts in C471. In this session, they refer to items of a bibliography.

Writing Exercises in Science

The purpose of these exercises is to give you a chance to write well-crafted paragraphs. The first three exercises (Basic Points about Paragraphs, Classifying, and Using Transitions) help you write brief paragraphs about various topics in science and technology. The exercises that follow help you write longer paragraphs. The last two exercises (Cause and Effect and Giving Examples) show you how you can write two or more paragraphs connected to the same topic.

Writing Report Abstracts

Describes the two types of abstracts: informational and Descriptive, then gives some tips on how to write effective report abstracts.

International Technical Communication

Here are four case studies in international technical communication that I've used as teaching tools in my course World-Ready Information Products. These are real and current case studies, although I have altered some facts and added others to disguise the companies and focus the cases a bit more. I include suggested solutions to Case 3 and Case 4, courtesy of professional technical communicators who attended my post-conference workshop at the annual Society for Technical Communication (STC) conference in May 1997, Toronto, Canada. The opinions expressed are those of the workshop partipants. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policy, or attitude of the Society for Technical Communication.

Rubrics and Evaluation Resources

Midlink's rubrics site offers documents about educational technique.

Rubrics for Web Lessons

How often have you attempted to grade your students' work only to find that the assessment criteria were vague and the performance behavior was overly subjective? Would you be able to justify the assessment or grade if you had to defend it? The Rubric is an authentic assessment tool which is particularly useful in assessing criteria which are complex and subjective.

ATTW Teaching Resources

This site provides course syllabi and teaching materials for graduate and undergraduate courses in technical communication.

The Rhetoric of the Challenger Disaster: A Case Study for Technical and Professional Communication

This site aims to provide a resource for applying rhetorical principles to a case study in technical and professional communication. This pedagogical tool will facilitate student learning by offering a concrete example that shows us what is at stake when we fail to acknowledge the rhetorical dimensions of science and organizational communication.