http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Academic/Course-Materials/Writing A listing of the most recently indexed works about Academic and Course Materials and Writing in the field of technical communication (and technical writing). en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Academic/Course-Materials/Writing http://tc.eserver.org/27490.html http://tc.eserver.org/27490.html An introduction to technical writing, with outlined notes about writing clearly. http://tc.eserver.org/25578.html http://tc.eserver.org/25578.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/25038.html http://tc.eserver.org/25038.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/24156.html http://tc.eserver.org/24156.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/24116.html http://tc.eserver.org/24116.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/22279.html http://tc.eserver.org/22279.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/20497.html http://tc.eserver.org/20497.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/18710.html http://tc.eserver.org/18710.html An intensive training session on how to write clear, crisp, persuasive copy for letters, memos, proposals, reports, and other business documents. http://tc.eserver.org/18709.html http://tc.eserver.org/18709.html An intensive training session on how to write clear, crisp, technically accurate copy for letters, memos, proposals, reports, articles, papers, and other technical documents. http://tc.eserver.org/14592.html http://tc.eserver.org/14592.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/14282.html http://tc.eserver.org/14282.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/14277.html http://tc.eserver.org/14277.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/14279.html http://tc.eserver.org/14279.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/14265.html http://tc.eserver.org/14265.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/10783.html http://tc.eserver.org/10783.html Describes the two types of abstracts: informational and Descriptive, then gives some tips on how to write effective report abstracts.