Teaching Documentation Writing: What Else Students—and Instructors—Should Know    

A course in computer documentation writing needs to provide instruction in problem-solving skills as well as help students learn to transfer their knowledge and processes from one task to another if it is to truly prepare students for working in the constantly-changing environment of the computer field. Purdue University Calumet has developed a unique, complex course that, in addition to providing instruction in the conventions and the rhetorical context in which manuals are written, provides students with the content and procedural knowledge, problem-solving strategies, and desktop publishing skills they need to adapt to the evolving nature of this field.

Boiarsky, Carolyn and Michael Dobberstein. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Education>Writing

Teaching Documentation Writing: What Else Students--and Instructors--Should Know    

Discusses knowledge, problem-solving strategies, and desktop publishing skills students need to learn about documentation writing. Describes a course that provides these skills. Also applies to in-house training programs.

Boiarsky, Carolyn and Michael Dobberstein. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Education>Documentation>Technical Writing

Teaching Effective Feedback Skills  

Offers practical suggestions for teaching students of technical communication how to provide effective feedback on documents.

Willen, Matt. Intercom (2004). Articles>Education>TC

Teaching Engineering Communication: A Novel Vertically-Integrated and Discipline-Conscious Curriculum  

The demands of former students, of industry, and of the accreditation board have prompted the engineering education community to investigate the integration of communication proficiencies into the four-year engineering curriculum. While much literature has been devoted to this task in the last several years, the engineering communication programs at most institutions can be described as employing either a peripheral or diffuse model to offer technical communication instruction. Each of these models is problematic. This article describes a novel 'hybrid' engineering communication education model under development at NC State University that is vertically integrated and discipline conscious.

Kmiec, David M., Jr. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Education>Technical Writing>Education

Teaching Ethics Isn't Enough: The Challenge of Being Ethical Teachers    

Rather than acting on less examined beliefs, I am personally comfortable acting on ethics that have been burnished by repeated polishing from my colleagues, community, and profession. Let us use our professional conferences and journals to further that conversation.

Kienzler, Donna S. JBC (2004). Articles>Education>Ethics

Teaching Eye-Catching Informational Graphics to Technical Graphic Students at Purdue University  

Exploring creative solutions is the key for producing eye-catching informational graphics that grab attention and work in print and on-line. The Department of Technical Graphics at Purdue University offers a basic design course that focuses on informational graphics along with visual hierarchy and the integration of type and images. Students are acquainted to informational graphics as a method to illustrate data aesthetically so it explains, convinces, supports, and makes comparisons. This paper outlines how basic informational graphics is introduced to students who have little or no prior knowledge to creating eye-catching charts.

Miller, Susan G. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Education>Technical Illustration

Teaching Hypertext Composition    

Composing hypertext documents can be an enriching path into the world of technical communication. In learning to produce hypertext, students are introduced to an important form of written composition that encompasses not only text generation, but also visual communication and information architecture. In this article, I provide a rationale for teaching hypertext composition and then some specific curricular suggestions in two parts, one for teaching beginners, and one for teaching more advanced students.

Gordon, Jay L. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Writing>Hypertext>Education

Teaching Information Architecture to the Design Student

What the design student needs is a design course that stresses usability, human factors, and clarity, instead of the typical branding and interpretation problems they usually encounter in their other design classes. James Spahr recounts a year of teaching at Pratt Institute that attempts to cross those boundaries.

Spahr, James. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Graphic Design

Teaching Intracultural and Intercultural Communication: A Critique and Suggested Method    

Within an increasingly global marketplace, discussions of intercultural communication are important in business and technical communication classrooms. Although many business and technical communication textbooks integrate discussions of intercultural communication, they do not go far enough in engaging the complicated nature of this issue. This article summarizes recent literature about the importance of paying attention to intercultural communication and analyzes the productive approaches in popular business and technical communication textbooks. It presents five challenges for business and technical communication teachers to consider and includes teaching modules that address these challenges. Although the article focuses on classroom practice, such intercultural explorations are also of value to authors of business and technical communication textbooks, who might consider integrating modules such as these into their textbooks.

DeVoss, Dànielle, Julia Jaskin and Dawn Hayden. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2002). Articles>Education>International

Teaching Online Workspace Collaboration  

This article provides a review and analysis of asynchronous chat sessions used by students to produce a collaborative formal proposal in an undergraduate technical communication service course at Bowling Green State University. The author/investigator reviewed archived chat sessions of the two most successful student groups and compared their experience to the conclusions drawn by a previous study on collaborative writing in the virtual classroom. The current study represents an initial exploratory attempt to replicate and/or refute the results of the prior study.

Edminster, Jude R. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Education>Collaboration>Online

Teaching Professional Writing Online with Electronic Peer Response  

For primarily practical reasons, professional writing courses are increasingly being taught totally or partly online. These practical reasons concern me because I do not believe that a pedagogical practice whose benefits are being actively debated by scholars, such as online education, should be utilized only or primarily because it is seen as a way of saving or making money. However, online education is one pedagogical practice that, I believe, has great potential to improve writing. A year-and-a-half ago, I taught several partly online sections of my professional writing course, and I discovered that a strategy valuable in my traditional sections became invaluable in my online sections: electronic peer response.

Tannacito, Terry. Kairos (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Teaching Professionalism in the Classroom    

Looks at what it means to be professional as a technical writer, as a teacher, and as a student and explains how to teach professionalism in the classroom.

Campbell, Alexa. Intercom (2008). Articles>Education>TC>Professionalism

Teaching Punctuation to Advanced Writers  

Most discussions of punctuation are confined to the mechanics sections of handbooks and rhetorics and thus tend to be of value only to basic and freshman writers. Occasionally, some texts allude to uses of punctuation that would be of interest to advanced writers, such as using punctuation to create acceptable sentence fragments or comma splices, but rarely do these texts explain these usages in much detail or provide many good examples of them. I wish to focus in this paper on the uses of punctuation that advanced writers need to be taught. Specifically, I will discuss how we can teach advanced writers to use punctuation to create rhetorical effects.

Meyer, Charles F. JAC (1985). Articles>Education>Writing

Teaching Science Writing  

Teaching students how to write about science for the general public involves helping them research subjects, publications, and audiences. They should learn about research, organization of articles, audience analysis, and writing strategies, and use human interest, background information and examples, proper terminology and pace, and techniques to motivate readers to read the article.

Samson, Donald C., Jr. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Education>Writing>Scientific Communication

Teaching Students the Persuasive Message Through Small Group Activity    

Teaching students to write persuasive messages is a critical feature of any undergraduate business communications course. For the persuasive writing module in my course, students write a persuasive message on the basis of the four-part indirect pattern often used for sales or fund-raising messages. The course text I use identifies these four components by their rhetorical functions: gain attention, build interest, reduce resistance, and motivate action.

Creelman, Valerie. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Rhetoric>Collaboration

Teaching Students to Design Information About Difficult Subjects: Public Information About Pediatric AIDS  

Advanced technical communication students analyzed information about pediatric AIDS that was designed for dtrerent segments of the public. They then produced individual projects for local segments of the university and surrounding community. Through this assignment, students learned the importance of community standards in designing accurate and locally 'acceptable' communication about a difficult subject.

Porter, Lynnette R. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Teaching Students to Work Together  

Successful classroom collaboration requires teaching students about collaboration, having them read articles on collaboration, assigning project managers and guiding their management, and having all students evaluate and report on their teams and the collaborative experience.

Deming, Lynn H. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Collaboration

Teaching Technical Communication

In the early 1900s, technical communication was a burgeoning professional field, represented in academe by service courses taught primarily at engineering institutions. By the 1980's, however, it had become a significant professional and academic discipline in its own right. James Souther (1990) offers the following as evidence to support this assertion: the expansion of professional organizations, in particular, the Society for Technical Communication; the growth of academic organizations like the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing and the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication; the quality of research, for business through the Document Design Center, and from academe, particularly at Carnegie Mellon; representation on the programs of conventions of major academic groups like the Modern Language Association and the National Council of Teachers of English; an increase in the number of offerings, both in terms of classes and degree programs, at colleges and universities. Often colleges and universities that are just beginning to include technical communication in their curricula do so using faculty trained in traditional English doctoral programs. This ERIC Digest examines several areas of concern for such institutions and discusses 1) characteristics of technical communication; 2) issues in teaching technical communication; and 3) resources in teaching technical communication.

Kelley, Rebecca. ERIC Digest (1991). Articles>Education>TC

Teaching Technical Communication at a Distance  

Satellite education can be rewarding for both on-campus and satellite students. However, teaching in this setting places considerable demands on the instructor. Course planning, preparation, and delivery require more time and effort. When this is done optimally, the benefits to students outweigh the demands on faculty.

Krull, Robert. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Online

Teaching Technical Writing Through Student Peer-Evaluation    

Individual students in two different sections of an undergraduate civil engineering laboratory were tasked with preparing three professional-quality laboratory reports. The teaching assistant and/or instructor used established criteria to grade the first two reports prepared by students in one section. The first two reports prepared by students in the other section were peer evaluated by assigned fellow students within the same laboratory section using identical grading criteria. The peer evaluated section had a higher class average than the teaching assistant/instructor graded section on the fist two reports. The third report prepared by students from both sections was graded by a professional educator/architect without knowledge of a student's class section. The peer evaluation students also had a higher class average on the third report, suggesting that the peer evaluation process may have positively contributed to those students' writing skills.

Jensen, Wayne and Bruce Fischer. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2005). Articles>Education>Technical Writing>Collaboration

Teaching Technical Writing to University Students Using the Medical Report  

Technical and medical writing share many similar properties. Using a medical report assignment, in which students research and write about a physical or mental disease, is an effective tool that introduces the principles of technical writing. The assignment for lower division students is to write in the IMRAD format, while upper division students compose a report integrating multiple sources cited in CBE documentation style. In each case, adhering to fact-based, clear, audience-appropriate language in a technical format provides the student with valuable practice writing in this important genre.

Mizrahi, Janet. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Teaching Technology: Immersing Students in a High Tech Environment  

Teachers of technical communication should not simply focus on what tools to use in the classroom and how to use them. We should consider what happens when we use technology. In this presentation, we attempt to answer that question and to demonstrate what technologies the Cedarville professional writing faculty employ to accomplish their learning objectives.

Harrier, Sandra W., Donald M. Humphreys and Philip Wittmer. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Software

Teaching The Complexity Of Purpose: Promoting Complete and Creative Communications    

The successful communicator is expected to provide communications that are not only complete but also representative of effective thinking (i.e., original). Creating complete and creative communications begins with a disciplined process of discovery--identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and integrating the articulated and embedded purposes. Expanding on the work of Linda Flower and John Hayes, this article first explores a means to promote a thorough examination of purpose. It then provides tools for capturing and integrating these insights into communications that are complete, capable of satisfying the rhetorical challenges, and compelling reflections of the student's creative problem solving abilities.

Plung, Daniel L. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Articles>Education>Writing>Rhetoric

Teaching the History of Technical Communication: A Lesson With Franklin and Hoover    

The first part of this article shows that research in the history of technical communication has increased in quantity and sophistication over the last 20 years. Scholarship that describes how to teach with that information, however, has not followed, even though teaching the history of the field is a need recognized by several scholars. The article provides and defends four guidelines as a foundation to study ways to incorporate history into classroom lessons: 1) maintain a continued research interest in teaching history; 2) limit to technical rather than scientific discourse; 3) focus on English-language texts; and 4) focus on American texts, authors, and practices. The second part of the essay works within the guidelines to show a lesson that contrasts technical texts by Benjamin Franklin and Herbert Hoover. The lesson can help students see the difference in technical writing before and after the Industrial Revolution, a difference that mirrors their own transition from the university to the workforce.

Todd, Jeff. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>TC>History>Education

Teaching the Visual: Understanding our Approaches

Despite the significant presence of the visual in the field of technical communication, we have not yet achieved a unified pedagogical approach to the visual. Because of the traditional emphasis on written communication, there is often a conflicting boundary between teaching the visual and textual, which often results in the visual assuming a secondary position to the textual.

Portewig, Tiffany Craft. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Visual Rhetoric