#19558
Writers, of course, seldom find themselves in life-and-death situations. However, the way in which a writing project is managed can often mean the difference between a project’s failure and success. For writers managing a project, obtaining backup consists of two issues: making sure someone can continue your work if something prevents you from doing so yourself; and knowing how to get help when you can’t keep your head above water.
Holland, Anton. Writer's Block (1995). Articles>Writing>Workflow
#14710
MacDonald analyzes the success of irreverent software manuals such as the 'For Dummies' and 'Complete Idiot's' series and suggests ways writers of traditional technical manuals can make their own work more enjoyable to read.
MacDonald, Matthew P. Intercom (2001). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing
#19843
Can the Computer Improve your Writing Style? 
We have spell checkers. We have grammar checkers. What we really need is a style checker.
Cohen, Gerald. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Writing>Editing>Word Processing
#13972
The Canisius Project: From Field-Work To Classroom 
In the Canisius Project for Writing Across the Curriculum, we have studied the writing worlds of business, social services, science and technology, and 'public life' (the media, public relations, law, fund raising, and the like). For all these fields, our research has followed the same basic pattern. We begin with an initial interview, using a questionnaire which asks about the range of tasks, the problems, the methods, and the significance of the person's work world writing. Then we collect a portfolio of the person's writings. As an ideal, we request at least one sample of each kind of writing, with several samples of the most frequent and important kinds. After studying the portfolio, we return for a taped interview which focuses on specific features of selected pieces of writing. At the end of each research sequence, we hold a workshop which brings together researchers, faculty from the relevant departments, and as many as possible of our work world writers. Near the end of the workshop, the group defines some of the goals and methods most important for an upper level writing course which is to be aimed at, but not restricted to, business majors, or social science majors, or science majors, or humanities majors. (The groups of majors correspond to our research sequences: business, social services, science and technology, and, for want of a better term, public life.)
Schroeder, Melvin W. and Kenneth M. Sroka. JAC (1981). Articles>Education>Writing Across the Curriculum
#20466
Many documents suffer from over-capitalisation. The writer sprinkles capitals everywhere in an attempt to make words stand out - with the result that nothing stands out. Here are some simple rules to help you avoid this capital offence.
#14067
The Case for Writing Studies as a Major Discipline
Literate activity, directly and indirectly, occupies much of the day of people in modern society. Literacy in its basic and more elaborated, specialized forms is the cornerstone in the education of the young. Literacy and symbolic artifacts underlay the information age and its information economy. Literacy along with its enabling technologies and consequent forms of social, political, and economic organization, has supported ways of life that distinguish us from humans of 5000 years ago. Literate engagement is also associated with forms of belief, commitment, and consciousness that shape modern personality. Yet the study of writing--its production, its circulation, its uses, its role in the development of individuals and societies, and its learning by individuals, social collectives, and historically emergent cultures--remains a dispersed enterprise. Inquiry into skills, practices, objects, and consequences of reading and writing is the concern of only a few people, fragmented across university disciplines, with no serious home of its own.
Bazerman, Charles. UCSB (2002). Articles>Education>Writing
#14020
Catching up with Professor Nate: The Problem with Sociolinguisitics in Composition Research
In Professional Academic Writing, Susan Peck MacDonald makes the observation that recent debates in rhetoric and composition about whether to initiate students into disciplinary practices or 'resist' current practices have frequently been framed in terms of 'accommodation' versus 'resistance,' and adds that 'these may be destructive dichotomies for us to be working with' particularly 'given the lack of close rhetorical and linguistic scrutiny we have spent on describing the nature, variation, or effects of textual practices in the humanities and social sciences'. When a field finds itself trapped in a particular dichotomy, it's time to re-examine research methods and agendas.
Prendergast, Catherine. JAC (1997). Articles>Rhetoric>Writing
#20471
Have you been told, perhaps by your computerised grammar checker, that too many of your sentences are passive? Have you heard the rule of thumb that at least 80 percent of the sentences in any passage should be active? If you've had the problem or heard the rule, and wonder what the terms active and passive mean, and why one is good and the other frowned on, this article is for you.
#25222
The Cautious Writer, 2005: Protect Your Income
I'm no expert on the economy, but I don’t see a lot of signs of growth and smiling faces in 2005. As writers, we are in the fortunate position of being able to protect ourselves against fluctuations in the economy, to some degree. To protect your own income over the next year, here are some suggestions.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#14461
Centering in on Professional Choices 
I examine my involvement with writing centers as an example of how we can look at the choices we’ve made within our areas of expertise to see why they attract us. In my case, the flexible, collaborative, individualized, non-evaluative, experimental, non-hierarchical, student-centered nature of writing centers is an excellent fit.
Harris, Muriel. CCC (2001). Articles>Writing>Workplace
#25030
CEO Blogs: Polish Them Up Please
CEO Blogs should be vastly superior to any other run of the mill blogs on the web. But in many cases, they're worse. Discover 10 common errors made by CEO bloggers and how to correct them. Plus, a link to a wiki-compiled list of current CEO blogs.
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2005). Articles>Writing>Public Relations>Blogging
#13973
Changes In the Training of Writing Teachers
English departments are once again confronted with charges in the popular media that the illiteracy of the American people generally, and of recent high school graduates in particular, constitutes a disturbing or perhaps even a dangerous state which we should regard as having reached 'crisis' proportions. In the past, this public concern has been directed primarily at reading ability, but in its present form, it focuses on writing skill. Not surprisingly, much of the commentary has been directed at elementary and secondary school teachers. Time emblazoned the news that 'Teachers Can't Teach' across the cover of its June 16, 1980, issue, then devoted several pages to a critical analysis of the shortcomings in modern American education. The authors of that article estimated that up to twenty percent of certified teachers have not mastered the 'basic skills' that they are supposed to teach.1 If this estimate is accurate—and most Americans believe, intuitively at least that it is—then we must recognize that not only are teachers unskilled in areas outside their expertise, but also, more frightening, they are incompetent within areas in which they ostensibly are trained. And since, as Charles Moran and J. T. Skerrett recently pointed out two of the three traditional Rs of basic education are within the province of the English teachers, we must be particularly sensitive to the criticism presently being leveled at teacher inability.
Ward, Jay A. JAC (1981). Articles>Education>Writing
#29215
Changing the Center of Gravity: Collaborative Writing Program Administration in Large Universities 
Technical communication practices have been changed dramatically by the increasingly ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. Yet, while those who work in the profession have been living through this dramatic change, our academic discipline has been moving at a slower pace, at times appearing quite unsure about how to proceed. This article focuses on the following three areas of opportunity for change in our discipline in relation to digital technologies: access and expectations, scholarship and community building, and accountability and partnering.
Johnson-Sheehan, Richard D. and Charles Paine. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>Education>Writing>Collaboration
#20152
Changing the Way the Profession Communicates: A Workshop for Prospective Journal Authors
This session will help participants understand how to write and submit a manuscript for publication in Technical Communication. It covers the types of articles the journal publishes, its audience, and suggestions for choosing topics, doing research, andpreparing a manuscript.
Hayhoe, George F. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Publishing>Writing
#20798
Choosing the Right Style Manual(s)
Editors should consider at least four points in selecting, or reevaluating, primary and secondary manuals.
Mulford, Carolyn. Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Style Guides>Writing
#13507
In most writing classrooms, the primary activity is not writing per se, but rather the discussion of writing. You know the drill: as teachers, we create a writing assignment, introduce it during class, ask students if they have any questions, and send them off to work on the assignment. When students return to class with a draft of the assignment, we might discuss it as a class or perhaps put the students through a peer review session. But only rarely do we ask our students to actually write during class.
Palmquist, Mike. Lore (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Rhetoric
#29378
Classical Rhetoric and Technical Writing
English departments, eager to boost enrollment, may press teachers into duty teaching technical writing courses on short notice and with little preparation.
Lunsford, Andrea A. CCC (1976). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing
#27733
Clear as Mud: The Plot Thickens
A lot of the time, management-speak simply seems ridiculous. But campaigners for plain English say there is a more serious side to the issue.
BBC (1998). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism
#20916
Clear Writing: Ten Principles of Clear Statement
If you want to test the clearness of your writing, you may wish to consider using a 'fog index.' Fog indexes measure the complexity of writing samples, and often provide a means of calculating the reading or educational level required to understand a particular passage. Some fog indexes are available as computer software programs, or you may do the calculations yourself.
University of Missouri (1973). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism
#30291
"Coffee Stains": How to Remove the Blots Quickly and Easily
Trainers and others in the professional development field have a dual mission (among other responsibilities): to identify written 'coffee stains' and, equally important, to find and use as many effective approaches as possible to get the word out to the largest number of users.
Houser, Barbara J. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>Writing
#24999
Collaborative Document Editing with svk
Say you have a document that needs to be presented in two languages and you are the translator. While the translation is in progress, someone revises the original master document. This means you now might be working with an outdated paragraph or one no longer present in the master version. This article tries to map this problem to parallel development, which version control systems solve with the branch and merge model. You will also see how svk helps you maintain translated documents easily.
Kao, Chia-liang. O'Reilly and Associates (2004). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Writing
#23337
A Collegiate Writing Program for the 1980s
The two growth areas right now are the English as a second language (ESL) courses and the business and technical writing courses. The ESL courses fall outside the province of this paper, but the business and technical writing courses are very pertinent.
Corbett, Edward P.J. ADE Bulletin (1989). Articles>Education>Writing
#31234
Combine Writing, Editing and Design in Your Employee Publication
After more than a decade of working in the corporate environment, I have finally accepted that readers need to be enticed by more than the promise of a good read: They need proof. They want a visual two-second test-drive before they decide whether or not to spend precious minutes on a particular page. This is not to say that corporate readers are not discerning or that sloppy copy reads any better when dressed up with elaborate design. The truth is that in any corporate publication, a great article won't be read if the layout is poor. Similarly, a stunning design falls flat if the content doesn't live up to it.
Dower, Sophia. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Writing>Editing>Newsletters
#25067
This is an exploratory study of reading and writing within a particular discipline. It is also an investigation of critical thinking and an examination of engagement and resistance in using language to learn about new concepts. I looked at how college history students wrestled with and sometimes worked around issues of theory, specifically theories of the causes of the Civil War. Using analysis of think-aloud protocols, I investigated how students comprehended theoretical writing about the Civil War and how they used the theoretical material to take a position in writing about these same issues. My main purpose in this article is to examine the cognitive moves students make, their ways of thinking, when working with theory, an activity which many educators today are touting as particularly important in developing students’ critical thinking abilities. I am especially interested in the stances students take toward their subject matter which promote critical reasoning, that is, which lead to engagement, as well as approaches which circumvent or stand in the way of such thinking, that is, which lead to resistance.
Durst, Russel K. LLAD (1994). Articles>Writing>History
#23922
La manière dont vous allez organiser votre contenu est fortement dépendante du produit que vous allez éditer : page d'accueil, chronique, interview, brève, dossier, lettre d'information,...
Hardy, Jean-Marc. Redaction (2004). (French) Articles>Web Design>Writing
