An Outline of Technicisation Theory    

Teachers and researchers in the field of Technical English have always been concerned with the nature of this subject, its major characteristics, and its chief uses in Science and Technology. Obviously, less time and efforts have been spent on how technical English is learned, particularly in situations where foreign students have to relate their limited linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in technical texts of immediate concern to their specialist studies. This research is an early effort to show how technical English is learned and, more specifically, what relevant factors are involved in the overall learning process.

Soheili, A., D. Barjasteh, and Laila Al Qadhi. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>Education>Language

Overview of a Distributed-Hard-Drive-Based Educational Plan  

Although empirical research indicates that media selection may not impact learning a great deal, results are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. We have done recent studies indicating that inconsistent results may be caused by the extent to which educational developers are modifying the genres within which they typically teach – e.g., converting lectures to essays and converting demonstrations to posted instruction sets. Typically, the instructional developers who significantly modify their educational genres do so because digital media (usually designed for dissemination on the Internet, CD-ROM, or DVD) preclude the large format heuristics we accept as necessary in our traditional classes. New technologies, available this year, seem to provide a solution for this problem. In recent studies, we have successfully placed traditional educational genres on very large, external and/or removable hard drives which we combine with Internet technology to overcome the bandwidth problems we faced in the past. Because this involves a unique, step-by-step process of examining educational materials, re-combining them into external drive technlologies, and then developing new distribution methods, we call the process 'Distributed Hard Drive Protocol.' This paper describes six new, protocols we have developed for educators, trainers, and archivers.

Hailey, David E. and Christine E. Hailey. Utah State University (2000). Articles>Multimedia>Instructional Design>Education

Panel Summaries Plenary Panel Processes for Thinking about WAC's Future      

Faculty often tell their students that conversations contribute to the collaborative writing process. The first plenary session was planned as a generative activity: conversations, first, among the panelists, and then involving the whole audience, to begin collaboratively writing the future on a grand scale. The result of these conversations should impact policymakers, leaders in many institutions, and legislators who control state funding.

Driskill, Linda. LLAD (2002). Articles>Education>Writing

Paradigms Restrained: Implications of New and Emerging Technologies for Learning and Cognition  

Mary B. Shoffner, Marshall Jones, and Stephen W. Harmon survey a broad range of educational technologies, including those mechanical and those philosophical, and conclude that it is the underlying pedagogical philosophy, and not the delivery mechanism, that most affects what students learn.

Shoffner, Mary B., Marshall Jones and Stephen W. Harmon. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Participatory Design and Technical Communication: Challenges and Opportunities in Programmatic Assessment and Evaluation  

Technical Communication pedagogies that are informed by theories of Participatory Design offer new challenges and opportunities for both the assessment of student work and group projects, and in the evaluation of programmatic goals.

Moore, Michael R. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>TC

A Peircian Approach to Professional Ethics Instruction      

Registered Professional Engineers (PEs) in most states have a continuing professional development requirement that specifies that in addition to taking a certain number of short courses in their area of technical competence each year, PEs must also take a professional ethics refresher course at least once every two years. Because the PEs in these ethics courses are forced to attend and because the subject matter is often perceived as legalistic, repetitive, and unnecessary, these courses tend to elicit less-than-enthusiastic responses from participants. Furthermore, since the duration of these courses (1 or 2 hours) is so short, it is difficult to give a meaningful treatment of the very broad field of ethics and also apply it to real-world ethical situations in the time frame allotted.

Chambers, Terrence L. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2001). Articles>Education>Ethics

The Perception of Communication Related Value-Added Educational Activities: A Survey of Graduate Business Students    

The purpose of this article is to evaluate value-add methods and activities applied to organizational communication college-level course work. Graduate organizational communication faculty are aware that their classes serve as direct preparation for students entering business and professional careers. The knowledge learned and the skills acquired in these communication classes are abilities that students take with them to the career marketplace. As such, instructors look for ways to extend the boundaries of the classroom beyond the text and traditional instruction. Faculty believe that each method selected adds value to the educational experiences of students. However, do these methods and activities truly add value to the educational experience as the instructors hope they will? Furthermore, are specific programs more valuable than others?

Barker, Randolph T. and Robert H. Stowers. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Education

Performance, Education, and Experience Factors as Predictors of Writing Ability  

A study of approximately 600 students at the Air Force Institute of Technology compared performance, education, and experience factors--as stated by the students themselves--to scores achieved by students on objective and essay writing tests. Performance factors included undergraduate grade point average (GPA), Graduate Record Examination (GRE), and Graduate Management Admission Test (GMT) scores. Education factors included the student’s undergraduate major, the number of English composition courses completed, and length of time out of school. Experience factors included the amount of writing accomplished in previous job assignments, on-the-job writing instruction, and the individual’s assessment of his or her writing skills.

Vaughan, David K. and Darrin E. Farr. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Writing

The Peter Effect in Early Experimental Education Research    

One of the signatures of scientific writing is its ability to present the claims of science as if they were "untouched by human hands." In the early years of experimental education, researchers achieved this by adopting a citational practice that led to the sedimentation of their cardinal method, the analysis of variance, and their standard for statistical significance, 0.05. This essentially divorces their statistical framework from its historical conditions of production. Researchers suppressed their own agency through the use of passive voice and nominalization. With their own agency out of the way, they imbued the methods, results, and presentational devices themselves with the active agency of the situation through the use of personification. Such a depiction creates the impression that the researchers and audience stand on equal epistemic ground as interested witnesses to the autonomous activity of a third party, the method, which churns out the brute facts of science.

Little, Joseph. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Research>Statistics>Education

Picture Perfect: Selecting Graphics for Instruction  

Discusses some principles for choosing appropriate graphics for instructional materials.

Lyons, Chopeta C. Intercom (1995). Articles>Education>Presentations>Visual Rhetoric

Picturing Work: Visual Projects in the Writing Classroom  

Composition faces the daunting task of promptly translating its theories into pedagogical strategies and often these teaching experiences lead to new questions for scholarship.

Kuhn, Virginia. Kairos (2005). Articles>Education>Writing

The Place of Communication in Technical Writing Programs    

The Modern Language Association recently outlined numerous changes in English Studies, citing the significant growth of jobs in technical and professional communication. Since 1997, thenumber of academic positions advertised in our field has increased by 76 percent. The reasons are simple: the job market for capable communicators has expanded (primarily due to technology), andmore and more students want a major or minor that provides the knowledge and skills necessary to meetthe increased demand. Many English departments, including our own (Virginia Tech and University of Nebraska at Omaha [UNO], are responding to students’ needs by hiring faculty to build programs inprofessional/technical communication.

Bridgeford, Tracy and James M. Dubinsky. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Placing Technical Communication at the Border of Service-Learning, Democratic Citizenship. and Corporate Interest  

What happens when we adapt the paradigm of service learning, which traditionally serves the underprivileged or nonprofits, to for-profit clients?

Williams, Sean D. and Renee Love. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Service Learning

Planning a Community: The Value of Online Learning Communities in Technical Communication  

Businesspeople, faculty, and students can participate in learning communities in a variety of ways. Online learning communities provide benefits to individuals and the group, even if a community uses only low-tech communication tools. Learning communities are important because they create a human connection often missing in our Internet communication and allow people from diverse locations and backgrounds to share information and experiences. Effective learning communities celebrate diversity and create a supportive environment for members working toward a common goal.

Porter, Lynnette R. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Communication>Collaboration

Planning and Running a Computer Lab for Writing: A Survival Manual

Increasingly, English teachers, their departments, and their administrations have been investigating the use of word processing and computer aids in writing. For those who integrate computer use into instruction, the question of access becomes crucial. Although some schools—like Carnegie Mellon and Drexel—solve this question by requiring their students to purchase computers, most colleges and universities are providing access, at least in part, through on-campus computer labs. On some campuses, the English department or writing center plays a significant role in establishing and running a computer lab for writing and may even have primary responsibility for doing so. Many of us, however, have had no training that prepares us for the technical and administrative problems involved in such an undertaking.

Schwartz, Helen J. ADE Bulletin (1987). Articles>Education>Writing

Plural Authorship and the Thesis: What Graduate Students Tell Us About Collaborative Writing  

Most graduate students at the Air Force Institute of Technology's School of Logistics and Acquisition Management write their theses as a team project. However, the Institute has gathered no systematic information about how students manage their collaborative thesis-writing processes. This research gathers descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from 1992 graduates concerning how they composed the teem-authored thesis. In addition, this research extends the collective vocabulary concerning collaborative writing, particularly when applied in academic settings.

Rice, Rodney P. and John T. Huguley, Jr. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>Writing>Collaboration

Portfolios to Demonstrate Professional Skills

Explains how electronic portfolios bring together all the assignments in a TC core course, including learning the tools supported by the profession, student assignments, design rationales, and students' reflections on the tools and their skills and abilities.

Turns, Jennifer. University of Washington-Seattle (2001). Presentations>Education>Streaming>Video

Portrait of a Maturing Department    

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Department of Rhetoric and Writing has been an independent department since 1993. When we left the English Department, the writing programs -- composition, the shared B.A. program in Professional and Technical Writing, and the M.A. program in Technical and Expository Writing -- naturally came with us. What we didn't have was a developmental vision of a program.

L'Eplattenier, Barbara, Betty Freeland, Cindy Nahrwold, Karen Kuralt and Susann Barr. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Technical Writing

Postgraduate Program in Technical Communication at the Danube University Krems

Multilingual aspects play a major role in Technical Communication. This involves translating and editing texts, developing multilingual terminology and generally coping with the challenges posed by intercultural communication.

Risku, Hanna. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Education>Localization

Practical UML: A Hands-On Introduction for Developers

This tutorial provides a quick introduction to the Unified Modeling Language.

Borland. Resources>Education>Information Design>UML

Practicing Professional Communication Principles by Creating Public Service Announcements    

A primary goal of most introductory business and technical communication courses is to introduce students to the idea that the professional communication most of them will engage in is different from the writing they do for academic purposes. This overall idea covers several principles concerning professional writing. First, in an academic essay, a student may tell all he or she knows about a topic to an expert reader (the instructor); in professional writing situations, however, writers are most likely sharing only a small part of the information they know with nonexpert readers. Second, when writing in professional situations, writers must actively envision audiences different from themselves, audiences that will have different concerns and purposes than the writers do. Finally, the audience, purpose, and medium of a professional communication situation drive the choices a writer will make. If students are to understand these principles, discussing them in class is insufficient; students must also practice them. Implementing active learning that applies these principles authentically can be challenging. The makeup of many business and technical communication courses means that not all students share expertise in a given field that they can draw on for common assignments. Hypothetical assignments may not give students a deep sense of context, and students may continue to perceive the instructor as the real audience for such assignments.

Frederick, Terri. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Multimedia

Practitioners as Students: What We Can Learn About Teaching Usability  

This paper presents the results of a study that contributes to our understanding of how to conduct and manage usability in the workplace. The study’s participants provided the dual perspective of practitioners working in industry and who are simultaneously enrolled in graduate studies. Recommendations for industry and academia are offered. The results have implications for helping technical communication professionals prepare for their expanding role in user-centered design.

Levine, Barbara J. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Education>Usability>Workplace

Pre-Professional Practices in the Technical Writing Classroom: Promoting Multiple Literacies through Research      

For small and mid-sized universities, the 200-level technical writing service course often represents the primary writing experience for students after their freshman year. Our “service” should help students develop the tools for analyzing language and understanding writing in complex ways. Assignment sequences should engage students in active research to develop four primary literacies: rhetorical, visual, information, and computer. This article focuses on disciplinarity and underlying pedagogical goals in technical writing classrooms by describing a search engine assignment sequence which promotes literate practices in three short reports: 1) A preview/instructions report, 2) An analysis/evaluation report, and 3) A narrative review of a research activity. This article concludes with implications for these types of classroom practices.

Nagelhout, Ed. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>Education

Predicting Intended Unethical Behavior of Business Students  

What is the likelihood that our students will perform unethical behavior in the work environment? This study measures students’ intended behavior for four hypothetical unethical situations by investigating the following determinants: attitude toward the behavior (belief), subjective norm (pressure), perceived behavioral control, perceived personal outcome (benefit), and perceived social acceptance by others. Using the Fishbein model of planned behavior, belief was consistently the most powerful predictor of intent in all four situations. Perceived behavioral control, perceived personal outcome, and perceived social acceptance by others were moderately good predictors of intent. Subjective norm was the weakest predictor of intent.

Wilson, Barbara A. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Ethics>Business Communication