she I worry that this textbook potentially does a disservice to the technical communication field as well as to open-access materials, which should be of high quality and represent best practices based on an awareness of the range of communication tasks working professional undertake. When data about customers, products, people, and operations flows beyond application boundaries, all departments in an organization are empowered. read more. The book lacks a glossary, which would also be a helpful addition. The book would also benefit from a section on presentations and a broader section on document design. I did not observe inaccuracies. Introduction To Technical Writing For Coders: A Beginners Guide Along with the previous idea of Modularity, I do not think the text is perfectly organized. There are few, if any, instances in the text that refer to earlier material in a way that would make non-consecutive reading unworkable or unwieldy. ), but they weren't really up-played in a way that students will definitely get. Where can you learn more about technical writing? Stance - how the writer feels about the topic versus how she expresses it through her tone - was not addressed at all. Furthermore, breaking the text apart with colorful questions and answers, activities, quotes, etc., is suggested. To communicate effectively with other cultures, the technical writer needs to not only be aware of rules governing behaviors that can be observed but also of the not-so-obvious rules that govern the norms, beliefs, and values of the people of a culture. If anything, the textbook could incorporate aspects of gender in relation to technical writing in the workplace. There are links that are specific to or have comments that are specific to COCC that instructors will probably want to point out and substitute their institutions or their class policy. The sources provided as links are not consistent with the formatting of the main text. The differences do not render the text unreadable, just lack cohesive than the average textbook. They need to be able to quickly locate a section in the manual that can help them interpret one of the flight instruments. The text is free of interface issues. This text excels as a modular work. The overall structure of the piece makes sense, and I found myself following the process outlined within the overall book structure. The text offers a separate chapter on analyzing the audience, but no holistic examination of the roles that purpose, stance and tone, genre, and media play in reaching the audience. So the information must be explained and presented in a style that is easy to understand and follow. . The importance of keeping readers in mind is stressed throughout. The content is relevant, but not exhaustive. Chapters on lab/case reports, medical/interview notes, abstracts, introductions, mini-biographies, position papers and letters to the editor would enhance this text and broaden its appeal to new audiences, especially social science/health care students. For the most part, the book is internally consistent. The organization of chapters is confusing. There are grammatical errors in section 9 as well as confusing switches in point of view. introduction One important consideration regarding relevancy is the thematic dominance of references to Oregon. The organization of chapters in the web-native version defies logic. Not having a "next section" button or arrow almost ensures that students will not complete the readings because they will think, incorrectly, that they are done with the (very short) chapter. Non-numbered TOC might be a solution to this problem. See Chapter 15, "Visuals in Technical Documents" for detailed information about using visuals. The videos address students in a single section writing a specific assignment and the content of the videos is not transferable to other contexts. Among the genres that are discussed, accuracy falters due to a handful of random, undocumented prescriptions. The organization is clear, user-friendly, and easily navigable using all-cap chapter headings and numbers and lower case section headings and numbers. I don't see any major inconsistencies. Dual-write supports both approaches. More of a concern though is the phrasing of the third choice of saving lives. Problems with organization: The section and chapter headings create parallelism that helps its overall clarity. Later chapters jump between concepts and genres with no obvious logic to the order. Few subheadings are used within the text itself, although chapters are broken down into sections, each of which is labeled on the page and in the table of contents with a heading. It is moments like these in the textbook that give me pause. The Cultural Iceberg illustrates patterns of world communication, showing indicators of Institutional Culture (the obvious behavior of a culture), which can be clearly seen as the tip of the iceberg, and People Culture (the norms, beliefs and values of a culture), which cannot be seen and which are the barriers to successful communication. Reports are mentioned only briefly under the cover letter to a technical report section, but no prior background about reports is provided. The books Introduction advises, plan to write in such a way that even Grandad can understand! (3). There were some fragments and sentences beginning with And or But, which I hope were stylistic choices. Provide Comprehensiveness - Appears to offer all of the standard technical writing topics with an excellent easy bulleted table of contents. Accessible Think about the users of your document. Technical writing is the highest level of writing students receive before they enter their professional fields or transfer to four-year universities. The academic writers purpose may be to write an essay, a story, a research paper, etc. I wish, though, that a general chapter on grammar was included for the students. The integrated vendor master introduces an explicit vendor concept in customer engagement apps. For security reasons, the certificate has to be rotated. The book is incredibly easy to navigate and use. I. Introduction to Technical Writing The chapters on graphics had some photos that did not connect well to technical writing, and I suspect students in a class would struggle to understand the rhetorical significance of them (particularly the sections with Obama and the girls gymnastics team). Some arguments cannot be made in three short paragraphs. This text provides a solid basis for any course in technical writing, though. There is a detailed Table of Contents that lays out the subjects that are covered. The first chapter reviews types of correspondence, starting with, oddly enough, texting. Chapter 1: Introduction to Technical and Report Writing Each chapter and even sub-section has author attributions for the book itself but rarely does it reference external sources. Lets consider an example outside of software. The organization of chapters in the web-native version defies logic. The textbook does contain self-referential content but overall the chapters could be used in a modular fashion to supplement other learning materials/readings in a technical writing course. The expandable table is tricky to get used to because the hyperlink from the Chapter title goes to the chapter but the arrow on the right shows the subsections. All of the topics are presented in a logical and clear fashion. 1: Introduction to Technical Writing - Humanities LibreTexts E.g., "Geert Hofstede views culture as consisting of mental programs, calling it softwares of the mind, meaning each person 'carries within him or herself patterns of thinking, feeling, and potential acting which were learned throughout their lifetime. This textbook highlights important components of technical writing, including various forms of technical writing in the workplace and also approaches to audience analysis, graphics, and ethics within the writing of these documents. WebWhat You'll Learn At the end of the course, you should be able to: Understand technical writing as a practice distinct from other forms of writing. It is i Readers will also learn about other professional communication, designing documents, and creating and integrating graphics. It is less helpful, I think, to students going into health care fields and the social sciences. I really appreciated the chapter on Communicating Across Cultures, but I wish it had been included earlier in the book. Although the materials are relevant to orthodox technical writing contexts, the text could benefit from a separate section that introduces writing in the digital world to reflect the evolving nature and changing landscape of technical communication. The organization of chapters in the web-native version defies logic. In that sense, they exemplify the sort of simple, crisp (if unexciting) prose that technical communication strives for. But I do want to say that although above the book got 5-stars across the board, I'm not sure if I would give it a perfect review if I were to rate it. The text is consistent in its layout. There were no culturally insensitive examples or remarks. However, I found the default order of modules confusing, shifting between more general, theoretical approaches (like audience analysis and information literacy) and more specific practical approaches (like proposals and progress reports) without a clear rationale for shifting from one to the other. It should be noted that different formats might have issues relating to page presentation, as I have noticed that in other primarily online references I have seen. Reviewed by Jim Crawford, Adjunct English Instructor, Germanna Community College on 2/1/18, I examined this textbook as a resource for a 100-level Technical Writing class. The text does an especially good job of explaining how to write proposals and reports in a clear, step-by-step manner. These do more to complicate the subject than clarify it. The textbook includes links to videos and images that further touch upon the concepts of a chapter, which is very helpful and engaging. I wonder if any of the authors are currently active in the technical communication community or have worked in nonacademic technical environments on communication design tasks. There is not a lot of technical jargon present; the lack of technical writing terminology is one reason the book reads like introductory material. The text is written clearly and concisely. The lack of robust user-based terminology is a problem with this book. The book is being reviewed the book in the web PDF format. In technical communication, it's important to remember that standards are always changing in business and this will undoubtedly shift the way professionals communicate, interact, and write. There was no mention of the writing process, a confusing oversight on two fronts. Study of books, articles, reports, websites related to the product. Good technical writing is hard because writers must get straight to the point without losing or confusing readers. WebTechnical writing is the practice of creating primarily text-based instructional or informational documents for users. The authors, however, could consider adding a separate section that discusses style and tone (in addition to orthodox grammar/sentence structure error patterns like splices, fragments, etc.). The text gives full explanation of the content. The field of technical communication is essential in a wide range of fields and occupations. However, locating the table of contents may not be intuitive for some students, and some students may not know how to navigate through each chapter's subsections. In particular, I would like information on writing instructions and technical descriptions, as well as the finer points of correspondence writing, like strategies for persuasion, or handling negative news, or emphasizing reader benefits. I learn best in environments where I can learn from experts and apply what Im learning in the form of a project or an assignment. As the organization of the chapters is chaotic, I believe most instructors would have to move sections around as assign them individually instead of starting at chapter 1 and working through the textbook. Some of the chapters are extremely brief and rudimentary, while others are detailed and nuanced. This text includes several sections that I would expect to see in a technical writing textbook: job search materials, reports, proposals, using graphics, professional communications, and audience analysis. The PDF version has 242 pages but I would recommend to students that they only print selectively as many pages are blank. But when the writing is poor, the reader may have trouble moving forward which can lead to frustration. 2022 by Stephanie Morillo. The text is geared towards an American culture. The text does not include an index or glossary. I am prone to noticing grammatical and punctuation errors, but nothing jumped out at me in this textbook. The PDF version of the textbook works as expected in terms of the links in the toc and the thumbnails visible in Acrobat. I would use the book as a resource but not as a textbook for students. Technical Writing One: Learn the critical basics of technical writing. Technical Writing Concise To write concisely does not mean to use fewer words. The text is broken up into sections reflecting key components of researching, developing, and producing a technical report. Some of the graphics are a bit low-res, but nothing that would inhibit meaning it's well presented overall. The book is clearly arranged into chapters with clear titles and headings. reader centered. The textbook mentions purpose, almost in passing - the purpose of a memo, for instance, or a report. There are, at times, inconsistencies in how thoroughly topics are treated and covered, but that is to be expected with many textbooks. Section 9.2 includes the Challenger disaster as an example of unethical writing. Navigation between and within chapters is smooth. The progression from Proposals to Information Literacy (research) to Citations to Progress Reports makes sense in that it follows the progression one might follow in a particular workplace project. If they have, I would implore them to use better industry examples and the jargon of writers in technical professions. Visuals and page layout are important features of a lot of technical writing and this text doesn't take advantage of opportunities to incorporate a variety of examples. Topics common to technical writing courses are explored The authors have really put together a text that is useful in terms of what it can do in different kinds of technical communication classroom. In fact, plagiarism is an important IP (intellectual property) concern globally, so reference to international publication and copyright standards would be far more useful to students, who are students for 4 years or so, but professionals for up to 40 years. Embedded videos appear to function as expected; the interface could benefit from a column-width inline viewer that would keep the video window from being narrower than the text columns. Otherwise the flow and structure are generally logical. In general, I believe both the Web and open source materials provide enough material to work with that textbooks in writing courses are unnecessary. The book is posted in 4 different formats which makes it readily accessible to students. Consistent use of headers and special highlights (e.g., boldface, etc.) The text covers proposals and progress reports in depth with links to examples of other types of technical writing including resumes and instructions (but no discussion of these forms in depth). The texts language is clear and accessible. It also includes a couple of sections I wouldn't necessarily expect, but that would be very useful in any professional writing class: discussions of the ethics involved in report writing, information literacy, and document design. The field of technical and professional communication tends to use terms somewhat synonymously, so the conflation of certain terms in the text is not unusual in the field. The tone is very casual and not professional. And that will be good for the projects you work on, for the organizations you work in, andmost of allgood for you and your career. I am looking for options to supplant one of the large, mainstream technical communication textbooks and that is a high bar. There were no noticeable grammatical errors, though there were occasional long, wordy, confusing sentences. Although an index/glossary is not provided, the Table of Contents organizes the material and allows for readers to see the breadth of areas and subjects within the Technical Writing textbook. Technical writers must be familiar with research methods, usability, visual design, and instructional design, among other things. Chapters refer to students learning of concepts found later in the textbook. The book doesn't completely fit the course in technical writing that I teach but I would consider using if it did. But when the writing is poor, the reader may have trouble moving forward which can lead to frustration. For example, the texting section may need to be updated within the next year to account for newer texting apps and conventions. The 2 videos are designed by an instructor for a specific course and reference specific assignments for that course so these are not good choices for this textbook that is meant to be a general source for any Technical Writing course. Despite an opening comment in the Introduction that claims students will learn to write "in such a way that even Grandad can understand," a which is a bit insulting to grandpas everywhere (it's ageist), the book seems to be culturally respectful and appropriate. While this text provides the basics of technical writing, it does not help with a variety of concerns students may face in their chosen fields. WebIntroduction to Technical Writing for Industry. In addition to the mix of genres that it discusses, the book is also effective in its coverage of different aspects of writing such as audience, context, ethics, etc. The text is accessible and concise in delivery. The content is up-to-date and appears to be thoroughly accurate. The web PDF format functions as expected in Acrobat reader with the sidebar thumbnails and toc providing hyperlinks to specific pages and sections. The book is offered in various formats, and they aren't parallel. There are multiple instances of the text directing you to a hyperlink to another resource that explains the concept in more depth. Students should have no trouble identifying a reading assignment such as chapter 9, sections 9.1 through 9.3.. Free Technical Writing Training Courses #3 - Introduction To Technical Writing Training. A more contemporary text would no doubt include online collaborative tools and meeting platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Introduction to Technical Writing - Technical Writing Textbook New chapters are simply tacked on at the end. Cloud integration: Call iFlow from Node app with Own Client Reviewed by Elizabeth McClure, Lecturer, University of Maryland, College Park on 2/1/18, This text includes several sections that I would expect to see in a technical writing textbook: job search materials, reports, proposals, using graphics, professional communications, and audience analysis. WebTechnical writing is performed by a technical writer (or technical author) and is the process of writing and sharing technical information in a professional setting [Wikipedia] Technical writing is simplifying the complex [Techwhirl.com] Forms of technical writing may include white papers, instruction manuals, handbooks and product descriptions. This book doesn't handle proposal writing in a way that fits what I know of proposal writing outside of essay topic proposals used in composition courses. Pages 15-16, on netiquette, uses headings, along with simply, un-bolded bullet points. Omitting a discussion of the rhetorical situation elicits more questions about course level and students prerequisite knowledge. Reviewed by Ruth Perkins, Adjunct instructor, Chemeketa Community College on 4/11/17, The text clearly focuses on research and report writing in a business context. One could argue that a textbook should move from more simple to more complex concepts. Ideally, the authors would employ a plain style to avoid usability problems for non-American-dialect users. The authors offer no discussion of theory, despite a claim on page 1 that theory underlies technical writing. At least one other reviewer has noted that there are inconsistency issues across various formats in which the book is offered. In addition, the text needs more real-life example that demonstrate the points being made in each section. Course Subjects ETWR 1002/ENGL 2311 offers varied activities, to help students learn and apply technical-writing formats, mechanics and style.As an introduction to technical writing, this course covers the basics of analyzing and writing for audiences; writing technical reports, instructions, business letters, resumes, proposals; preparing for
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