When writing journal articles, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) researchers produce a number of other genres such as grant proposals and conference posters, and their new articles routinely build directly on their own prior work. As a result, STEM authors often reuse material from their completed documents in producing new…

This article describes an interdisciplinary, partially online honors course entitled Video Game Theory and Design. The article reviews the literature surrounding video games and technical communication and then outlines the learning objectives for the course. The authors describe individual and team-produced assignments and suggest game design…

This article reports on a qualitative study of strategies and competencies used by technical communication and translation students to address challenges inherent in global virtual team collaboration. The study involved students from three universities collaborating in virtual teams to write and translate instructional documents. Qualitative…

This article traces the history of Mary Schuster's career in technical writing and communication from 1968 when she took a position in the Publications Department at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to her work at "Technical Communication Quarterly" ("TCQ") in 2003 and forward. She discusses the…

To investigate how college students understand and use cloud technology for collaborative writing, the authors studied two asynchronous online courses, on science communication and on technical communication. Students worked on a group assignment (3-4 per group) using Google Docs and individually reflected on their experience writing…

The present article describes and evaluates collaborative interdisciplinary group projects initiated by content lecturers and an English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) instructor for the purpose of teaching technical writing skills in an aeronautical engineering degree program. The proposed technical writing model is assessed against the results of a…

Pedagogical and scholarly representations of collaborative writing and knowledge construction in technical communication have traditionally recognized consensus as the logical outcome of collaborative work, even as scholars and teachers have acknowledged the value of conflict and "dissensus" in the process of collaborative knowledge…

Analyzes the behaviors of over 60 student groups in professional writing classes. Finds gender-related effects on collaboration: tendencies to stereotype men as technical experts and to self-segregate into gendered working teams. Suggests new perspectives on the role of gender for collaborative groups in professional writing classrooms. (PA)

Reports on the results of survey research designed to determine how students feel about peer assistance and group writing. Finds that results were generally favorable, although more problems surfaced regarding collaborative projects than peer criticism. States that statistical analysis of objective and open-ended items yielded suggestions for…

Discusses the problems and benefits of teaching technical writing classes in a collaborative computer classroom. Concludes that computers let students write more effectively because computers are compatible with the writing process and that teaching students to write in a collaborative computer environment prepares them for group projects and…

Reports on an attempt to organize a collaborative writing project with two teams of graduate students. Concludes that despite the professional level of the students, they, like undergraduates, need structure and guidance throughout the collaborative process, including journal checks, conferences, and self- and group-assessment tools. (TB)

States that service learning educates students to volunteer their expertise for the benefit of society. Suggests that teachers of business and technical writing can apply this pedagogy by assigning students to write for nonprofits. Describes service learning's origins; proposes a rationale for it; explains sequential projects and teaching methods…

Background: Previous research suggests that there are advantages to writing in groups or in pairs compared with writing individually, and that men write differently from women. However, as far as we know, no one has yet used new technology to assess published academic articles written in these different modes. Method: We assembled 80 papers from…