ETC 408/508: Technical Editing is a cross-listed undergraduate and graduate course at Missouri Western State University, an open admissions public university with approximately 6,000 students. 508 is an elective course for students in the Master of Applied Arts in Written Communication degree and highly recommended for those in the Technical…

Argues that technical communicators must be prepared to communicate via multiple media, including video. Describes a technical scriptwriting course that develops skills useful in several media. Discusses pedagogical strategies, three major assignments, reading assignments, client assignments, production diary assignment, and new technology. (SR)

At Clackamas Community College, a system of contract learning has been adapted for use in a technical writing class. The course focuses on teaching the essentials of technical writing (i.e., clarity and organization in report writing); the basic employment attitudes that local businesses and industries expect; and the form of writing that the…

"Engineering Report Writing," a required course in the Civil Engineering Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, combines both pragmatic and innovative assignments that teach the techniques of technical writing. Course design and success are discussed. (LBH)

This paper focuses first on the educator, Ralph W. Tyler, who serves as a model and ideal for curriculum development and implementation. The paper states that in 1949, Tyler, in creating a syllabus, created a small book of 128 pages, and in so doing, he set a benchmark in the field of education. The paper then provides an extended syllabus for a…

A course in technical writing has justification for appearing in a college English department curriculum if course content as it is currently taught is somewhat modified. In general, business or technical writing has been primarily a study of a wide variety of letter and report writing forms. To be taught as a liberal arts course, a technical…

A project conducted during the last three years examined an undergraduate foreign language reading course, Technical Japanese, to understand the students' learning process. The course combines science with Japanese and includes note-taking skills as preparation for reading. (Contains 23 references.) (LB)

The justification for including a year-long course in practical writing and editing in a research-oriented university's writing program and a description of that course are presented in this paper. Discussed are the responses to four questions: What is practical or survival writing? How much is there of it? What can a university gain from teaching…

Students' verbatim comments reflect the enthusiasm toward writing which is generated by the course. The author discusses the course design, citing the texts used, including readings from master, technical report writers. Description of the curriculum leads progressively from textual analysis through the final phase in which students are urged to…

A curriculum guide, in outline form, for oceanography field laboratories is presented. Designed to complement and expand upon an oceanography lecture course, it provides a list of objectives related to student experiences in three areas: (1) operating oceanographic equipment; (2) gathering, manipulating, and evaluating data; and (3) writing formal…

A course in technical Russian is shown to differ from the usual language course in aims (translation, not oral skills), rate, caliber and motivation of student, demands on the background of the teacher, and material used. A sample outline of class procedure is included. (GK)