Organizational patterns can serve as a teaching strategy for instructors and as a learning tool for students to develop their expository writing skills, which are commonly required for assignments (for example, laboratory reports and research papers) in Food Science courses and in their future careers. The article discusses the importance of…

Science, technology and engineering functional literacy should be developed purposely in the school system -- like any other competence, it does not develop spontaneously. For this purpose, a didactic model, the Metacognitive Model for Developing Science, Technology and Engineering Literacy (McM_T&E), was developed. Apart from acquiring…

Technology and engineering functional literacy should be intentionally developed in the school system -- like any other competence, it does not develop spontaneously. For this purpose, a didactic model, the Metacognitive model for developing technology and engineering literacy (McM_T&E), was developed, implemented and evaluated. The results of…

When writing projects have an authentic reader beyond the classroom teacher, students can see a direct connection between their lives and their literacy development. That connection is key to learning engagement and motivation. Using the inquiry model to teach technical writing is also important since students' lives outside school are filled…

This article details how we integrate Jody Shipka's approach to creativity and rhetorical awareness into a Professional Writing, Rhetoric, and Technology major at the University of South Florida. We situate Shipka's pedagogy alongside postpedagogy, differentiating the latter from postcomposition. In short, we argue that postpedagogy echoes…

Students need regular opportunities to write expository text. However, focusing on report writing often leaves students without strong examples to study or analyze to guide and grow their own writing. Writing and studying feature articles, meant to inform and explain, can become an alternative to report writing, as they can easily be located in…

Crossing the threshold from high school to college-level writing expectations constitutes a challenge for many students since secondary and post-secondary composition instructors often work under different constraints and are guided by different curricular philosophies. Dual enrollment classrooms provide a space where these differences can be…

In the technical communication classroom, the received wisdom is that good instructions should "stay out of the way" of the users' engagement with technological systems. This article draws on Burke's concept of perspective by incongruity and on examples of instructions produced during the Women's Health Movement to demonstrate that sometimes…

A common aphorism in the halls of education is that the writing skills of Americans decline over time. Compared to the "golden age of letters," so the argument goes, each subsequent generation of writers is worse than the last. Although contemporary readers and educators commiserate over encounters with bad writing, a fair comparison of 18th…

Describes the methods a scientist employs in his scientific writing. (DD)

Urges popular science writers to reduce vocabulary to a level that can be comprehended by the average reader. (DD)

Tested model for writing psychological reports that specified types of data and mode of data presentation most likely to be viewed positively by readers. School psychologists rated comparable sets of statements that might appear in school psychological reports, one set model based and the other not. Respondents rated model-based statements as…

Examines the problem for technical writing classes regarding the demands of workplace writing as they conflict with writing conventions of the classroom. Suggests how the problem might be handled, and explores how this problem illustrates the technical writing class' contribution to preparing students for the work of life. (NH)

Examines the "situation-problem-solution-evaluation" structure, as well as other organizational structures useful in report writing. Discusses briefly the limitations and applications of information structures. (HTH)