Assessing text quality as an indication of underlying skills still remains challenging; irrespective of the approach, many studies struggle with reliability or validity problems. If writing is considered problem-solving, a report must make the reader understand the described situation and call for its mental reconstruction. Therefore, text quality…

English is one of the subjects that has been studied at the elementary to secondary level for many years in Indonesia. One area that must be studied is technical writing skills in English. In the technical writing process in English, there are still many mistakes made by students in Indonesia. So it is very necessary to recognize some common…

Speaking plainly, says the writer: too many architecture students can't write. After hearing graduate architecture students defend their designs at a midterm studio review, the writer observed that, under questioning, several students became inarticulate and left participles or sentences dangling. While this may be understandable, the writer also…

Summarizes recent research into systems of lexical and grammatical cohesion in technical description. Discusses various methods by which technical writers "re-enter" the topic of description back into the text in successive sentences. (HTH)

Presents a teaching assignment for business communication students involving library research and a process description assignment for technical writing students. (FL)

Presents a way of teaching process explanation in a technical writing course. Urges that the assignment ask students to explain a process they have learned from experience or from observation. (TJ)

Examines construction and use of documentation to create and disseminate order in activity systems of several engineering organizations. Finds that participants used documentation to protect themselves and to describe future actions for others to take. Suggests that creating effective documentation was difficult when writer and reader were from…

A college technical writing class project on preparing an instruction manual for a toy race-car set not only showed that the students recognized their audience and used appropriate language, but also provided subject matter for other coursework. (RL)

Describes a game-like writing exercise that uses the principle of "divide and conquer" to teach technical description. (PD)

Describes the company profile case study approach to technical writing. Explains that groups of four students (1) select an industrywide classification, then select four firms from the chosen classification; (2) select audiences for their reports; (3) research individual companies and prepare group presentations; and (4) deliver group…

Presents a descriptive exercise, also useful for technical writing, that provides a real reader and a strong sense of the nature of descriptive writing. Students are given sketches of an art piece that they must describe for a museum for identification. (HTH)

Describes five writing activities for college writing courses: (1) a documented opinion paper exercise; (2) breaking writing rules; (3) trip reports from absentees; (4) case studies to promote writing for particular audiences for pragmatic purposes; and (5) an organizing strategy for studying, using a chart format. (SR)

Describes five activities for college writing courses: (1) sports as a literary topic; (2) paragraph descriptions of a favorite meal; (3) interdisciplinary team teaching in the humanities; (4) use of "real" letters and memoranda in a technical writing course; and (5) a word-strength chart for a poetry-writing class. (MM)

Common pitfalls in technical writing and how to avoid them are outlined. These pitfalls include goobledygook words and phrases, plodding style, failure to follow the prescribed format for publication or proposals, misuse of words, inconsistencies, and failure to edit or proofread adequately. (MSE)

Describes a pedagogical approach to teaching composition, based on research indicating that inexperienced writers have undeveloped composing processes. Presents a sample lesson for describing an item that gives technical writing students knowledge of how they write and introduces them to strategies for mastering the composing process. (HTH)