Understanding the linguistic and rhetorical patterns of an academic discipline strengthens students' abilities to write in professional settings. Data-driven learning and corpus-linguistic methods can increase this understanding and should be considered valuable contributors to any writing curriculum. In this paper, I present a case history on…

The advantages of peer feedback in business writing classes are clear in that feedback comes from different perspectives and sometimes carries extra credibility coming from fellow students. However, students also hesitate to criticise their friends and prefer praising in a general way rather than suggesting improvements, which requires…

Explores the use of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style" as a tool for teaching editing skills to technical writing students. Discusses a procedure for and likely results of using this work in the classroom. (HTH)

Reports students' perceptions of learning desktop publishing (DTP) systems. Finds that (1) students learned the foundations of DTP in under 60 hours of hands-on experience; (2) the incremental introduction of DTP functions and practice sessions before assignments were the most effective teaching strategy; and (3) use of DTP encouraged nonartistic…

Discusses a method that reinforces and monitors "correct" writing and editing, reviews the rhetoric for "effective" writing, and demonstrates how specific technical writing tasks fit into an engineer's everyday writing. An example of a technical writing task used in sophomore engineering classes is included. (JN)

Contains citations for reviews, and articles on the technical writing profession, pedagogy, research, technical writing and the computer, and editing. (HTH)

Suggests that technical writing students need to be introduced to four important job-oriented concepts: (1) sleuthing (to pinpoint and correct questionable materials); (2) diplomacy (to handle sensitive authors); (3) scheduling (to estimate the time involved to complete a job accurately); and (4) budgeting (to determine job costs). (HTH)

Offers a plan for developing student editing skills in the beginning technical writing class. Suggests guidelines that parallel the revision-oriented heuristics of such scholars as Michael Flanigan and Linda Flower. (FL)

Incorporates writing a journal article into a business report writing course as a coassignment to the analytical report. Argues that the business article lends "real-life" relevance to the report assignment and allows students to make double use of their reports' research, findings, and analyses. (MS)

Describes the Service Manual Project developed by the author to teach his Technical Writing II class to interact with professional literature in a more sophisticated and useful manner. Once technical students begin looking at printed matter they work with day in and day out, they begin analyzing it and seeing it in a different light. They realize…

Outlines a three-part diagnostic unit that tells the technical writing teacher what students need to know while showing students what technical writing is. Divides the unit into (1) troubleshooting a poor report, (2) exchanging and comparing revised reports, and (3) followup activities. (RL)

The use of error pattern analysis can reduce the time and money spent on editing and correcting manuscripts. What is required is noting, classifying, and keeping a frequency count of errors. First an editor should take a typical page of writing and circle each error. After the editor has done a sufficiently large number of pages to identify an…

In preparing students for business writing, a technical writing class should foster (1) a sensitivity to audience and an understanding of the business or technical organizational audience, (2) analytical problem solving that precedes any but the simplest writing task, (3) understanding of the patterns of organization that make information clear to…

Describes an editing assignment in which senior engineering students use their knowledge of non-finite clauses (both restrictive and non-restrictive) to achieve concise mature writing. Explains the linguistic background provided to students before the assignment, gives details of the published "answer guide" and the exercise, and…

Presents a process-oriented method for teachers of stylistic editing workshops that allows them to (1) focus on individual students, (2) start with students basic repertory of responses and build from there, (3) work with freely emitted behavior, (4) ensure frequent and brief responses, and (5) achieve desired behavior through sequential steps.…