Creative writing and technical communication are distinct yet similar forms of writing that require time, patience, and disciplined creativity to be effective. Other qualities shared by these two writing forms that should be emphasized in technical writing courses are: (1) effective information sharing, a process that depends on audience analysis,…

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…

In order to help science students communicate more effectively with people outside their field, a two-semester technical writing course was developed with an emphasis on thinking rather than on blind adherence to the rules and forms of technical writing. The initial test group was composed of freshman science majors with exceptional writing…

To determine the status of the teaching of technical writing in two-year colleges, a survey was conducted of 1,202 two-year institutions in the 50 states. Questions concerned enrollment patterns, number of technical communication courses and teachers, number of years technical communication courses have been offered, prerequisites for courses…

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…