Writing as a tool for thinking, learning, and communicating is crucial to academic and career success as well as to active citizenship in a democracy. This annual report of the National Writing Project features teachers of math, chemistry, art, history, and business who develop their students as writers. These educators employ writing to engage…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report results from an evaluation of an online abstract mentoring programme to support early career and less experienced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) researchers improve their chances of acceptance to International HIV/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Conferences. Design/methodology/approach: An…

Writing in its many forms is the signature means of communication in the 21st century. This simple truth heightens the urgency to help all of our nation's students become strong writers and effective communicators. The National Writing Project (NWP) pursues this goal by focusing the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of the nation's educators on…

Discusses the process of observation and presents a systematic approach for incorporating behavioral observations into evaluations and written psychological reports, based on Robert Carkhuff's Human Resource Development Model. Using this framework and drawing on the experiences of the authors, several principles of report writing are discussed.…

Describes recent changes at Michigan Technological University from a heavily literature oriented freshman program to one that develops writing skills, especially technical and business English skills. (RB)

Presents the objectives and philosophy, qualities of trainer and trainees, procedures and methodology, and evaluation techniques necessary for an effective writing skills program within a business organization. (RL)

Discusses the importance of teaching writing in college science classes by evaluating written lab reports, editing, and critically grading papers that students write. Also presents a structured method to teach lab report writing. (Author/SK)

The 12 articles in this publication provide indepth treatment of important aspects of in-house training programs for technical writing and editing. The articles deal with the following topics: the value of an in-house writing course, teaching in industry, developing an in-house writing course for engineers and scientists, a new approach to…

Designed for those responsible for printed materials produced in schools, school systems, and educational organizations, this handbook is a collection of guidelines, tips, and checklists for producing printed materials for the profession and the public. The first two chapters consider elements essential to producing effective publications:…

A high school electronics teacher describes the integration of technical report writing in the electronics program for trade and industrial students. He notes that the report writing rather than just recording data seemed to improve student laboratory experience but further improvements in the program are needed. A sample lab report is included.…

A workshop was developed at the Bank of Canada to give instruction in writing brief summaries of financial analyses to junior economists entering the bank after university. These employees were expected to write these analyses for the senior officers of the institution. It had been found that the specialists had not learned strategies for…

Northeastern University (Boston) offers an internship program to train technical writers for the computer industry. The program is designed for 20 individuals with bachelor's degrees and writing experience. Students attend classes at night, taking one computer science course and one graduate level writing course per academic quarter. The computer…

A model designed to aid faculty in course development and revision is presented and discussed as it operates at the Community College of Philadelphia. Several guiding principles of instructional development are presented, stressing the importance of a positive approach and the view of instructional development as a mode of communication between…

Observing that the lecture/discussion instructional technique resulted in high failure rates among students taking technical composition, an instructor at Madisonville Community College (Kentucky) implemented a new course system designed to provide individualized instruction. The system called for two fifty-minute lectures per week attended by all…

Drawn from a conference that addressed the problems and challenges facing technical communication educators, the papers in this collection deal in general with career opportunities and educational programs in technical communication. Specifically, the papers discuss the following topics: (1) internship programs and job interviews at Rensselaer…