Discusses psychological report writing and suggests that current guidelines have not been responsive to changes in professional practice stemming from legal mandates, changing professional roles, and contemporary theory and practice. Reviews approaches to assessment and their potential influence on report writing and presents a contemporary…

Advocates emphasizing the reader-writer relationship and the context of editor to facilitate the objectivity and distance technical writing students need to revise effectively. Suggests providing technical writing students with an opportunity to work with others writing in an editorial capacity to help them better understand this relationship.…

Examines the individual and combined effects of between-sentence cohesive conjunctions, reference (lexical cohesion), and response rhetorical predicates on college freshmen's comprehension of selected passages of scientific, technical prose. (HOD)

Describes three assignments for enticing business communication students to undertake library research: an analysis of a Fortune 500 company, a career choice report, and a report on an organization that offers potential employment. (AEA)

Many states have created professional development systems to support the ongoing and increased education and training needs of early care and education professionals. This guide describes lessons learned in Massachusetts about conducting a study of the capacity of institutions of higher education (IHEs) to prepare the early education and care…

This book presents 38 research shortcuts: (1) "Decide Who You're Researching For"; (2) "Make Sure You Know What Your Topic Is"; (3) "Isolate the Purpose of Your Research"; (4) "Keep Your Topic's Time Requirements Under Control"; (5) "Pick Out the Correct Working Title"; (6) "Prepare a Preliminary Outline"; (7) "Turn Your Research Needs into…

This experimental, statistical study investigated the effects that a review of grammar and writing mechanics would have on the overall quality of college students' documents in technical/business communication. In the experimental group of 25 students, the professor assigned several exercises in grammar and mechanics as a review related to…

Technical communication specialists today really have to be technology experts as well as effective writers--even their titles have changed to "information designers, information engineers, or document developers." Teachers of technical communication should be up to date in the classroom to meet the changing needs of the workplace.…

Drawn from the experience of various ministries and departments in governments across Canada, this guide is meant to be a practical guide in implementing plain language for managers in the Ontario (Canada) government. The guide describes how to use plain language in planning, writing, designing, and editing forms and documents, and how to set up…

This book describes how it feels and what it means to do qualitative research, and it provides support for doctoral students who choose this form of inquiry for their dissertation research. It serves as a guide to the processes and procedures involved in writing the qualitative dissertation. The reflections of research correspondents are the data…

Using David Leonard's article, "Using the Web for Graduate Courses in Technical Communication with Distant Learners," as a point of departure, this paper examines variations of Leonard's four factors that contribute to the success of a Web-based course in light of an online Introduction to Technical Writing course designed and taught by the…

For an analysis of real-world writing, a researcher picked annual reports since they are written for stockholders, financial advisers, and "the competition." Annual reports are essentially "puff pieces," documents written by company people aiming to please the stockholders. Because of the varied audience, the narrative section,…

Articles extolling service-learning's benefits and discussing ways to use the pedagogy in the form of projects with organizations in the community are on the rise in the fields of composition and business/technical writing. One educator's classroom experiences with service-learning have shown students make important educational gains in such…