Describes a study into what happens when academics who learned English for Special Purposes broadened their goals and attempted reading geared to those with a knowledge of "general" English. Results showed that participant comprehension increased significantly, but reading speed did not consistently increase. (Author/SED)

Discusses expectations of technical writing from the perspectives of engineers engaged in varied academic and business activities. (MM)

This monograph is a guide to effective presentation of report data and information from institutional research. The work focuses on several types of presentation: the written report (alternative ways for presenting information, appearance, and the audience); graphic displays or charts (to present words or data in an organized or symbolic fashion;…

A study investigated the standards used in refereeing scholarly journal articles to judge qualitative research methods. Examination of reviewers' critiques of 57 manuscripts submitted to the "Review of Higher Education" revealed 7 themes that reviewers focused on, and also found reviewers emphasized good writing and clear articulation of…

A Research Experience for Undergraduates is an extracurricular opportunity for science and engineering undergraduate students to participate in academic research like graduate students. Describes an effort to incorporate professional ethics into such an experience. The basic premise--integrating explicit discussion of ethical considerations…

Analyzes the proposal-writing environment, the characteristics of proposals, and the practices of seven engineers at a Silicon Valley engineering firm that does government defense work. Finds that engineers write proposals collaboratively and have a highly structured composing process. Describes how the firm's Proposal Writing Center dramatically…

Describes how technical writing teachers, by using a system of peer critiques, self evaluation, and portfolio grading, can use process activities (student literacy autobiographies, interviews with professional writers, and writing peer groups) to extend the range of activities in technical writing courses. (MM)

Asks the course planner, text writer, teacher, or even the student to consider a series of questions about Earth processes such as how, why, and where the process occurs and why is it important. Provides a guide for the coverage of a topic to ensure that nothing is overlooked. (Author/MVL)

Art and writing are valuable tools for helping students develop sensitivity to the world around them and for encouraging them to respond to their feelings. Activities combining art and writing include writing a detailed description of an object; writing about a personally created collage; journal-keeping; self-appraisals; and writing step-by-step…

Scientific and technical jargon--specialized vocabulary, usually Latinate--plays a vital role in scientific and technical communication. But its proper use continues to be a point of discussion because of our concern with audience adaptation, rhetorical exigence, rhetorical purpose, and ethics. We've focused on teaching students--and on convincing…

School nurses need to become more influential administrators, managers, and entrepreneurs. They must learn to lead and collaborate effectively in designing, implementing, and evaluating coordinated school health programs. Quality assurance is an essential ingredient in this process that requires accurate, timely, and confidential incident…

A recursive scientific writing project was undertaken in a second-year, graduate-level course to teach students who were non-native English speakers to write scientific communications clearly and concisely in English. The instructor returned students' brief texts with editorial revisions marked to show how increased clarity may be achieved through…

We present an alternative to a traditional first-year chemistry laboratory experiment. This experiment has four key features: students utilize stoichiometry, learn and apply principles of green chemistry, engage in authentic scientific inquiry, and discover why each part of a scientific lab report is necessary. The importance and essential…

Writers often must summarize others' texts as part of their own work. To succeed at this, they must first read and understand new information and then transform that information to fulfill a specific purpose. Concept mapping, used as a visual organizing technique, can be an effective link between the two processes. In a preliminary study, students…

Addressing the expressed needs of the writing community, this book presents writing lessons for intermediate, middle school, and secondary school students that incorporate the 5-step writing process into content areas as a natural part of the curriculum. The 30 lessons in this book involve students in large and small groups and in individual…