Legislation, literature and research have recently advocated the importance of establishing and representing the views of children and young people. This study aimed to establish how Educational Psychologists (EPs) in one authority ascertain and present children's views in written reports. Content analysis was undertaken on the pupils' view…

This study reports on the context and impact of the Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) professional development to promote teachers' and students' scientific literacy through the creation of science classroom discourse communities. The theoretical underpinnings of the professional development model are presented and key professional…

Prior research demonstrated that writing synopsis laboratory reports (succinct syntheses of the experiment, lecture, and readings) instead of traditional laboratory reports, did not influence student learning as measured by comprehensive exam scores. This study extended this research by investigating the impact of these lab report formats on…

The study investigates the development of scientific communication skills in Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) students studying science in the UK. Perspectives are gained from students and staff in both sectors. Evidence suggests that a mis-match in expectations exists and the onus may be on HE to explore more effective and…

Describing the emergence of the first shipbuilding texts, particularly those in English provides another chapter in the story of the emergence of English technical writing. Shipwrightery texts did not appear in English until the middle decades of the seventeenth century because shipwrightery was a closed discourse community which shared knowledge…

This research article reports the results of an online survey distributed among technical writing instructors in 2006. The survey aimed to examine how we teach intercultural communication in basic technical writing courses: our current practices and methods. The article discusses three major challenges that instructors may face when teaching about…

Current scholarship tells us that skills in teaming are essential for students and practitioners of professional communication. Writers must be able to cooperate with subject-matter experts and team members to make effective decisions and complete projects. Scholarship also suggests that rapid changes in technology and changes in teaming processes…

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…

Seattle University has an industrially sponsored, yearlong, senior design program that has been in existence for more than 20 years. Students work in teams of three or four under the guidance of a liaison from the sponsoring agency and a faculty advisor. The students prepare a proposal in the fall quarter detailing their plan and a design report…

In this essay, the author tries to look forward into the 21st century to divine three things: (i) What skills will researchers in the future need to solve the most pressing problems? (ii) What are some of the most likely candidates to be those problems? and (iii) What are some current areas of research that seem mined out and should not distract…

Discusses the process of writing usable instructions, relying on organization, formatting, and visual displays to aid comprehension. (JAD)

Offers a selective bibliography, covering the last 25 years, of articles on how to write instructions for using computers. Contains sections on planning computer documentation, computer manuals, and online documentation. (JAD)

Asks why technical documents rarely contain satisfactory glossaries. Suggests ways to avoid common problems such as superabundance of terms defined, complex definitions, non-parallel structuring of definitions, and excessive cross-referencing. (JAD)

Compares the use of English compound tenses and Russian tense-aspect combinations in English and Russian scientific writing. Concludes that to convey the proper meaning, English translations of Russian technical texts should contain more uses of the conditional or subjunctive than appear in the original. (EKN)

Describes the modified sentence outline (MSO) format for report writing, using the actual outline form to serve as example. (HTH)