3:3: Reading the Present
Up one levelLooking at present practices in technical and professional communication should inform both present and future 'best practices.' But we don't always examine every element of the present properly. This issue examines four aspects of present practice often underestimated.
- Building an Online Learning Community
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Mindi McDowell, Stephanie Trunzo, Kristin Vincent
Research has shown that one of the best ways for courses in the humanities and social sciences to develop students' analytical skills is through class discussion. However, our own experiences have shown that some distance-learning courses in these fields do not provide the sense of community necessary for effective discussion. This is important because the number of courses taught at a distance is growing exponentially each year. - Usability: Lighting the Path to the Future
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Anthony Torrence
The future of Technical Communication is something that we are all, as either practitioners, academics or students, keenly interested in. What is the future of our chosen discipline? What exactly is it that a practitioner in the field does today? This paper will explain that through examining one sub-discipline of Technical Communication, Usability, we may see an example of the beginnings of a pattern of professional development. - Engaging and Educating Readers Through a Progressive Writing
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Jeanie Comstock
Although technical communication documents cannot possibly be tailored to exactly match the interest, reading level and many-faceted influences of a reader, they can I believe, take measures to engage the reader to believe that the information he or she is receiving from the document is valuable to their experience in some way. - The Rhetoric of Critical Procedures
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Walter H. Boelter
One important aspect of technical writing is the production and use of procedures. Though technical writing serves a variety of purposes, teaching, informing, persuading, and even questioning, one of its primary and most common purposes is the 'how-to' function of providing procedures. There is a great deal of information available on writing procedures, the vast majority of it focusing on software documentation and product documentation.