Technical and Professional Writing Commons^™

Cross-Cultural Solutions Volunteer Handbook, Alexa Senio

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Alexa worked with Cross-Cultural Solutions to design and create a handbook that could prepare volunteers for their experience abroad. By using her personal experience abroad at El Pueblito, an orphanage in Cartago, Costa Rica, Alexa was able to compile resources and information that would be useful for a first-time volunteer to make the most out of their experience and to make sure they are prepared for working with the children. The final product is an interactive PDF handbook and an accompanying classroom activity bank on Pinterest that can be accessed digitally by CCS volunteers worldwide.

Storytelling Failure In The Vale Of Leven: How A Bacterial Outbreak Became A Wicked Problem, Kyle P. Vealey

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines the rhetorical work of a public inquiry investigation into an outbreak of Clostridium Difficile at the Vale of Leven Hospital in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland that resulted in 143 cases of infection and the tragic deaths of 34 patients. In light of these deaths and subsequent protests from local citizens, the National Health Service (NHS) Scotland launched a public inquiry in 2009 to investigate the events precipitating the outbreak. Extending rhetoric and technical communication’s sustained engagement with post-accident reports, this study explores how citizens and government officials accounted for the causes, boundaries, and impact of the outbreak. Specifically, …

Facilitating Environmental Literacy In A Socio-Digital Landscape, Anna E. Hotard

Honors Theses

My work engages digital communications, traditional writing, and campus/community engagement in order to curate emergent knowledge of environmental citizenship and sustainable development. In the city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, there has been a growing interest in environmental literacy both on the University of Southern Mississippi campus and within the city community. Environmental literacy takes many forms from informational sessions, fundraisers and events, to outright activism. This work informs my evolving identity as an editor as I choreograph traditional transcripts into a digital sphere in order to provide a collective space for related interests.

Author Support For Wiki Based Help Systems: Genre Conventions For Content Templates, Claire Lundeby

Technical Communication Capstone Course

Author support systems are critical in wiki help systems. I provide a critical review of existing research on author support systems, content strategy, content management, and how these intersect, as well as a structural content analysis of five content templates in an effort to define genre conventions.

Grad Student Wins Evangelical Press Scholarship: Comm Student Stands Out In Christian Journalism

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

Yorba Times: Special Edition On Safety, Noah Asher Golden, Facundo Acevedo, Jesse Alonzo, Henessy Arana, Leslie Arriaga, Michelle Brait, Amy Chau, Ashley Diaz, Jeremiah Dille, Sierra Durand, Beberly Espinoza, Elora Estes, Lesley Fernandez, Darshan Gamma, Cassandra Garcia, Karla Garcia, Yasmin Garcia, Neko Gianquinto, Gisselle Gonzalez, Jacob Gonzales, Sakina Jaffery, Adrianna Herrera, Allie Hoch, Victoria Hulett, Anthony Jaimes, Leilani Lagunes, Sandra Loredo, Kate Markey, Joshua Marmolejo, Faith Martin, Melissa Medina, Layla Melendez, Dylan Moses, Michaela Moses, Brooklynn Payne, Michelle Perez, Brianna Quirarte, Ieleen Ramirez, Edwin Reyes, Jehu Sandoval, Jaqueline Ramirez, Jonathan Sanchez, Nathalie Sanchez, Christopher Santibanez, Kaylin Seeley, Genevieve Stothers, Miranda Valdez, Christopher Velasquez

Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership Anthology of Journalistic Writing

During the Spring 2016 semester, Dr. Noah Asher Golden's Teaching of Writing K-12 students partnered with the Journalism class at Yorba Academy for the Arts. Through collaboration over a four-month period, Chapman's future teachers and Yorba's junior high journalists engaged a deep writing process to write a series of features, editorials, and news articles, all connected in some way to the overarching theme of safety. Thank you to Ms. Andrea Lopez, Ms. Tracy Knibb, and the Lloyd E. and Elisabeth H. Klein Family Foundation for supporting this project.

The Write Stuff - Spring 2016 (Vol. 13, No. 2), Research Medical Library

Write Stuff 2016

• Grant-writing workshop and mock study section now available to help grant applicants
• Must authors highlight minor text changes in revised manuscripts?
• Using ORCID’s unique identifier to link your name with your publications
• Finding the information you need to navigate the recent NIH grant-application changes
• ICMJE updates its influential Recommendations for scientific publishing
• Summer schedule for the Research Medical Library webinar program
• Unusual terms used in scientific writing and publishing: IMRAD

19. Bulleted And Numbered Lists, David Mcmurray

Sexy Technical Communications

Lists are useful because they emphasize selected information in regular text. When you see a list of three or four items strung out vertically on the page rather than in normal paragraph format, you are likely to pay more attention to it. Certain types of lists also make for easier reading. For example, in instructions, it is a big help for each step to be numbered and separate from the preceding and following steps. Lists also create more white space and spread out the text so that pages don't seem like solid walls of words. Like headings, the various types …

22. Graphics, David Mcmurray

Sexy Technical Communications

One of the nice things about technical writing courses is that most of the papers have graphics in them—or at least they should. A lot of professional, technical writing contains graphics—drawings, diagrams, photographs, illustrations of all sorts, tables, pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, flow charts, and so on. Once you get the hang of putting graphics like these into your writing, you should consider yourself obligated to use graphics whenever the situation naturally would call for them. Unlike what you might fear, producing graphics is not such a terrible task—in fact, it's fun. You don't have to be a …

23. Help Desk: Creating An Index, Cassandra Race

Sexy Technical Communications

In long technical documents, an index, or a list of almost everything in the document, is found at the end of the document. The index is a helpful tool for quickly locating information, and many readers expect it. There are several techniques for creating an index, but the most efficient and up to date is right at your fingertips. Microsoft Word allows you to create an index for a single word, a phrase, or even a symbol. You can also create an index item for a topic that covers several pages or paragraphs, or one that refers to another entry, …

32. Common Spelling Problems, David Mcmurray, Tiffani Reardon

Sexy Technical Communications

For some writers, their main spelling problem is similar-sounding words, for example, principle and principal or affect and effect. These problems cannot be flagged by software spell-checking functions. Here is a list of these commonly confused homophones (different spelling; same or very similar pronunciation), with examples of their correct use. All definitions in this section are from the Merriam Webster dictionary via the Merriam Webster Dictionary mobile application.

4. Business Plans, David Mcmurray

Sexy Technical Communications

A business plan is a document used to start a new business or get funding for a business that is changing in some significant way. Business plans are important documents for business partners who need to agree upon their plans, government officials who need to approve that plan, and of course potential investors such as banks or private individuals who may fund the business. A business plan is very much like a proposal, except for at least one big difference. The business plan seeks to start a new business or significantly expand an existing business. A proposal, on the other …

3. Types Of Technical Documents, David Mcmurray

Sexy Technical Communications

For the final report in some technical-writing courses, you can write one of (or even a combination of) several different types of reports. If there is some other type of report that you know about and want to write, get with your instructor to discuss it. This chapter briefly defines these different report types; some are covered in full detail elsewhere in this book; the rest are described here. But to get everything in one place, all the reports are briefly defined here, with cross-references to where their presentations occur.

34. Information Structures, David Mcmurray

Sexy Technical Communications

The main parts of a technical-writing course focus on applications—ways technical writing skills are applied in the real world. However, these applications use varying combinations of information infrastructures. An information infrastructure is (1) a type of information content (such as descriptive writing), (2) a way of organizing information (such as a comparison or classification), or (3) both. The information infrastructures reviewed in this appendix are the ones commonly used in technical writing. Of course, there are other infrastructures—maybe some that scholars of technical writing have not yet pinned a label on, but these are the most common and the most …

35. Logic: Common Fallacies, Steve Miller, Cherie Miller

Sexy Technical Communications

In the last chapter we discussed passages where bright individuals with PhDs violated common fallacies. Even the brightest among us fall for them. As a result, we should be ever vigilant to keep our critical guard up, looking for fallacious reasoning in lectures, reading, viewing, and especially in our own writing. None of us are immune to falling for fallacies. Until doctors come up with an inoculation against fallacies, I suppose the next best thing is to thoroughly acquaint ourselves with the most common fallacies. I chose the following fallacies by comparing a dozen or so university sites that list …

1. Introduction: The Nature Of Sexy Technical Writing, Cassandra Race

Sexy Technical Communications

Did you know that you probably read or create technical communication every day without even realizing it? If you noticed signs on your way to work, checked the calories on the cereal box, emailed your professor to request a recommendation or followed instructions to make a withdrawal from an ATM, you have been involved with technical, workplace, or professional communication. So what? You ask. Today, writing is a more important skill for professionals than ever before. The National Commission on Writing for Americas Families, Schools, and Colleges (2004) declares that writing today is not a frill for the few, but …

9. Standard Operating Policies And Procedures, David Mcmurray

Sexy Technical Communications

This chapter introduces you to policies and procedure documents and to standard operating procedure documents. Click on the links, below, to see samples. Hand-washing policies for health care personnel Accounting policies and procedures Standard operating procedures: pouring dental impressions (Thanks to Melissa Burke for making this SOP available.)

8. User Guides, David Mcmurray, Jonathan Arnett

Sexy Technical Communications

A user guide is essentially a book-length document containing instructions on installing, using, or troubleshooting a hardware or software product. A user guide can be very brief—for example, only 10 or 20 pages or it can be a full-length book of 200 pages or more. While this definition assumes computers, a user guide can provide operating instructions on practically anything—lawnmowers, microwave ovens, dishwashers, and so on. The more complex the product, the greater the page count. When this happens, some elements of the user guide get split out into their own separate volumes—especially the installation procedures, troubleshooting procedures, and the …

13. Oral Presentations, David Mcmurray, Cassandra Race

Sexy Technical Communications

A common assignment in technical writing courses—not to mention in the workplace—is to prepare and deliver an oral presentation, a task most of us would be happy to avoid. However, while employers look for coursework and experience in preparing written documents, they also look for experience in oral presentations as well. Look back at the first chapter. Remember how important interpersonal communication skills are in the workplace. The following was written for a standard face-to-face classroom setting. If you are taking the online version of Sexy Technical Writing, oral reports can be sent in as "scripts," or audio versions can …

15. Report Design, David Mcmurray, Jonathan Arnett

Sexy Technical Communications

Technical reports (including handbooks and guides) have various designs depending on the industry, profession, or organization. This chapter shows you one traditional design. If you are taking a technical writing course, make sure the design presented in this chapter is acceptable. The same is true if you are writing a technical report in a science, business, or government context. Technical reports have specifications as do any other kind of project. Specifications for reports involve layout, organization and content, format of headings and lists, the design of the graphics, and so on. The advantage of a required structure and format for …