Technical and Professional Writing Commons^™

Keeping Your Sentences Short And Simple, Sunita Patterson

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Open Access Textbooks In A Professional Communication Classroom: A Pilot Study, Sherena Huntsman, Avery C. Edenfield, Erin L. Davis

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

In this paper, we share our findings from a curricular innovation project: a small pilot study replacing a conventional professional communication textbook with an open access book. Results showed that students received the change favorably and a final grade comparison showed no variation between similar courses that used conventional books and those that used open access books. While far from definitive, this study demonstrates the promise of open access books and open educational resources (OER), and that further study is needed in this area.

"Higher"/"Lower" Or "Increased"/"Decreased"?, Dawn Chalaire

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

The Write Stuff - Spring 2020 (Vol. 17, No. 2), Research Medical Library

Write Stuff 2020

• How to discuss your study's limitations effectively
• Reference letters vs. letters of support for NIH grant applications: What's the difference?
• NCI Bottom Line blog offers insight into grant funding and budgets
• Dissertations, Text Recycling, and Self-Plagiarism
• NIH Increases the use of Notices of Special Interest
• Tips for using Track Changes in Microsoft Word

Using Precise Verbs, Bryan Tutt

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Bruess Reenvisions Msa

St. Norbert Times

• News
  • Bruess Reenvisions MSA
  • Leadershop: Love Your Community
  • Now Open: Zumba Session
  • Getting to Know RHA
  • Cru Hosts EII Business Forum
  • BSU Brings Cultural Awareness
• Opinion
  • Immigration: Returning to Common Ground
  • The Fake News Epidemic
  • A Favorite Quote
  • The Benefits of Bad Friends
  • Coronavirus Around the World
• Features
  • Bringing us the Best of Broadway
  • Cancer Cells and Career Choices
• Entertainment
  • Student Spotlight
  • Word Search
  • Did You Know???
  • Review: “I Am Not Okay With This”
  • Book Review: “Genderqueer”
  • A Place to Shine: Most Casting Directors Are Women
  • Junk Drawer: Favorite Video Game
  • Series Recommendation: “The Folk of the Air”
• Sports
  • Diving …

"Efficacy" Or "Efficiency"?, Don Norwood

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Massey Speaks On Change In Msa

St. Norbert Times

• News
  • Massey Speaks on Change in MSA
  • Evergreen’s “Arsenic & Old Lace”
  • Lady Caress Visits SNC
  • Human Library Tells Stories of Truth
  • Winter BandFest 2020 Stops Audience Cold
  • SNC Times Staff Attend ACP Convention
• Opinion
  • Economics and… Baking?
  • Corruption in North Africa
  • A Self Check-In
  • Is Conversation Dead?
  • Existential Crisis 101
  • I am a Product
• Features
  • Artistic Reminders to Respect Earth
  • A Student Self-Starter
• Entertainment
  • Student Spotlight
  • Word Search
  • Did You Know???
  • Sequels, Reboots and Spin-offs, Oh My!
  • British Comedies for the Win
  • Book Review: “The Silence of the Girls” by Pat Barker
  • Upcoming Events
  • Movies in Theaters
  • Upcoming Movies …

Inclusive Audience Analysis And Creating Manageable Content, Carleigh J. Davis, Michelle F. Eble

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

Over the last 15 years, content management systems have dramatically changed the ways we think about our pedagogical approaches to teaching audience analysis. This is especially true when content may need to be reused in a set of discrete contexts for various audiences. This chapter introduces a heuristic that helps students think about, write, and deliver reusable content. Modeled after Ridolfo and DeVoss’s (2009) concept rhetorical velocity, this heuristic introduces students to both how they must consider primary audiences for the content they develop as well as various stakeholders, possible audiences, and potential contexts where their content needs to be …

Information Literacy As Structured Authoring, Robert Terry

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

By drawing on the early findings of an IRB-approved study, this presentation will discuss some challenges involved in teaching structured authoring, defined here as topic based authoring combined with an XML or XML-like structure. Since the late 1980s, Robert E. Horn and others referred to structured authoring/writing as a new paradigm that transforms the ways writers think about information usage, presentation, and structuring. Charlotte Robidoux (2007) and Sally Henschel (2010, 2014), among others, have explored how curriculums that taught structured authoring might help students begin to understand how the approach changes writing. However, as Joy Robinson et al (2019) demonstrated, …

We’Re Both Your Librarian: A Course Collaboration Between An Academic Library And A Health Sciences Library, Stephanie Evers Ard

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

The University of South Alabama is in the process of merging its academic library and health sciences library, which have previously functioned as essentially separate entities. This ongoing process requires many changes, from budget and staff considerations, to revisiting the roles the librarians play in their respective academic communities. This last concern led to a collaboration between two librarians--the Assistant Director for Strategic Initiatives at the health sciences library and the Social Sciences and Student Engagement Librarian at the academic library--in response to a faculty request for an embedded librarian to support a fully-online graduate nursing class in scholarly writing. …

Dangling Modifiers, Sarah Bronson

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Father Ciferni Takes The Chair

St. Norbert Times

• News
  • Father Ciferni Takes the Chair
  • Knight Theater’s Tuck Everlasting
  • Making a Difference
  • College’s Against Cancer’s Hope Dinner
• Opinion
  • America’s Call Out Culture
  • Knowing Useful Stuff
  • Positivity in Social Media
  • Guatemalan Crime and Corruption
  • A Weird Winter Break Experience
• Features
  • What to Do Amidst All the Snow
  • Get Your Hands on ‘Handshake!’
  • Sensenbrenner Goes Co-Ed
• Entertainment
  • Student Spotlight
  • Word Search
  • Did you Know???
  • Music Recommendation: Sammy Rae & The Friends
  • Greatest Movies of the 2010s
  • Favorite Christmas Movies and Music
  • Upcoming Events
  • Movies in Theaters
  • Upcoming Movies
  • Junk Drawer
  • “The Lady and the Tramp” Review
• Sports
  • Men’s Volleyball Falls In …

"Casual" Or "Causal"?, Erica Goodoff

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Using Greek Letters In Scientific Text, Ann Sutton

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Five Tips For Writing In Plain Language, Amy Ninetto

Word for Word 2020

No abstract provided.

Scotchwhisky101.Com: A User-Friendly, Persona-Driven Website, William Dillon Miller

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Within the realm of web design and marketing, it is easy for the designer to get caught up in what he/she thinks the site needs to look like. The problem is that web users are trying to accomplish specific tasks, and websites need to be tailored towards these users, not towards the designer. To work on this problem, I chose to make a website entitled “scotchwhisky101.com.” Most websites about single malts are too information-heavy and/or outdated. I used this problem to learn methods of user-oriented web design. To achieve this end, I gathered data through a survey. I then took …

Overcoming Tools Of Oppression: Plain Language And Human-Centered Design For Social Justice, Michela Sims

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Technical communication audiences are increasingly international and intercultural. Some of these audiences may be vulnerable and suffering trauma following violations of their human rights and dignity. In such cases, technical documents can serve to reinforce the oppression experienced by these audiences. Technical communicators must adapt and create methods to communicate ethically and responsibly with these audiences through a social justice lens. This thesis utilizes adapted plain language guidelines from plainlanguage.gov combined with human-centered design (“HCD”) guiding principles to perform a qualitative document analysis of technical government forms. The findings of this analysis demonstrate a need for continued integration of plain …

Social Justice Scholarship Informing Visual Communication Practices, Alicia Campbell

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

My discussion hinges on the groundwork of social justice as integral to the field of technical and professional communication (TPC) with an understanding of the importance of visual communication; ultimately, I seek to understand the intersections of Social Justice and Visual Communication within the field of Technical Communication. Based on this research, I develop a heuristic that allows technical communicators to critically analyze their visual communication efforts, specifically infographics, for advocacy/social justice.

The Syntax Of Sports Class 2: The Power Of The Particular, Patrick Barry

Books

What can we learn from baseball great Ted Williams about how to improve our writing? What can we learn we from the iconic ESPN show SportsCenter about how to manage information? And are you sure you really know what the word “peruse” means?

Explore these and other questions in the second volume of The Syntax of Sports, a series designed to recreate a popular course at the University of Michigan.

Findable, Impactful, Citable, Usable, Sustainable (Ficus): A Heuristic For Authors Of Digital Publishing Projects, Nicky Agate, Cheryl E. Ball, Alison Belan, Monica Mccormick, Joshua Neds-Fox

Library Scholarly Publications

We came together in Spring 2018 at a two-day think tank hosted by Duke University Libraries and supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with dozens of other librarians, publishers, and scholarly communication stakeholders, to work on the question of sustainably publishing large digital projects. The outcome of that discussion turned into an extended project at TriangleSCI 2018 and culminated in the heuristic presented here.The heuristic can be used as a checklist to help authors (and their project team) assess their needs when it comes to making their digital projects findable, impactful, citable, usable, and sustainable (creating the acronym FICUS).

The Write Stuff - Winter 2020 (Vol. 17, No. 1), Research Medical Library

Write Stuff 2020

• Best practices for sharing confidential materials outside MD Anderson
• 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style to be published this month
• MD Anderson’s policies on disclosure of foreign relationships
• New NIH grant application instructions and forms coming in spring 2020
• Cabell’s Blacklist
• Unusual terms used in scientific writing and publishing: Hybrid journal and mirror journal

Rhetorical Analysis Of Statements Of Purpose (Sps) For Admission To Graduate School: A Shared-Understanding Perspective Of The Sp Genre, Priyanka Ganguly

Masters Theses

"In this study, I analyzed twenty-four statements of purpose (SPs) submitted to the Department of English and Technical Communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) by current and former students. My goal was to determine the applicants' shared understanding of the SP genre. I analyzed the SPs from three dimensions: rhetorical moves, rhetorical appeals (pisteis), and rhetorical style (elocutio).

To understand the rhetorical moves used by the applicants, I analyzed the content of their SPs according to the categories (moves) and codes (steps) validated in my pilot study. To understand the arguments used by the …