Resources in Technical Communication

Cynthia Selfe

SECTION 1: Focus on Rhetorical Understanding

Chapter 1: Using Client-Based Writing to Teach Problem Solving Art Young and Summer Smith Taylor
Outcome: Students will be able to understand the value of writing as a problem-solving activity and learn to solve problems using communication.

Chapter 2: Technical Reports as Rhetorical Practice Jim Kalmbach
Outcome: Students will conceptualize reports as collections of rhetorical practices and improvisational strategies. Given a specific report template or format, they will construct a document that respects that template while also respecting their material and their rhetorical purposes.

Chapter 3: Using Multiple-Source Research to Create Persuasive Communication Jennifer Shepperd
Outcome: Students will understand the value of conducting both primary, experientially-based research and secondary-source research as means for constructing rhetorically situated, persuasive communication.

Chapter 4: Using Design Approaches to Help Students Develop Engaging and Effective Materials that Teach Scientific and Technical Concepts Anne Francis Wysocki
Outcome: Students will understand how and why to use design approaches in the development of technical and scientific communications and will be able to use different modalities rhetorically in developing communications.

Chapter 5: Copyright Law and Fair Use Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning Strategies for Technical Communication Courses Michael Moore
Outcome: Students will be able to identify contemporary contexts and issues in copyright and fair use, and be able to articulate those contexts and issues for multiple professional audiences

SECTION 2: Focus on Socio-Cultural Understanding

Chapter 6: Preparing Students for Service-Learning Contexts with Case Studies, Scenarios, and Workplace Writer Studies Teresa Kynell Hunt and Gerald Savage
Outcome: Students will learn to analyze the contexts of writing tasks within organizational settings.

Chapter 7: Adapting Communication to Cultural and Organizational Change Pete Praetorius
Outcome: Students will learn that communicating effectively in the context of rapidly changing workplaces requires both close attention to interpersonal communication and an understanding of organizational culture.

Chapter 8: Technological Activism: Understanding and Shaping Environments for Technology-Rich Communication Richard J. Selfe
Outcomes: Students will understand the technical, economic, institutional, social, and cultural factors that help shape computer-supported spaces in which they create, revise, design, and exchange texts. They will be able to use this knowledge to improve the spaces that they and others use for communicating.

Chapter 9:Communities of Practice: The Shop Floor of Human Capital Tracy Bridgeford
Outcome: Students will be able to communicate effectively within and among communities of practice, demonstrating understanding of how communities of practice work, how they establish expectations for belonging, and how they agree on rules for negotiating meaning.

Chapter 10: Analyzing the Interactive Audience: Constructing a Communal Knowledge Base Ann Kitalong-Will
Outcome: Students will understand how audiences communicate and interact with businesses and organizations within new digital contexts, and how they construct communal knowledge bases within such spaces that contribute to changes in organizational practices.

SECTION 3: Focus on the Complexities of Practice

Chapter 11: Understanding Usability ApproachesJohndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart Selber
Outcome: Students will develop a holistic understanding of usability, one that scaffolds common approaches according to their social complexities.

Chapter 12: An Ethics Primer: Strategies for Ethical Decision Making Michael Martin
Outcome: Students will acquire a basic vocabulary and methodology for making ethical decisions in their technical communication practices.

Chapter 13: Select, Interpret, Produce: A Three-Part Model for Teaching Information Graphics Karla Kitalong
Outcome: Students will critically and competently select, interpret, and produce information graphics for use in technical documents.

Chapter 14: Listen Up! Oral Presentations in the Technical Communication Classroom Patricia Freitag
Outcome: Students will be able to author and deliver effective oral presentations that make appropriate and rhetorically effective use of available means, media, and modalities.

Chapter 15: Let's Talk: Preparing Students for Speaking and Listening in the Workplace Gary A. Bays
Outcome: Students will be able to speak and listen in small, informal group settings and collaborate effectively when presenting material.

Chapter 16: The Elements of Technical Editing: Relationships, Roles, and Revisions Danielle DeVoss
Outcome: Students will produce better, more polished, more refined prose; understand the different levels of editing and approaches most appropriate for each of those levels; and be familiar with the editing approaches most appropriate for different types of writing and documents.

Chapter 17: Exploding the Cultural Myth of Transparent Communication of InformationMarilyn Cooper
Outcome: Students will understand that clear communication of information does not depend on finding language (and images) that will be transparent in meaning to their readers but rather depends on evoking the contexts in which documents are used and on working with readers to understand their needs.