A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication incorporates useful and specific strategies for writers, to enable them to create aesthetically appealing and usable technical documentation. These strategies have been developed and tested on a thousand students from a number of different disciplines over twelve years and three institutions. The second edition adds a chapter on business communication, reworks the discussion on technical style, and expands the information on visual communication and ethics into free-standing chapters. The text is accompanied by a passcode-protected website containing materials for instructors (PowerPoint lectures, lesson plans, sample student work, and helpful links).

A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication incorporates useful and specific strategies for writers to create aesthetically appealing and usable technical documentation. These strategies have been developed and tested on a thousand students from a number of different disciplines over twelve years and three institutions. The second edition adds a chapter on business communication, reworks the discussion on technical style, and expands the information on visual communication and ethics into free-standing chapters. Particular attention is paid throughout to the needs of Canadian students.

This compact but complete guide shows that less is more—with fewer extraneous details getting in the way of students trying to learn on the run, it allows them to focus on the most important principles of effective technical communication. The Concise Guide takes a rhetorical approach to technical communication; instead of setting up a list of rules that should be applied uniformly to all writing situations, it introduces students to the bigger picture of how the words they write can affect the people intended to read them. Assignments and exercises are integrated throughout to reinforce and test knowledge.

Straightforward, practical, and focused on realistic examples, Business and Professional Writing: A Basic Guide for Americans is an introduction to the fundamentals of professional writing. The book emphasizes clarity, conciseness, and plain language. Guidelines and templates for business correspondence, formal and informal reports, brochures and press releases, and oral presentations are included. Exercises guide readers through the process of creating and revising each genre, and helpful tips, reminders, and suggested resources beyond the book are provided throughout.

Business and professional communication takes place in a dynamic, ever-changing environment. How can we best help students prepare to communicate in such a challenging environment? The pedagogies of the twentieth century—lectures, quizzes, and exams—have not kept up to these new demands for student engagement. Business Communication: Rhetorical Situations supports more interactive and collaborative pedagogies to motivate students. Each chapter has two or three cases that challenge students to apply the business communication concepts they are learning to a specific set of circumstances. These cases are drawn from real-life communication situations and invite students to think through a communication situation and take action. After each case, challenges and exercises provide more opportunities for students to analyze and reflect on business documents and practice the skills discussed in the case themselves. Throughout, rhetorical concepts such as audience, genre, and purpose are central and collaboration and creativity are encouraged.

This practical text offers a research-based account of the technical communication profession and its practice, outlining emergent touchpoints of this fast-changing field while highlighting its diversity. Through research on the history and the globalization of technical communication and up-to-date industry analysis, including first-hand narratives from industry practitioners, this book brings together common threads through the industry, suggests future trends, and points toward strategic routes for development. Vignettes from the workplace and examples of industry practice provide tangible insights into the different paths and realities of the field, furnishing readers with a range of entry routes and potential career sectors, workplace communities, daily activities, and futures. This approach is central to helping readers understand the diverse competencies of technical communicators in the modern, globalized economy. The Profession and Practice of Technical Communication provides essential guidance for students, early professionals, and lateral entrants to the profession and can be used as a textbook for technical communication courses.

Technical Writing: A Practical Guide for Engineers, Scientists, and Nontechnical Professionals, Second Edition enables readers to write, edit, and publish materials of a technical nature, including books, articles, reports, and electronic media. Written by a renowned engineer and widely published technical author, this guide complements traditional writer’s reference manuals on technical writing through presentation of first-hand examples that help readers understand practical considerations in writing and producing technical content. These examples illustrate how a publication originates as well as various challenges and solutions. The second edition contains new material in every chapter including new topics, additional examples, insights, tips and tricks, new vignettes and more exercises. Appendices have been added for writing checklists and writing samples. The references and glossary have been updated and expanded. In addition, a focus on writing for the nontechnical persons working in the technology world and the nonnative English speaker has been incorporated. Written in an informal, conversational style, unlike traditional college writing texts, the book also contains many interesting vignettes and personal stories to add interest to otherwise stodgy lessons.