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Professional and Technical Writing Strategies:
Communicating in Technology and Science
Fourth Edition
by Judith S. Van Alstyne
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The fourth edition of Professional and Technical Writing Strategies: Communicating in Technology and Science incorporates major revisions and additions. It is designed for students majoring in technical and scientific fields but helpful for all students who will share the writing responsibilities in any field of endeavor. Comprehensive and flexible, the text is suitable for college and university students at any level, technical school students, professional and technical writers, and others in technical/scientific employment seeking a guideline and model text. The materials have been tested in academic classes and in training workshops in a variety of businesses and technical industries. The book has won two professional awards: the Award of Distinction from the Everglades Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, and the Award of Achievement from the International Society of Technical Communication.
College students of the twenty-first century are a heterogeneous group with a myriad of interests and needs. More often than not, they are computer literate and skillful at word processing, graphics generation, and document design. Their ages range from 17 to over 70 (average age, 28); they major in every field from aviation to zoology. The text includes writing samples that illustrate actual writing demands in a cross-section of career fields: allied health professions, architecture, aviation, computer science, ecology, engineering, fire science, insurance and real estate, landscape technology, medicine and dentistry, nursing and paramedical training, pest control technology, and all of the sciences. The samples in the text have been culled from professionals in all of these fields and more.
The emphasis is on practical writing and its applications. In this new edition, major revisions and additions cover the expanded role of the technical writer, multinational/multicultural communications, ethical considerations, collaborative writing, professional-level graphics and visuals, document design, career strategies on the Internet, new formats for resumes, manuscript submission requirements for publication, library and home computer information retrieval methods, multiple forms of documentation, and sophisticated verbal and visual communications. Each chapter now contains a checklist for the skills covered within the chapter.
In addition to the new aspects, the text covers (1) general communication strategies (the value of technical writing, basic communication theories, ethical considerations, the components of the writing process, graphics, visuals, and documentation design), (2) technical strategies (manual production, definition, description, instructions, and process analysis), (3) professional strategies (correspondence, resumes and cover letters, brief reports, longer reports and proposals), (4) research strategies (accessing information, writing the professional paper, and documentation), and (5) presentation strategies (verbal and visual communications).
Although the organization of the text is intended to offer cumulative skills, the instructor and the student may move about the text as freely as their purposes dictate. Each chapter provides a list of skills to be achieved, strategy guidelines, samples, a new checklist, exercises, and writing projects.
The Instructor's Manual offers general notes to the instructor, student preparation guidelines, and sample syllabi for a variety of class structures. In addition, the manual discusses approaches to each chapter, provides exercise solutions, and exhibits models for the writing projects that can serve as transparency masters.
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