Stacey knapp Study Guide Technical Writing download pdf

This course reader includes materials and lessons for an advanced composition course. Online links to reading and lessons can be utilized as classroom lectures via a projector or assigned as homework.

Includes an overview of the essentials of rhetoric and composition, three complete customizable essay assignments with corresponding peer review cover sheets, and related lessons, links and directions scaffolded to build rhetorical knowledge.

Instructor Knapp: College Reading 2. College Reading 2 has the same critical reading support as College Reading only without the fiction components making it an ideal supplement to support reading in any content course.

College Reading 2 builds reading knowledge and works in conjunction with assigned informational texts. Labels: adjunct faculty , composition , English , reading , teaching , teaching kit , writing.

I am looking forward to helping you achieve your goals this semester! Please note that I use this blog and my website for all of my college courses, so there is no need to read through any other posts here Of course, feel free to browse all you want! What I do need you to do is to download your course syllabus and order the Course Reader. You should buy the print version, which comes with a free digital version.

You will need both the print to bring with you to class and the digital to complete online homework assignments. Order the print version today to insure that you have the Reader when we begin using it in class. I have posted a copy of the English a course syllabus for this semester at the following link. If you lose your copy during the semester, then please download and print another copy. Please click this link and scroll down to the attachments at the bottom of the page to download your class fall course syllabus.

All students are required to print and bring a copy of the course syllabus to the first day of class and to each subsequent meeting. English a Reader. Complete Reader for students of English a. This reader includes an overview of rhetoric and includes instructions for all three essay assignments, peer review cover sheets, student model papers and associated learning links and lessons.

Students should buy the print and download the…. Keys to Successful College Writing. Here are eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing:. Since we were not able to practice the RA in class using the Rereading America articles on Thursday as planned, I would like to give you a different option for Sunday's post.

Technical writing - dsst flashcards - cram. Istudysmart - technical writing Study Guide. Printed Technical Writing. Guide to grammar and writing and a way to submit questions about grammar and writing. Test, Tues. Instructor knapp study guide technical writing I update the study guide frequently and the MagCloud digital library will automatically update Study Guide Technical Writing.

Add to Cart Recent. Study Guide For Technical Writing. Entitled as Technical Technical writing certification programs online Those who complete their course of study will earn a Technical Writing Serving the technical training needs of Technical writing - dsst flashcards - cram.

Technical Writing measures knowledge and and Organizational Patterns of Common Types of Technical Documents Guide to grammar and writing and a way to submit questions about grammar and writing.

There weren't any noticeable grammatical errors. The sentence structure is varied, however, there were some long, wordy, confusing sentences. The tone is very casual and not professional. There is no culturally insensitive or offensive language in the text, however, the text is not inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds in its examples or images. This textbook highlights important components of technical writing, including various forms of technical writing in the workplace and also approaches to audience analysis, graphics, and ethics within the writing of these documents.

This text also Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less. This text also includes information about resumes and employment, which is very applicable to technical writing and provides readers with a dual layer of content. Content within this text is accurate and mostly error-free.

The content is based off of multiple authors rather than one single-viewpoint, which provides additional insights into topics versus only one limited view.

Content is cited and derived from David McMurrey, who has experience and a plethora of knowledge in all aspects of technical writing. The text is relevant to writing in the workplace as it covers aspects of "netiquette," which is something technical writers will encounter more and more as workplace functions are moved more to online formats.

The formats covered are also frequently used forms of communication in the workplace, such as email, letters, memos, proposals etc. This provides a large scope of relevant documents that readers could encounter when writing in the workplace.

This text is written in plain language and easy to read. Content is sectioned off pretty well for easier readability and there were few, if any, areas of jargon or overly technical language. Tips are provided in various sections that assist readers in actually applying the content. How text and visuals are presented and the sense of organization of various chapters and sections are all consistently presented within. Subheadings are used within for easier readability; however, content is text-heavy at times.

Content jumps around some, but is otherwise organized into a logical progression of points such as discussing audience and types of documents in the beginning and saving design and employment content for later in the text. The organization follows a logical progression of ideas and concepts that would be presented within a technical writing course.

The Table of Contents includes easily recognized sections and page numbers and each new section is noted at the top of the page. At times the images presented conflict with the text and spacing on pages, but is otherwise easy to attribute to the content pertaining to the image. The textbook includes links to videos and images that further touch upon the concepts of a chapter, which is very helpful and engaging.

Images link to direct PDF files for easier access of a document. Seems to be some unnecessary space left on pages or between section changes. Text is mostly free of grammatical errors, although a few minor grammar mistakes were present. For example, "insure" is used instead of "ensure" in Section 3. Chapter 13 of the text is "Communication Across Cultures," which lends to its response to cultural sensitivity.

The text seems to keep in mind readers of various races and backgrounds and uses relevant pop culture references that are inclusive. If anything, the textbook could incorporate aspects of gender in relation to technical writing in the workplace. As far as I can tell, this textbook does not include an index or glossary. However, each chapter is broken into separate sections with descriptive titles and headings, so navigating to specific concepts and ideas is not difficult without the use However, each chapter is broken into separate sections with descriptive titles and headings, so navigating to specific concepts and ideas is not difficult without the use of an index.

For example, the chapter on communicating across cultures provides useful tips that students can use to think critically about cross-cultural communication, but these suggestions are limited in that they are designed to apply broadly to most situations in which cross-cultural communication occurs and therefore do not offer clear guidelines or practical strategies for students to learn about and identify a particular culture's communication norms.

As far as I can tell, the information presented in this text is accurate, error-free, and unbiased. The purpose of this textbook is to serve as an introduction to technical writing, and as such is designed to provide students with practical strategies for engaging in effective technical communication.

The focus is more on providing practical strategies and helping students develop critical thinking skills than it is about using a particular software. The prose is clear and accessible to college-level readers, and unfamiliar concepts are either defined in-text by the textbook's authors or via hyperlink to another source.

For example, in chapter " As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the organization of the textbook is easy to navigate and understand.

Each chapter is broken into separate sections with descriptive titles and headings. My only complaint is that there is some inconsistency between the lengths of each chapter's subsections.

Some sections are very short words max while others are much longer, ranging in the 2,, word range. That said, each section is clearly labeled, and the headings are highly descriptive. Each chapter's subsection has navigational arrows that allow the reader to move on to the next section easily, and the table of contents is easily accessible on every page.

However, locating the table of contents may not be intuitive for some students, and some students may not know how to navigate through each chapter's subsections. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, this text could provide more examples to help students better understand cultural differences in terms of communication. Overall, I found this textbook very useful, though I had to supplement much of the information either with links to other sources or with material I developed personally.

It's a useful and accessible introduction to technical writing for most undergraduate students, but it is not a comprehensive document and therefore may require the instructor to provide additional information or resources.

This text covers almost every topic that I would cover in a Technical Writing Class for generalized studies. A class geared toward a specific aspect of the field - engineering or a medical field, for example - would need to add material. This text This text provides a solid basis for any course in technical writing, though.

The information is accurate, the citation guide up-to-date, and most material is relevant to any aspect of the field. The content is almost all up-to-date. I would suggest adding a section on conference calls in the chapter on Professional Communications. That format has its own specific netiquette rules, ethics, and audience considerations.

And conference calls, in a variety of formats, are increasingly essential to the working life. Clear, common sense prose. The beginning of each chapter should probably be titled "Overview" or something similar, perhaps with a brief outline, for more clarity. The book's structure changes with each format.

I suggest that the instructor designate a preferred version for the class. Within the text, however, it becomes fairly easy to navigate through the material. The text has a logical order, but I would assign the last chapters first since I usually begin with employment application materials and then cultural awareness almost immediately afterwards. Interface is fairly straightforward and clear.

Some of the videos, particularly in the beginning, are a bit referential to a specific course rather than to the topic in general. Grammar has no problem. I wish, though, that a general chapter on grammar was included for the students. I really appreciated the chapter on Communicating Across Cultures, but I wish it had been included earlier in the book. Perhaps a reference to Cultural Literacy within the chapter on Audience.

I'm confused about why the Open Textbook Library lists the book with only one author instead of the seven listed in the book itself. This book really does cover a great deal of ground. However, I found the pacing and the organization of the section to be a little sporadic, especially if the book were to be read linearly by students. This may not be a serious concern as, This may not be a serious concern as, especially in a digital format, the book can be navigated easily from topic to topic.

Many chapters are short some are quite detailed, though , which can be a real asset, but the lack of technical writing theory might be a concern for instructors looking to balance practice with understanding approach.

While the book does cover a great of texts that are useful for students studying engineering and computer science, it may provide fewer examples and cover less in terms of students looking for technical communication instruction in medical fields, journals, legal fields. Another issue, when it comes to comprehensiveness, is the lacking of exercises and assignments.

For my own teaching, this is not an issue I try to craft assignments that fit the culture of my students' academic programs , but I could see it limiting the use of this book for other professors who would like corresponding assignments and readings. As a reader, this book seems unbiased to me. That said, there are some prescriptive outlooks on crafting documents that may lead a reader to believe there is a one-size-fits-all way to compose a text. For example, there is a recommendation that emails are limited to three paragraphs, which is a very narrow view of that genre shouldn't it depend on the rhetorical context, audience, etc.?

Overall, the content in the book appears accurate, even if a little prescriptive at times. However, this can be remedied through instruction from the professor. The information that is presented in this book is very similar and in some cases, exactly the same as the information I've been teaching for the ten years I've been teaching technical communication.

Some concepts in this course, such as audience, purpose, tone, precision--these will forever be touchstones of any professional writing course, technical writing is no exception.

I very much am happy to see a chapter on information literacy, which is honestly and unfortunately absent from a surprising amount of existing and expensive technical writing textbooks. Some of the information does seem to not work some links, for example , which may hurt longevity, but the authors do note this might be a possibility when using the book.

This book is clear. As a technical communication text, I would hope it would be and I was happy to see the authors not utilize jargon, instead stick to very explicitly presented ideas, sentence structure, and offering simple language that will appeal to readers, make them feel smart, all while retaining the level of academic rigor a text like this needs.

The chapters in this book are all formatted relatively the same. This offers readers a consistent and predictive reading experience which, in itself, is a valuable technical communication skill. Each chapter starts with a very useful introduction, leading nicely into the rest of the chapter. There are, at times, inconsistencies in how thoroughly topics are treated and covered, but that is to be expected with many textbooks.

This text seems to be designed for purposeful fragmentation in a course. By this, I mean that the text does not have to be read linearly to be useful for students. In fact, and this is something the authors may have had in mind when writing, but most textbooks are not read and interacted with linearly anyway. Chapters are skipped, brought back, and revisited. I think this is just fine and, in many ways, provides a more fruitful reading experience. Along with the previous idea of Modularity, I do not think the text is perfectly organized.

One could argue that a textbook should move from more simple to more complex concepts. However, I disagree and do not think this needs to be the case. Instead, while the chapters here might seem a bit out of order in terms of their "difficulty," to do seem to be ordered nicely in terms of some theoretical understanding though, very little into more genre-based writing.

Because the text can function in ways that benefit the class, this is not an issue. The book is incredibly easy to navigate and use. Some links are broken, which can be frustrating, but it doesn't distract from the usefulness of the book overall. Despite an opening comment in the Introduction that claims students will learn to write "in such a way that even Grandad can understand," a which is a bit insulting to grandpas everywhere it's ageist , the book seems to be culturally respectful and appropriate.

I am a big fan of the cultural sensitivity section in the book, which I think is very carefully and thoughtfully presented to readers. There are topics that can be included that were not. In technical communication, it's important to remember that standards are always changing in business and this will undoubtedly shift the way professionals communicate, interact, and write. For example, a section on language inclusivity would be useful.

I'm grateful for this book. The authors have really put together a text that is useful in terms of what it can do in different kinds of technical communication classroom. I've seen many different kinds of technical writing courses and they are all taught differently. It seems this book has the unique ability to fit many different kinds of teaching styles, learning environments, and student abilities--and the book's design and functionality allows for professors to be very malleable in their pedagogy.

The book is being reviewed the book in the web PDF format. At least one other reviewer has noted that there are inconsistency issues across various formats in which the book is offered. The web PDF format functions as expected in Acrobat reader Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less. The web PDF format functions as expected in Acrobat reader with the sidebar thumbnails and toc providing hyperlinks to specific pages and sections.

This format does not have a much-needed index or glossary. The book does not have the same comprehensive content that a student would find in one of the large, mainstream, and admittedly costly technical communication texts by authors like Markel and Selber, Lannon and Gurak, or Anderson.

There isn't enough or any coverage on important topics like instruction sets, technical procedures or definitions, user experience testing including testing instruction sets and other technical documentation , and oral presentations. Documents like instruction sets are mentioned but only in passing.

There is content on preparing PPT slides but no content on giving a presentation. The content does not cite original sources. Each chapter and even sub-section has author attributions for the book itself but rarely does it reference external sources.

This becomes particularly obvious for writing instructors in parts of the book like chapter 14 that contend with genre, genre analysis, and genre systems but with no references to the writing scholars we attribute to genre studies Miller, Bawarshi, Russell. This is not to say that the content is automatically inaccurate but one of the points the authors themselves make about the need to cite sources is the importance of using those sources to build confidence in the audience.

The book opens with content on texting and email but then largely abandons digital communication platforms. Again, in larger technical communication textbooks instructors would expect to find chapters dedicated to "blogs, wikis, and web pages" and "social media" platforms as in offerings by Lannon and Gurak. A more contemporary text would no doubt include online collaborative tools and meeting platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

The recommendation here would be to create a separate chapter or chapters dedicated to technology platforms with the idea that it would be easier to update in the future. The writing is more conversational than professional. The book does not model the level of clarity needed for technical writers. The textbook authors write: "Possibly the engineers were just poor writers; possibly they did not consider their audience; or possibly they did not want to look bad and therefore emphasized all the things that were right with the Challenger.

Incidentally, the O rings had worked fine for several launches. The rocket company and its engineers did indeed make a no launch recommendation their first in 12 years precisely because they had data showing the O-rings failed in cold temperatures.

It is moments like these in the textbook that give me pause. The multiple authors on this textbook likely pose challenges for creating consistency across the project. For example, in the chapter dedicated to Proposals, the first section is titled "Some preliminaries" and it offers a narrative overview of proposals and the roles they may play. In the chapter dedicated to "Progress Reports," the first section offers "functions and contents of progress reports" that has just two bullet lists.

Even if the textbook was designed to be modular, it is still prepared and presented in a specific order with linked toc in the PDF version. Concepts of genre and genre analysis are presented as fundamental to understanding the writing process yet they come at the end of the text. Audience analysis comes much earlier chapter 2 but not before texts, emails, and netiquette. Proposals are in chapter 3 but information literacy, including instruction on how to begin research for a proposal isn't until chapter 4.

Organizing a textbook toc must be incredibly challenging but there are many models out there that overcome some of these organizational challenges. The PDF version of the textbook works as expected in terms of the links in the toc and the thumbnails visible in Acrobat. It can be challenging to orient yourself in the text especially because there are many pages with minimal content. The PDF version has pages but I would recommend to students that they only print selectively as many pages are blank.

Despite having many authors and some open source content , the book does not have an abundance of grammatical errors. As mentioned before, the more casual tone of the textbook does not help with modeling technical and professional communication. There are grammatical issues or perhaps more stylistic issues that could be edited.

Overall, though, the book scores high in the grammatical category. Chapter 13 is dedicated to "Communicating Across Cultures" and offers students an overview of "culture" as a term as well as some important guidance on global communication. The book does break some of its own advice in these sections with references to authors with no attribution.

A longer paragraph in I would like to thank all of the authors as well as David McMurrey for their efforts in writing and editing this open source textbook. I will likely use chapters or sections to supplement other course materials in an effort to save students money on textbook costs. It may be possible to pair chapters from this textbook with one of the smaller "handbooks" on technical communication out there.

While the ratings here aren't overly high, the standard of comparison was challenging. I am looking for options to supplant one of the large, mainstream technical communication textbooks and that is a high bar. The book has a strong balance of topics. In addition to the mix of genres that it discusses, the book is also effective in its coverage of different aspects of writing such as audience, context, ethics, etc. The book is relevant in a way that seems sustainable. It is not at the cutting edge of technical writing technologies or software, but it is the sort of book that would have and probably has helped students a decade ago and will still be useful in another decade owing to its coverage of general topics and its emphasis on writing fundamentals.

The book's format changes occasionally, probably owing to the various authors involved, but it is not especially noticable and does not affect the book in a negative way. The book seems to have been designed for modular use, and indeed that is how I plan to use it in my future classes. The way that the book starts with a quick reference guide to genres and then moves into the big-picture writing theory is evidence that the writers want the book to be immediately useful.

The book's organization seems maximally effective for teachers and students. As I mentioned above, the book starts by covering genres with relative swiftness, then it digs into essential writing topics, and then it covers larger genres in more detail. It ends with a section on "Thinking About Writing" that is pretty clearly designed for more advanced readers, and I think that's an effective choice. The book is very good, and I look forward to using it.

But I do want to say that although above the book got 5-stars across the board, I'm not sure if I would give it a perfect review if I were to rate it. Basically, I find that students seem to flourish when a class and a textbook regularly comes back to explicitly stated themes, and the book didn't necessarily have those. They were there audience, genre, etc.

Still, again, this is a very strong book and I plan to redesign my future Technical Writing class with it. The book is offered in various formats, and they aren't parallel.

The organization of chapters in the web-native version defies logic. The expandable table is tricky to get used to because the hyperlink from the Chapter title goes to the chapter Comprehensiveness rating: 1 see less. The expandable table is tricky to get used to because the hyperlink from the Chapter title goes to the chapter but the arrow on the right shows the subsections. It's hard to remember where you are as you navigate.

I did not locate a glossary or index, and the book is not fully searchable in the web-native version because all sections can't be expanded onto one screen. Almost none of the content has references to original sources, and far too little theory is made explicit.

Too much of the writing is chatty and conversational to provide a model of technical writing for university students. The first section includes both platforms and genres. However, currently relevant platforms like Twitter are excluded from this section.

Mixing platforms and genres seems odd logically. Later chapters jump between concepts and genres with no obvious logic to the order. The style is accessible but not professional. The writing attempts to be engaging but is not rich enough in evidence, references, or good, contemporary examples for university students. Their advice seems to be off-base, including comparing omitting a conclusion to slamming down a phone on a caller.

In fact, much professional writing starts with an abstract, executive summary, or cover sheet that obviates the need for a conclusion. The worst thing we can do in much scientific and technical discourse is build suspense and save the point, answer, or recommendations to the end. The way this book is designed and written does not seem to engage the exigencies of technical writing as I'm familiar with them. Other textbooks, whether consistent or not, provide better examples of practices from many industries to help prepare students from writing after college.

This textbook focuses not just on the college experience, but on the Central Oregon Community College experience to the exclusion of other contexts. The text does not contain modules that stand independently, despite appearing at the outset to be designed that way.

Many phrases such as "as seen in the last section," make it difficult for students to follow what's happening. The videos address students in a single section writing a specific assignment and the content of the videos is not transferable to other contexts. The videos I viewed would not work in my courses, ever. Further, the textbook refers constantly to watered-down assignments that I would not assign.

In my courses, students DO write a full proposal, not just an academic topic proposal. No one in industry writes topic proposals, so I would not teach that genre in my technical writing course.

In fact, this textbook constantly focuses on the specific introductory assignments and methods at Central Oregon Community College, so a more ambitious, advanced curriculum would directly contradict the information in the textbook. If you wanted to teach your students to write proposals, you would be better off with online examples of successful proposals and top-of-the-head commentary than this textbook.

The organization of the textbook appears to be clear and clean, but gets difficult to manage once specific questions are asked, such as, "how should I assign readings to prepare my students for specific assignments?

This book doesn't handle proposal writing in a way that fits what I know of proposal writing outside of essay topic proposals used in composition courses. Why is information on Citations and Plagiarism after the chapter on proposals?

Professional and academic proposals are robust documents which cite sources, so that background information would be useful earlier. Despite the textbook attempting to be modular, numbering chapters does suggest that there is a logic to the order.

Non-numbered TOC might be a solution to this problem. In this book, short chapters are split up into tiny subparts, and navigation between them is tricky in the web-native version.

I found the design appealing initially. Using it was confusing and there are many incompatibilities between the various versions available. The students would have difficulty locating the correct version of the textbook unless a PDF were provided to them by the instructor, and the PDF is problematic in terms of design and omission of content.

In the web-native version, the sections are all very short and navigating to the next section requires clicking back and re-finding your place every time. Not having a "next section" button or arrow almost ensures that students will not complete the readings because they will think, incorrectly, that they are done with the very short chapter. The PDF version has many blank pages, making navigation cumbersome. The PDF document is much thinner than the large number of pages suggests.

If a student were to print the PDF, much paper would be completely wasted and blank. The conversational tone isn't ideal for educating students who will need to do technical writing in industry, but there are few overt typographic and spelling errors. The ones that exist are obvious and instructors can correct them if they use those chapters. Sometimes the authors refer to specific genres like reports, in section 5. Further, references to "your paper" and "paper" demonstrate lack of focus on rhetorical concepts of audience and purpose that should drive every technical communicator in every task.

When the authors refer to student assignments, they might call them "assignments," not "papers. Overuse of "it" and "there" and back-referencing through pronouns ensures that students will have difficulty parsing the information. Further, students are seeing a poor example of a strong technical writing style because the sentences are written in a vague style that would lead to comprehension and translation errors. Further, the authors state that plagiarism is institution-specific, but that's only true in our academic bubble.

In fact, plagiarism is an important IP intellectual property concern globally, so reference to international publication and copyright standards would be far more useful to students, who are students for 4 years or so, but professionals for up to 40 years.

Ideally, the authors would employ a plain style to avoid usability problems for non-American-dialect users. In the section 2. Contrary to what is stated, technicians do not always lack sophisticated theoretical knowledge.

It is not true that executives are always the audience for whom our students will or should write. The lack of robust user-based terminology is a problem with this book. I wonder if any of the authors are currently active in the technical communication community or have worked in nonacademic technical environments on communication design tasks. If they have, I would implore them to use better industry examples and the jargon of writers in technical professions.

The authors should also focus on plain language in this book, and exemplify it in their prose. Karen Schriver's work is a good starting point. I recommend this book only to instructors at Central Oregon Community College, where it perhaps serves a useful, important purpose.

Its structure and content is unsuitable for majors in professional fields including engineering and science, and therefore is not a good choice for instructors teaching at most institutions where the course is offered. The emphasis on MLA style demonstrates the limited appeal of the textbook to English majors. To be clear, MLA is not used in a single industrial or professional context I am aware of, outside English departments and literature-oriented professions. No mention is made of IEEE, which is the largest professional society in the world and which publishes professional ethics and authorial style guides that many professionals will encounter.

The authors may have heard this, because they mention ASME in section 5. I worry that this textbook potentially does a disservice to the technical communication field as well as to open-access materials, which should be of high quality and represent best practices based on an awareness of the range of communication tasks working professional undertake.

David McMurrey's work was far more technical and usable in its time; I'm sad to conclude that this textbook does not build productively on his legacy. The text does many things very well, but it is too uneven to be truly comprehensive.

It will work best as an introduction to technical communication and business writing. It is less helpful, I think, to students going into health care fields and It is less helpful, I think, to students going into health care fields and the social sciences. Chapters are brief and pragmatic, with no discussion of theory, no instruction on clarity or sentence structure, and little discussion of diction and style.

The index is helpful; there is no glossary, but this does not seem to be an omission as there is little jargon used throughout the book.

Some of the chapters are extremely brief and rudimentary, while others are detailed and nuanced. An example of the former is the section headed "Types of audiences", and an example of the latter is the section on ethics of technical writing. One of the earliest chapters is about texting. There are useful chapters dedicated to resumes, incident reports, proposals, and several other genres - and there is an interesting, though perhaps not as practical, discussion of genres in writing.

Like most other technical writing resources, this book has nothing to say about case reports, medical or nursing notes, letters to the editor or position papers for professional and trade journals, all of which are pertinent to the daily work of many professionals in human services or advocacy. Another issue with the book is the lack of writing exercises and assignments.

There are some areas with a "Try This" section, but not very many of them, and the assignments lack an assessment component. The book seems unbiased, although some advice feels a little arbitrary, such as the recommendation to limit emails to three paragraphs. I do not find any errors of content. Is it possible to find a sub? Which Australian are we voting for? Much of the advice will be appropriate forever: know your audience, know your purpose in writing, be respectful, be specific and clear rather than general and vague.

The sections about how to present information visually are helpful: contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity are given the unfortunate acronym CRAP so no doubt the reader will never forget it! I also appreciate the chapter on information literacy, which includes information on scholarly, professional and general publications.

This includes trade journals, something that WR classes tend not to mention but are important for technical writing students. Of course, there is some information about PowerPoint that is likely already past its best-buy date, but the authors discuss that and point the reader towards existing and upcoming technologies other than PowerPoint. I was able to see the video on the writing situation but not all of the other links worked.

The authors include a caveat that not all links will work, so that seems fair, but a comprehensive resource would not rely on links to external sources with all their potential foibles.

The authors resist the temptation to use jargon, and they stick to simple sentence structures for the most part. In that sense, they exemplify the sort of simple, crisp if unexciting prose that technical communication strives for. There is abundant use of the colon to introduce lists, and the authors use bullet points frequently.

The book is highly consistent. Each chapter starts with a brief introduction to what comes in the sections included in the chapter. That means that the first segment of each chapter is extremely short, followed by more detailed segments. What is not consistent is the amount of time spent on various elements of technical writing, which, as mentioned in the section on comprehensiveness, varies quite a bit. Chapters could be read out of order, and instructors can certain assign some sections and not others.

I would be most inclined to use the chapters on ethical issues, research, and proposals. I think that's OK, but the book is almost too modular.

Chapters do not relate to one another and the order in which they appear feels arbitrary. There is some redundancy - for example, the issue of audience is addressed repeatedly without adding anything new on the subject. I generally prefer a text in which each chapter leads logically to the material in the next chapter and adds to the student's understanding of technical writing, but there are advantages to a source like this, too.

The book is highly modular and the chapters do not flow into one another. I'm not sure why the chapters are ordered this way. I would tend to put some basic information about what constitutes technical writing at the beginning, followed by some guidance around doing research and writing ethically, followed by chapters on different types of technical writing: texts, emails, case reports, letters, resumes, proposals, recipes, instruction manuals, position papers, abstracts, encounter notes from a visit or interview, letters to the editor, mini-biographies and autobiographies "about the author" , annotations.

I would include an appendix about conventions: when to use a colon, how to convey numbers, the rules of capitalization, and the like. The navigation was extremely simple and easy to use. The charts and images that are used are minimal but every one is highly useful and easy to see. Some links are broken. I am prone to noticing grammatical and punctuation errors, but nothing jumped out at me in this textbook.

There is an ageist comment about "so easy that Grandpa could understand it" in the early pages defining technical vs academic writing. There is a very thoughtful section on cultural sensitivity. The authors use an interesting example of cultural differences, using a world map to illustrate the different meanings of the color red in different countries.

However, it seems like a serious omission to leave out a discussion of inclusive language. Things in that field are always changing, but the authors could provide information about where to find the most up-to-date recommendations on inclusive language, such as the acceptability of "they" as a singular personal pronoun for gender nonbinary people, and what language is appropriate to describe ethnic groups etc.