This outstanding anthology of insightful essays, written by both theorists and practitioners, focuses on the content and structure of technical writing while also discussing the political, interpersonal, and ethical demands of writing in a professional workplace. Unlike most other texts in the
field, Readings in Technical Communication goes beyond offering a traditional prescriptive approach to technical writing and provides students with a comprehensive and thoughtful examination of the field. Along with a wide variety of classic essays, RTC includes a wealth of new material that
reflects the most up-to-date approaches and methods in technical communication.
Part 1: Thinking about Communication
Helen Wilkie: Communicate Well and Prosper
Jennifer MacLennan: Why Communication Matters
Richard M. Felder: A Whole New Mind for a Flat World
Andrea MacKenzie: First Flight
Lloyd F. Bitzer: Functional Communication: A Situational
Perspective
Part 2: Communicating Science
J.S.C. MeKee: Communicating Science
Stephen Strauss: Avoid the Technical Talk, Scientists Told
Cheryl Forbes: Getting the Story, Telling the Story: The Science of Narrative, the Narrative of Science
Debbie Triese and Michael F.
Weigold: Advancing Science Communication
Richard M. Holliman: Communicating Science in the Digital Age
Marjorie Rush Hovde: Negotiating Organizational Constraints: Tactics for Technical Communicators
Part 3: The Case for Rhetoric
Richard T. Burton: An Engineer's Rhetorical
Journey: Personal Reflections
Neil Ryder: Science and Rhetoric
Tania Smith: What Connection does Rhetorical Theory have to Technical and Professional Communication?
Stephen M. Halloran: Classical Rhetoric for the Engineering Student
Jonathan Shay: Aristotle's Rhetoric as a Handbook
of Leadership
Herbert W. Simons: Are Scientists Rhetors in Disguise? An Analysis of Discursive Processes within Scientific Communities
Part 4: Observations on Style and Editing
George C. Harwell: Effective Writing
William Zinsser: Clutter
Jennifer MacLennan: Getting It
Together: Strategies for Writing
Joe Glaser: Voices to Shun: Typical Modes of Bad Writing
Mary Fran Buehler: Situational Editing: A Rhetorical Approach for the Technical Editor
Jean Hollis Weber: Escape from the Grammar Trap
Brian Bauld: Sense and Nonsense about Grammar
Part
5: Perspectives on Audience and Context
Jeanie Wills: Making Them an Offer They Can't Refuse: How to Appeal to an Audience
Burton L. Urquhart: Bridging Gaps, Engineering Audiences: Understanding the Communicative Situation
Bernadette Longo: Communicating with Non-Technical
Audiences: How Much Do They Know?
Peter Elbow: Three Tricky Relationships to an Audience
Carolyn R. Miller: What's Practical About Technical Writing
David Ingham: These Minutes Took 22 Hours: The Rhetorical Situation of the Meeting
Part 6: Language
Anatol Rapoport: The
Language of Science: Its Simplicity, Beauty, and Humour
Bill Casselman: Digitariat
George Orwell: Politics and the English Language
William Lutz: The World of Doublespeak
Bill Casselman: Bafflegab and Gobbledygook: How Canadians Use English to Rant, to Lie, to Cheat, to Cover up
Truth, and to Peddle Bafflegab
Arthur Plotnik: Gasping for Words
John Speed: What Do You Mean I Can't Call Myself a Software Engineer
Jennifer MacLennan: Disciplinarity, Identity, and the 'Profession' of Rhetoric
Part 7: Ethical and Political Constraints
Jennifer
MacLennan: Communicating Ethically
Charles P. Campbell: Ethos: Character and Ethics in Technical Writing
Cezar M. Ornatowski: Between Efficiency and Politics: Rhetoric and Ethics in Technical Writing
James Gough: Developing Ethical Decision-Making Skills: How Textbooks Fail
Students
Part 8: Communication in a Technological Society
George Grant: Thinking about Technology
Marshall McLuhan: Motorcar: The Mechanical Bride
Sigrid Kelsey and Elisabeth Pankl: Verbal Text: Electronic Communication in the Information Age
Thomas R. McDaniel and Kathryn
N. McDaniel: The Perils of PowerPoint
Ibrahim Khide: Rewind, Pause, Play, Fast-Forward
John Lorinc: Driven to Distraction: How Our Multi-Channel, Multi-Tasking Society is Making It Harder for Us to Think
Stephen L. Talbott: The Deceiving Virtues of Technology: From the Cave of the
Cyclops to Silicon Valley
Part 9: Reading Others: A Communication Case Study
Jennifer MacLennan: Trouble in the Office
Paul Zepf: Reading Eaglestone: A Corporate Psychopath
Joe Azzopardi: Defending Eaglestone: Bad Fit or Wrongful Hire
Jennifer MacLennan is a Professor in College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, as well as D.K. Seaman Chair in Technical and Professional Communications. Her primary scholarly interest is the rhetoric of Canadian identity.