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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $179.99

Format:
Paperback
416 pp.
3 tables, 12 figures, 2 boxes, 7" x 9"

ISBN-13:
9780195423228

Copyright Year:
2008

Imprint: OUP Canada


Readings for Technical Communication

Jennifer MacLennan

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.

Readership : Reader can be used as a supplementary text for technical, professional, or engineering courses and as a core text for advanced courses in professional writing at the post-secondary level.

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

Instructor's Manual

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.

Making Sense in Engineering and the Technical Sciences - Margot Northey and Judi Jewinski
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
Effective Communication for the Technical Professions - Jennifer MacLennan

Special Features

  • Comprehensive coverage - The wide variety of essays explores topics such as language use, style, situation, power dynamics, ethics, leadership, and technology.
  • Unique coverage - Issues not usually covered in technical communication readers-personal credibility, interpersonal sensitivities, relational history, ethical challenges, organizational expectations, and political manoeuvring-are introduced in a thoughtful and appropriate manner.
  • Emphasis on rhetoric - Discussion of rhetoric gives students a broader understanding of what it means to communicate effectively.
  • Multi-audience perspective - Essays written for different types of audiences challenge students to develop a more sophisticated sense of style.
  • Thought-provoking questions - Questions at the end of each chapter encourage critical thinking and initiate group discussions on style, leadership, and the rhetoric and politics of professional technical writing.
  • Classic and new material - The essays offer a blend of well-known classics and new readings written specifically for the reader.
  • Thematic organization - The readings are organized by theme to provide a structure for the discussion of the wide variety of issues within professional communication.
  • Canadian content - Canadian authorship on nearly half of the essays included in the anthology situates technical writing in a Canadian context.
  • Stylistic variety - The selections vary in style, formality, perspective, focus, and audience to introduce students to as wide a range of writing as possible.