Welcome to Mindful Technical Writing: An Introduction to the Fundamentals, an open textbook designed for use in co-requisite course pairings of developmental writing and introductory technical writing, or indeed in other lower-division college writing courses that focus on building study skills alongside effective workplace and academic writing skills. It offers a no-cost alternative to commercial products, combining practical guidance with interactive exercises and thoughtfully designed writing opportunities.

This book’s modular design and ample coverage of topics and genres means that it can be used flexibly over semester-long or stretch courses, allowing instructors and students to select the chapters that are most relevant for their needs. By blending new material with reviews of key topics, such as academic integrity, the chapters provide fresh perspectives on matters vital to the development of strong writing skills.

This book was made possible through grant support from Montana Technological University and the TRAILS OER program, funded by the Office of the Commissioner for Higher Education, Montana University System.

You're probably wondering what this "technical writing thing" is. Someone may even have told you, "it's this course where they make you write about rocket science and brain surgery." Well, not really, as you will see in a moment. Actually, the field of technical communication is essential in a wide range of fields and occupations. It is a fully professional field with degree programs, certifications, and—yes!—even theory. It's a good field with a lot of growth and income potential; and an introductory technical-writing course for which this book has been developed is a good way to start if you are interested in a career in this field.

This book presents technical writing as an approach to researching and carrying out writing that centers on technical subject matter. Each and every chapter is devoted to helping students understand that good technical writing is situationally-aware and context-driven. Technical writing doesn’t work off knowing the one true right way of doing things—there is no magic report template out there that will always work. Instead, the focus is on offering students a series of approaches they can use to map out their situations and do research accordingly.

Folder of openly licensed course documents including syllabus and assignment prompts.

Course description: Instruction and practice in professional workplace writing, with emphasis on genre, audience and collaboration.

The objective of this activity is to reinforce the importance of being specific while dealing with events of a sequential nature, such as the phases of the moon.

Students use the free computer game Pingus to learn how engineers, specifically environmental engineers, use their technical writing skills to give instructions and follow the instructions of others. Students learn to write instructions to express their ideas in clear, organized ways using descriptive, un-ambiguous sentences, as an example of one type of technical writing that important for engineers. The students write instructions enumerating how to beat a game level, which represents surveying that level for environmental problems. As a test of their instructions, students review each others' instructions and offer suggestions for improvement, and then revise their instructions to make them better. Students also see some examples of environmental problems.

This class introduces students to the interdisciplinary nature of 21st-century engineering projects with three threads of learning: a technical toolkit, a social science toolkit, and a methodology for problem-based learning. Students encounter the social, political, economic, and technological challenges of engineering practice by participating in real engineering projects with faculty and industry; this semester’s major project focuses on the engineering and economics of solar cells. Student teams will create prototypes and mixed media reports with exercises in project planning, analysis, design, optimization, demonstration, reporting and team building.

This class introduces students to the interdisciplinary nature of 21st-century engineering projects with three threads of learning: a technical toolkit, a social science toolkit, and a methodology for problem-based learning. Students encounter the social, political, economic, and technological challenges of engineering practice by participating in real engineering projects with faculty and industry; this semester’s major project focuses on the engineering and economics of solar cells. Student teams will create prototypes and mixed media reports with exercises in project planning, analysis, design, optimization, demonstration, reporting and team building.

This textbook for professional and technical communication is a compilation of several Open Resource materials. The purpose in its design is to provide a wide variety of materials on subjects in professional and technical communication, and to offer several different perspectives and delivery modes of those materials.

This class develops the abilities of students to communicate science effectively in a variety of real-world contexts. It covers strategies for dealing with complex areas like theoretical physics, genomics and neuroscience, and addresses challenges in communicating about topics such as climate change and evolution. Projects focus on speaking and writing, being an expert witness, preparing briefings for policy-makers, writing blogs, and giving live interviews for broadcast, as well as the creation of an interactive exhibit for display in the MIT Museum.

This class develops the abilities of students to communicate science effectively in a variety of real-world contexts. It covers strategies for dealing with complex areas like theoretical physics, genomics and neuroscience, and addresses challenges in communicating about topics such as climate change and evolution. Projects focus on speaking and writing, being an expert witness, preparing briefings for policy-makers, writing blogs, and giving live interviews for broadcast, as well as the creation of an interactive exhibit for display in the MIT Museum.

A list of resources compiled by Jim Allen, Elizabeth Cicchetti, Jill Grauman, Augie Morado, and Annie Schnarr for English 1105: Workplace Writing and English 1110: Technical Writing at the College of DuPage. All materials are licensed as indicated in the source material

Technical Writing Reading and Video List

WR 227 Technical Writing

Introduces students to the types of writing they will encounter in business, industry, the academic world and government. It examines the rhetorical nature of writing and asks students to think critically about content, audience, argument and structure. Students will learn how to effectively design documents, present instructions, create proposals and produce technical reports.

WR 227: Technical Writing Syllabus

Course Description:

Students will learn the basics of technical writing in this course. Technical writing is all that professional writing, which is not popular journalism or creative writing. WR 227 studies the composition of reports required in the technical and business professions. The course focuses on producing usable, reader-centered content that is clear, concise, and ethical. It includes the procedures of fact gathering through both primary and secondary research, organization, graphic layout, and other methods of compiling data. Students will learn to locate and evaluate source information; quote, paraphrase, and summarize sources effectively; cite sources and format this information in a particular documentation style or with a style sheet. We’ll be producing memos, letters, reports, and job search materials.

Course Objectives Reflecting Expected Student Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this course a student will be able to:
• Use efficient and effective research techniques to gather primary and secondary data
• Present findings in a well-written and sufficiently supported report tailored to the needs of a specific audience
• Demonstrate different formats of technical writing as well as basic concepts of style and document design to increase readability of technical documents
• Incorporate and accurately document source information according to a specific documentation style such as MLA or APA
• Demonstrate collaborative writing skills

This OER textbook is a remix of existing open material. The text was assembled by Adam Karnes, English adjunct at Linn-Benton Community College

Welcome to WR 227, our Technical and Professional Writing 1 course! WR 227 introduces
technical and professional communications. As a student in this course, you can expect to
compose, design, revise, and edit effective letters, memos, reports, descriptions, instructions, and
employment documents. This course emphasizes precise use of language and graphics to
communicate complex technical and procedural information safely, legally, and ethically. Two
instructor conferences are required.

This course is taken by mechanical engineering majors during their senior year to prepare a detailed thesis proposal under the guidance of staff from the Writing Program. The thesis proposal must bear the endorsement of the thesis supervisor and indicate the number of units planned.
This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

These games and activities help students investigate the relationship between fractions and decimals, focusing on equivalence.

A textbook focusing on writing in the workplace, with an emphasis on audience analysis, writing for specific situations, document design, research processes, and visual aids.

Through an adult-led field trip, students organized into investigation teams catalogue the incidence of plastic debris in different environments. They investigate these plastics according to their type, age, location and other characteristics that might indicate what potential they have for becoming part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Students collect qualitative and quantitative data that may be used to create a Google Earth layer as part of a separate activity that can be completed at a computer lab at school or as homework. The activity is designed as a step on the way to student's creation of their own GIS Google Earth layer. It is, however, possible for the field trip to be a useful learning experience unto itself that does not require this last GIS step.