Teaching Technical Writing: Rethinking our Approach

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick D. Casper
Keyword(s):  
Technical Communication ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
College Level ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Actual Experience ◽  
Writing Students ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function

Several recent journal articles, especially the one by Charles Sides [1], have questioned the form and function of technical communication. Based on actual experience with three organizations in Oregon, this writer proposes a need to rethink what we teach our technical writing students and how we go about designing assignments that“… simulate the reality of a work environment” [2]. This article will explore the types of technical writing skills which are increasingly in demand and then will offer several strategies for teaching these skills at the college level.

The alignment of form and function

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunstan Brown ◽  
Carole Tiberius ◽  
Greville G. Corbett
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Frequency Information ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Frequent Form ◽  
Single Function ◽  
The One ◽  
Default Rules ◽  
And Function

This paper analyses constraints on inflectional syncretism and inflectional allomorphy using frequency information. Syncretism arises where one form is associated with more than one function, whereas inflectional allomorphy occurs where there is more than one inflectional class, and a single function is associated with two or more forms. If high frequency is associated with more differentiation on both sides, we expect, on the one hand, that a frequent function will have a high number of forms and, on the other, that a frequent form will have a high number of functions. Our study focuses on Russian nominals, in particular nouns, which exhibit both syncretism and inflectional allomorphy. We find that there is a relationship between frequency and differentiation, but that it is not exceptionless, and that the exceptions can be understood in terms of the use of referrals as default rules.

ԿՈՒՐԱՐԱՔՍՅԱՆ ՄԻՋԱԳԵՏՔԻ ԲՐՈՆԶ-ԵՐԿԱԹԵԴԱՐՅԱՆ ՈՒՍԱԳՈՏԻՆԵՐԸ

2021 ◽  
pp. 226-246
Author(s):  
Benik Vardanyan
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Military Uniform ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
Armenian Highland ◽  
The Military

An object type characterized as a shoulder strap was found in archaeological sites of the Armenian Highland and the South Caucasus. They served as a strap from which weapons (blade or sword) were mounted. Their purpose was to ensure quick accessibility to the weapon during combats. In ancient societies, shoulder straps symbolized the privileged status of the military aristocracy. The emergence and depiction of the straps on the inventory coincide with a transformation in the social landscape on the one hand and with the early state formation processes on the other hand. Social changes led to the formation of a militarized class of the privileged who, as part of their military uniform, possessed also the shoulder strap. This is evidenced by the multiple images of warrior-predecessors in the form of statuettes-standards and sculptures of the Bronze and Iron Age, as well as on bronze and clay vessels, which show the development of the form and function of the lash.

scholarly journals Marriage quandaries in Central Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-146
Author(s):  
Juliette Cleuziou ◽  
Julie McBrien
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
The Other ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Relational Practice ◽  
Single Term ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function

Abstract Many Central Asians speak of marriage as important and self-evident despite the fact that marriage in practice across the region presents a more complicated story. There is not only an extensive array of practices indicated by the single term marriage and a wide variety of things accomplishes by its conclusion and duration, but many non-marital sets of relations in Central Asia similarly realise what marriage does. This may lead one to question whether there is any sense in trying to pin marriage down at all. Yet, this tension — the flexibility of marriage in form and function, and its overlap with nonmarriage on the one hand, and its abiding importance and, at times, self-evidentiary nature, on the other — we suggest, lies at the heart of marriage-as-practice in Central Asia. Following recent turns in kinship studies, and long-standing feminist traditions, this paper envisages marriage as a relational practice of legitimization rather than pinning it down as a particular content. We argue that by focusing on the act of getting married in particular, its particular efficacy, as well as the disputes, questions, and conflicts that sometime arise as a result – in short, the quandaries of getting married – we get not only at this tensional nature of marriage, but at the everyday concerns and major societal issues wrapped up in marriage in Central Asia.

“How Can We Help Technical Writing Students?” Reading Centers Ask

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-128
Author(s):  
Eleanor M. Schenck
Keyword(s):  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
College Level ◽  
Report Writing ◽  
College Reading ◽  
Technical Report ◽  
Writing Students ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Reading Instructors

For the purpose of continually improving an English teacher training program, an attempt was made to research the expected competencies of reading instructors in relation to technical report writers. Interviews were conducted with those involved in the teaching of technical report writing. The interviews reflected very little familiarity with reading instruction at the college level. The results were coupled with current research findings on training and duties of college reading instructors. This suggested a possible strategy for improving services to technical report writing students.

Technical writing improvements through engineering lab courses

2020 ◽  
pp. 030641902093962
Author(s):  
Kamau Wright ◽  
Paul E Slaboch ◽  
Reihaneh Jamshidi
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Solid Mechanics ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Generation Procedure

Improving assessment of engineering students’ technical communication skills is a good way to monitor and improve teaching of these skills, and positively impact associated learning. The present study reports on a method used to assess students’ technical writing abilities, while also evaluating the impact of technical writing-related instruction and associated curricular and pedagogical approaches. In this way, students’ improvements can be mapped to instruction methods. The strategies for enhancing the delivery of technical writing-related instruction are discussed in terms of the proposed assessment method. This method has three main parts: 1) Sample Generation Procedure – the strategic establishment of a pair of written reports, serving as BEFORE-Labs and AFTER-Labs, and similar enough in topic to justify comparison after assessment, but unexpected to students so that reports are not simply replicated; 2) A Rubric for Technical Writing – encompassing major features of technical writing requirements of engineering lab courses and developed to be both descriptive (having descriptions in each category, to make expectations explicit for evaluators and students) and holistic (having short summarizing narratives for different levels of work, to capture overall quality quickly); and 3) an Evaluation Demonstration – in which a matrix of faculty instructors from sections of different engineering lab courses used the rubric to retroactively assess the samples. Together, these efforts are used not only to assess improvements in students’ technical writing, but by effect also gauge teaching and effectiveness of curricular and pedagogical interventions. In two engineering lab courses, a thermo-fluid lab course and a solid mechanics lab course, BEFORE-Labs and AFTER-Labs were generated using either a method of impromptu “one-hour labs”, with experiments conducted and reports submitted all within an hour at the beginning and end of one semester, or comparison of full lab reports from consecutive semesters of students. Evaluation results clearly show that there were aggregate improvements in students’ technical writing skills, and as such it is concluded that the teaching methods were effective.

The Riverrun of Rewriting Scripture: From Textual Cannibalism to Scriptural Completion

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 475-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Third Order ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract To retain the concept of rewritten Bible as a scholarly category it is not only crucial to slightly change the name of the notion by re-designating it “rewritten Scripture” but also to accord the term the status of a cross-cultural third-order concept. This will allow research to detach the notion from its somewhat current “parochial” nature intrinsically linked as it is to the study of Second Temple Jewish literature. Rewritten Scripture should be conceived of as an excessive form of intertextuality that signifies the relationship existing between scriptural predecessor and rewritten piece with respect to the question of authority. Apart from advancing the theoretical discussion of the nomenclature, the essay takes a fresh look at a moot point that has loomed large in previous debates, whether rewritten Scripture strives to replace its scriptural predecessor or aims to complement it in an irenic fashion. The acknowledgement of some aspectualism grants legitimacy to both viewpoints, when they are rightfully understood within their proper perspectives. Finally, the article engages in typological considerations that will allow us to distinguish between three continua defined by respectively content, form, and function. Each constitutes a continuum on its own that advantageously may be segmented by several caesuras, which will allow us to differentiate between irenic scriptural completion at the one end of the spectrum and scriptural cannibalism at the other end of the spectrum. The fact that two works belonging to the category diverge on one continuum does not imply a corresponding divergence at other continua.

A note on Chomsky on form and function

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick J. Newmeyer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Systematic Relationship ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Past ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
Meaning And Function

It has become commonplace in the anti-generative literature to portray Chomsky as denying that any systematic relationship exists between linguistic form on the one hand and meaning and function on the other and, in particular, that the latter might exert any direct influence on the former. The purpose of this note is to challenge such portrayals by making reference to some of Chomsky's relevant published statements over the past three and one half decades.

scholarly journals Supply Chain Resilience: Definition Of Concept And Its Formative Elements

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavros T. Ponis ◽  
Epaminondas Koronis
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Supply Chain Network ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Supply Chain Resilience ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
And Function

The objective of this paper is to conceptualize Supply Chain Resilience (SCRes) and identify which supply chain capabilities can support the containment of disruptions and how these capabilities affect SCRes. Through a systematic and structured review of literature, this paper provides insights into the conceptualization and research methodological background of the SCM field. A total of one hundred and thirty four carefully selected refereed journal articles were systematically analyzed leading to the introduction of a novel definition for SCRes, which the authors view as the as the ability to proactively plan and design the Supply Chain network for anticipating unexpected disruptive (negative) events, respond adaptively to disruptions while maintaining control over structure and function and transcending to a post-event robust state of operations, if possible, more favorable than the one prior to the event, thus gaining competitive advantage. Finally, a critical examination of existing conceptual frameworks for understanding the relationships between the SCRes concept and its identified formative elements, is taking place.

Form and Function in Aristotle

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-337
Author(s):  
Boris Hennig
Keyword(s):  
Special Kind ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Material Thing ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Natural Substances ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Proper Account

Abstract On the one hand, Aristotle claims that the matter of a material thing is not part of its form. On the other hand, he suggests that the proper account of a natural thing must include a specification of the kind of matter in which it is realized. There are three possible strategies for dealing with this apparent tension. First, there may be two kinds of definition, so that the definition of the form of a thing does not include any specification of its matter, whereas the definition of a compound does. Second, the definition of a substance may not include a specification of its matter at all, but still reveal in what kinds of matter its form can be realized. Third, there may be a special kind of matter, functional matter, which belongs to the form of certain things. I will show that the functional matter of a thing does not belong to its form (in a strict sense of “form”), but that an adequate account of natural substances and their functions must nonetheless involve a reference to their functional matter. This means that the function of a natural thing is not the same as its form and that its adequate account as a natural thing is not a definition (in a strict sense of “form” and “definition”).

scholarly journals How Good is Your User Experience? Measuring and Designing Interactions

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
Raimund Wildner ◽  
Christine Kittinger-Rosanelli ◽  
Tim Bosenik
Keyword(s):  
User Experience ◽  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Consumer Experience ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Functional Quality ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function

Abstract Form and function are important dimensions of consumer choice, but there is more in our increasingly digital world. It is not only products per se that need to be designed but the whole interaction between consumers and brands. The whole UX or user experience is more important than ever before. Digitalism nowadays is everywhere, and even mundane products are becoming more digital (e.g. ovens), while others evolve that are purely digital (e.g. PayPal). The question is: How can we effectively measure and design interactions in this highly digital and complex environment? For quite a long time “usability” was the one and only measure on the agenda. But consumer experience goes far beyond ease of use or high functional quality. UX is a complex construct with several dimensions that are covered in GfK´s UX score.

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