Technical Communication Resources
Technical communication is a point of emphasis throughout the
four-year Engineering Academy curriculum.
Students, once you reach the second engineering elective, you will be
required to write at least one formal technical document and give at least one
technical presentation during each nine-week period. Developing strong communication skills
now will quickly set you apart from the crowd when you enter college! The resources below are divided into
four general categories and are intended to help you learn the basics of
technical communication and then improve your skills as you progress through
the curriculum.
·
Technical Communication – Rhetoric (How to plan your communication for
maximum effectiveness)
o
Planning your communication, aka “rhetoric” (Adobe or PowerPoint) (Developed for the EA based on
information found at the UWC and from a presentation given by Dr. Cynthia Ryan
at UAB.)
o What is Rhetorical Context? (UWC)
You are strongly encouraged to visit the following sites that
contain numerous technical writing resources. I have highlighted specific resources
that I think are especially useful in the context of the writing that you will do
for the academy. Please recognize
that you may come across some “suggestions” that are not consistent
with something that may have been covered in class. In that case, either ask me about it or
defer to what I told you in class.
University Writing Centers
·
Online Writing Lab at Purdue University
(OWL)
·
University Writing Center at the University
of Central Florida (UWC)
Specific Writing Resources
Types of
Technical Documents
·
Writing Engineering Reports Presentation
(OWL – additions made for the EA)
·
Writing Technical Articles (from
Columbia University)
·
Engineering Lab Report Format (from
the University of Toronto)
·
Writing Abstracts Presentation
(OWL)
Writing Style
·
Coherent Writing – Coherence describes a
writer’s ability to connect ideas and provide information in a fluid and
comprehensible way.
o Writing good paragraphs (UWC)
o Coherent sentences (UWC)
o Developing
a Topic Sentence Outline (Adobe or PowerPoint) (MS&T)
o Macro level coherence (Adobe or PowerPoint)
(OWL)
·
Concise Language
o Concise writing (Adobe or PowerPoint)
(OWL)
o Concision checklist (UWC)
·
Parallelism Handout (OWL)
·
Active vs. Passive Voice (from Professional
Training Company)
·
Handling Numbers in Technical
Writing
Grammar
·
Five Uncommonly Serious Mistakes
(UWC)
·
Five Easy Comma Rules (UWC)
·
How to Choose Articles (UWC)
·
Required Proofreader Documentation Form for all formal writing
assignments!
·
E-A-S-Y Proofreading Techniques
(UWC)
·
Proofreading Priority Guidelines
(UWC)
·
Proofreading Techniques (UWC)
Quotations and Citations
·
Integrating Quotations (UWC –
Pardon the topic used in the examples.
The content is good, though.)
·
Avoiding Plagiarism (OWL)
·
Avoiding Plagiarism (UCF)
·
The UWC also has numerous links for particular
citation formats under the Citations and Documentation
section.
In addition to these online references, we have the following
technical writing handbooks available for you to use and check out as needed.
·
Technical Communication by Mike
Markel (7th edition)
·
Writing for the Technical Professions
by Kristin R. Woolever (3rd edition)
·
A Guide to Writing as an Engineer
by Beer and McMurrey
·
The Writer’s Harbrace
Handbook by Miller, Webb, and Horner (brief edition)
·
The MIT Guide to Science and Engineering
Communication by Paradis and Zimmerman (2nd
edition)
·
The Mayfield Handbook of Technical
Scientific Writing by Perelman, Paradis, and
Barrett
·
Summary of some of
Michael Alley’s work on Technical Presentations – Read the notes
that go with each of these slides to learn much more!
·
Installing MikTeX and WinEdt
o First, go
to www.miktex.org
and download/install the latest (non-beta) version of MikTex.
o Then, go to
www.winedt.com
and download/install the latest (non-beta) version of WinEdt.
o MikTeX is free.
WinEdt comes with a 31-day evaluation period. Registration for students is $30
(probably a worthwhile investment, as it is a great editor for a variety of
programming applications).
o LaTeX Editor (“LEd”) is a free LaTeX editor,
but you may have to follow some directions on the site for compatibility with
the particular version of MikTeX you install. (I have not used this editor, so it may
be a lot better or a lot worse than WinEdt.)