Re: need recommendations for beginner-level TW books/textbooks and resources

['Technical Writing Plus' <doc-x -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Lev, A book that you may find useful is How to Write and Present Technical Information by Charles H. Sides (Oryx Press, 1999).

It has 28 short chapters (split into 8 sections) that give an overview in very general terms of how it is that a TW goes about doing certain things that TWs do. The book is good for beginners, I'd say, because it introduces these 28 specific things and describes some of the things that TWs have to do to accomplish them. 

It's good as a stepping off point for discussion, but the book does not have many exercises and it ought not be used as a main textbook, I guess, for a beginning course. 

Jim Jones

-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Dec 29, 2008 10:42 AM

...contact the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. The
>list manager is Sam Dragga at Texas Technical University, sam -dot- dragga -at- ttu -dot- edu

>> in online pedagogy, I expect the course to be pedagogically consistent
>> (which is far from being always the case: I have seen lots of courses
>> offering good materials at e-lecture level, but not enough in terms of
>> training = activities that ensure skill development and transfer).
>>
>> I also expect the course to be almost entirely asynchronous to ensure it
>> fully utilizes the main advantage of e-learning - Anytime Anywhere. Many
>> courses either include residency requirements or too many synchronous
>> activities, which effectively neutralizes the above advantage.
>>
>> Finally, I see this as an attempt to develop a course custom-tailored for a
>> specific population from the point of view of their mother tongue (some of
>> the participants are not native speakers of English) and future employment
>> perspectives.
>>
>> So far, I have come across three titles ...

Jim Jones

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