Re: Texts to Simulate "Keeping Up w/ Design" etc. Request.

[Romay Jean Sitze <rositze -at- NMSU -dot- EDU>]

Another advantage to this type of assignment occurs to me.  I might also
help the engineering students learn to work more effectively--and
willingly--with the tech writers.  Something that, judging from some of
the threads on this list, is not always the case.

> >
> > If I were teaching a Technical Writing course for serious students, I
> > would give them the assignment to go find an engineering student
> > developing a project for his/her class and document it as though it was
> > the real world and the company was betting the farm on the results. Of,
> > course this means that the two students would be forced to work
> > together...

> Actually, I teach a course like that: the "writers" are graduate
> students from all over campus working on theses or dissertations or
> articles, and the "coaches" are English majors in our technical
> communication option.  I've been doing the course for 10 years or so, and
> everyone likes it--the writers get their projects finished, often very
> well, and the coaches learn in a hands-on way many of the "soft" skills
> that go with being a successful technical communicator.  The bad news is
> there's no text, just a 70-page course packet I wrote and have copied
> locally.  I used to use Edmond Weiss's excellent *The Writing System for
> Engineers and Scientists*, but over time I developed my own materials
> that seemed more to the point of this course and lots cheaper.  But yes,
> the pairing works, to everyone's advantage.

> Mike Keene
> mkeene -at- utkvx -dot- utk -dot- edu



        RoMay Sitze, rositze -at- nmsu -dot- edu

        You can't solve a problem unless you first admit you have one.
                        --Harvey Mackay in _Swim with the Sharks_