Background: Our teaching case reports on a fieldwork assignment designed to have master of arts students experience first-hand how entrepreneurs write for the globalized marketplace by examining public displays of language, such as billboards, shop windows, and posters. Research questions: How do entrepreneurs use English to “style” themselves? What is the status of English in public displays? Which relationship with customers is cultivated by using English (among other languages)? How does English, or lookalike versions thereof, create a more innovative business? Situating the case: We use linguistic landscaping (LL) as a pedagogical resource, drawing on similar cases in a local English as a foreign language (EFL) community in Oaxaca, Mexico; EFL programs in Chiba-shi, Japan; francophone and immersion French programs in Montreal, QC, Canada and Vancouver, BC, Canada; and a study of the entrepreneurial landscape in Observatory's business corridor of Lower Main Road in Cape Town, South Africa. How this case was studied: We interviewed 36 students about their learning process in one-to-one post hoc interviews. Recurrent themes were increased self-monitoring, improved professional communication literacy, and expanded real-world understanding. About the case: The teaching case follows a three-pronged approach. First, we have students decide on a survey area, determine their empirical focus, establish analytical units, decide how to collect data, collect (sociodemographic) information about their survey area, and determine the degree of researcher engagement. Next, students conduct fieldwork, documenting the linguistic landscape in small teams of three to four students. In the third phase, students have returned from the field and discuss their initial findings, ideas, and observations during a data session with the instructors. Students decide whether they still stand by the decisions they made before they entered the field and are then asked to qualify how language is used in public space. Results: The main takeaway of the assignment is that students were more aware of the degree of linguistic innovation, rhetorical creativity, and ethnocultural stereotyping of entrepreneurial communication in their cities. Conclusion: As a pedagogical tool, LL offers possibilities for exploring entrepreneurial communication in all of its breadth and variety, providing access to perhaps the most visible and creative materialities of entrepreneurs and service providers: shop windows and signs.

Background: Despite efforts to include communication instruction in both college and continuing education curricula for students in all areas of study, workplace surveys continually report that employees' communication skills are lacking. The differing contexts of school and the workplace may be one reason for this disconnect, so teaching strategies that can effectively bridge this gap are needed. Research questions: How do students respond to using scenes from a television series to teach professional communication concepts within workplace contexts? What are advantages and drawbacks to this strategy? Situating the case: Strategies used to teach professional communication in a way that facilitates its application in the workplace include classroom exercises, service-learning projects involving real clients, and simulations. In addition, videos are a commonly used method of classroom teaching. They can activate verbal/linguistic, visual/spatial, and musical/rhythmic intelligences, allowing students to use their stronger intelligences and develop their weaker ones. Research also suggests that students appreciate visual stimulation and technology use when learning communication skills. How the case was studied: Students completed a brief end-of-course survey to gather both qualitative and quantitative data concerning their learning experiences with the activities described. About the case: To make undergraduate writing courses more relevant to the workplace, specific scenes from The Office were integrated to teach units on negative messages and intercultural issues. Following these clips, students completed both in-class exercises and course assignments pertaining to the topics covered. Results: After completing the class sessions and associated exercises described here, most students could discern the relevant concepts from the clips; they found both the clips and the associated exercises helpful in learning the concepts; and they recommended ongoing use in future classes. Students appreciated the comedic nature of the material, the use of different media, and the pop culture reference. Drawbacks included scenes focusing on what not to do, that often showed communication gone awry rather than the correct way to communicate. Some students also prefer more traditional teaching methods. Conclusions: The results indicate that the use of television clips along with associated exercises can be useful aids in teaching professional communication concepts.

Problem: Increased demand for user experience (UX) designers requires new approaches to teaching and training the next generation of these professionals. We present a model for building educational programs within academia that train job-ready designers. Key concepts: To be successful, this model necessitates a working knowledge of the UX process, the systematic use of sound principles during the design of digital products and services. The model also requires a pedagogical approach that puts learners in a position to solve real problems and that treats them as apprentices on their way to competency. Key lessons: Academic institutions clearly have parts to play in producing job-ready UX designers, but barriers exist to doing so, including access to adequate training in UX best practices. To overcome these barriers, we provide tips for understanding core UX competencies, developing partnerships with UX practitioners, and deploying UX education courses and programs. Implications: Though the barriers to producing sufficient numbers of well-trained UX designers are significant, the combined ingenuity of devoted professionals in both academia and industry can be leveraged to create sound educational opportunities for UX learners from all walks of life.

Teaching problem: Immersive pedagogies-including real-world or client-based projects, case studies, and simulations-have long been used to encourage student problem-solving, analytical thinking, and teamwork in professional communication. Building a connection to the real world has real challenges, however, for both instructors and students. How can we better prepare students for their future careers in our technical communication courses? Situating the case: This paper draws on three areas in the literature to situate the Arisoph case study: First, we discuss the work that has been done with client-based projects and the problems and challenges researchers have found with incorporating these projects into the classroom. Second, we discuss a newer model of workplace simulations, particularly focusing on the work done by Fisher and Russell. Third, we discuss the psychological theories of attribution and reattribution, which provided a foundation for our development of the Arisoph case study. How this case was studied: This paper describes the development of the Arisoph case study, an online client-based simulation course designed for engineering students to learn and practice technical communication. Course development and collection of instructor and student responses took place from 2010 to 2014. About the case: This paper details the development and implementation of the Arisoph case study, which brought the workplace realities of a variety of engineering professions into a classroom filled with engineering majors. The Arisoph simulation was designed to manage student attribution and reattribution, particularly to help engineering students connect the principles and skills learned in technical communication courses with their future careers. The Arisoph case study is a full-semester simulation, where students apply for work in a fictional company and fulfill different roles on professional teams. Each assignment during the semester is situated in the context of the simulation. The major projects for the simulation, however, come from a real client in the engineering field. This unique combination of simulation and client-based projects provides students with greater opportunities for successful reattribution. Conclusions: Initial student reactions to the course show an increased understanding of workplace communication and a greater motivation to produce the best possible product for the client. We hope that long-term studies will show significant carryover of those attitudes into students' careers.

Research problem: Our study focuses on how students collaborate online to produce specific written genres, using particular collaborative technologies to work together productively, and how instructor feedback and student perspectives on collaborative work influence those activities in online classrooms. Research questions: When composing using collaborative web-based writing applications, do students focus primarily on the interface or the text space? What kinds of expectations about collaborative writing do students bring to the interface and text space? To what extent can we characterize students' acknowledgement of a third space, what we have identified as “communicative interaction?” Literature review: Workplace collaboration is important because organizations increasingly demand effective collaborators, team members, and team leaders, and technologies for sharing, cobuilding, and feedback are readily available to support these activities. Student preparation for workplace collaboration is important because students struggle when they are asked to write together, particularly when the collaborative process involves new technologies, and yet knowledge of collaborative writing strategies and experience with collaborative technologies, such as Google Docs, are the very competencies that organizations expect of them. Methodology: Thirteen groups of 3 to 4 technical writing students and science communication students enrolled in online professional writing courses at a major research university wrote feature specifications and reports on the globalization of the sciences, respectively, using Google Docs within Google Drive. Sixteen of 37 students responded to a set of questions asking them to reflect on their experiences working collaboratively, learning new genres, using the collaborative environment, and revising with instructor feedback. Results and conclusions: We found that students struggled most with adapting their already established collaborative strategies grounded in face-to-face learning situations to an online learning environment, where they felt their means of communication and expression were limited. The results suggest that effective collaborative experiences, properly executed, represent a repertoire of competencies that go well beyond only technical considerations, such as being able to effectively assign roles, set milestones, and navigate the numerous tasks and processes of writing as a team. The small number of students and the single instructor with her own particular feedback style limit the study. Future research includes looking at how different feedback styles influence student collaborative writing.

Research problem: No study has explored how incorporating personas into heuristic evaluation of products, namely websites, affects the kinds of findings reported and the recommendations presented by usability evaluators. Research questions: (1) Do findings resulting from heuristic evaluations of a website without the use of personas differ from findings resulting from heuristic evaluations of the same website with the use of personas? (2) Do findings from persona-based heuristic evaluations in which evaluators develop their own personas differ from findings from persona-based heuristic evaluations in which evaluators are given personas? (3) If findings and recommendations are different, how do they differ? (4) How does the use of personas affect the evaluators' confidence in the findings of a heuristic evaluation? Literature review: First, previous research of heuristic evaluation has concluded that although heuristic evaluation is inexpensive and does not require advance planning, it has several shortcomings, including its too-intense focus on minor issues and its inability to capture all usability issues. Second, data-driven personas, which have long been a resource in user-centered design, have been suggested as a way to improve or enhance heuristic evaluation, and several studies suggest that usability professionals are indeed using personas in their evaluations. However, no empirical study has assessed heuristic evaluations that include personas. Methodology: In this exploratory study involving three sections of an advanced technical writing course, groups of evaluators conducted a heuristic evaluation of a website. Each section was randomly assigned a different condition with which they would conduct the heuristic evaluation: (a) a traditional heuristic evaluation, (b) a persona-led heuristic evaluation in which the personas were given to the evaluators, or (c) a persona-led heuristic evaluation in which the evaluators themselves created their own personas. Each group wrote a report identifying the major problems with the website and provided recommendations to solve the identified problems. The evaluators completed pretesting demographic surveys and posttesting confidence surveys. Results and discussion: This exploratory study found few detectable differences in the findings reported by groups that used personas in heuristic evaluation and groups that did not use personas. The groups that used personas were more likely to report findings related to navigation than the groups that did not use personas, while the groups that did not use personas were more likely to report findings related to design than the groups that used personas. The groups that created their own personas were more likely than the other groups to include complex issues in their reports and include language that directly references users and user needs. All groups were confident in their findings.

This book is an edited collection is based on two assumptions. The first assumption serves as the editors’ opening sentence: “if you want something done right when it comes to information technology and writing instruction and research, you have to do it yourself." The second assumption also appears early in the Introduction when the editors describe “software” or, more broadly, any technology as a “web of interconnecting workflows that amount to a social and intellectual environment; a place that influences the creation and exchange of ideas.” The authors indicate the relatively high level of technical knowledge that writing instructors are expected to bring to the text, and they emphasize beliefs about technology that shape the way chapter authors integrate technology into the teaching of writing. For writing instructors who bring this technical expertise to the text and who share its assumption about technology and environment, this book is an important new resource. It provides an overview of web-based application design that is technologically sound and pedagogically cohesive.

In "Online Education 2.0: Evolving, Adapting, and Reinventing Online Technical Education," editors Keith Grant-Davie and Kelli Cargile Cook investigated how online pedagogy and learning have changed and how have faculty, students, and programs evolved over the last ten years. The book reviewer feels this is an interesting collection of articles that addresses fiscal, technological, and theoretical questions to help audiences who are addressing a virtual landscape in which online education is expanding to include more schools, levels of education, and a more diverse population of students. It is a helpful text for a wide-variety of audiences - administrators, scholars, and online instructors - to help them understand where online instruction has been, and where it is headed. As one who advocated early for developing quality online education as an alternative to face-to-face instruction, the reviewer suggests that one read the text to garner new insights into training, mentoring, and practice, regardless of whether you are a seasoned online educator, a novice, or somewhere in between. Each of us has lessons to teach as well as to learn, and this text will help guide your understanding of how to navigate the virtual landscape.

Research problem: Many Asian universities have begun reforms to enhance educational competitiveness in our globalizing economy. This study aims to ascertain the status of English communication education and English-medium instruction at a Korean engineering school and to offer workable suggestions for English communication training for Korean graduate engineering students. Research questions: Should English communication education be offered at the graduate level in Korean engineering schools? How could English communication education be improved for Korean graduate engineering students? Literature review: Studies of English communication education for graduate engineering students indicate that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students have English needs to publish internationally and English needs for English-medium instruction classes and for after graduation. Furthermore, individual assistance and e-learning programs might strengthen English communication education and academic writing for EFL graduate engineering students. Methodology: An evaluation study was conducted at an institution that has been leading the wave of English as the language of instruction. We collected data from documents as well as through surveys of faculty and students in graduate engineering programs. Results and discussion: The study was conducted at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The results showed that students' English fluency is critical for the success of using English as a medium of instruction. To facilitate this fluency, universities need to establish an English communication center that provides a comprehensive, systematic approach to English language training. Faculty also need the services of such centers. It is also advised that a thesis writing course be customized according to students' actual writing and communication abilities and enhanced with collaboration between engineering faculty and English education faculty.

This study explores a comprehensive sample of experimental and quasi-experimental research within five leading technical communication journals over a 20-year period. Exploratory studies can overview how a method has evolved within a field, highlighting how it has advanced understanding of communication and identifying areas for further inquiry. Research questions: (1) How has experimental research in technical communication journals developed over the 20-year period? Specifically, how much is being published, which journals publish experiments, what topics are being explored, and what fields are informing this research? (2) What content characterizes experimental research in technical communication? Specifically, how explicit are the research questions/hypotheses, are the results of pilot studies reported, what are the sample sizes and populations used, and what measures do researchers use? (3) Who publishes experimental research in technical communication? Specifically, which authors and affiliates are most associated with experimental research, and how does the sample's gender and authorship distribution compare to existing research? Literature review: We first address how scholars have assessed research in technical communication and how these findings implicate experimental research. We then review features of other exploratory studies that inform this study's design. Methodology: We conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 137 experiments, a comprehensive sample identified from a corpus of 2,118 refereed papers published from 1992 to 2011. We coded 14 variables related to the causal relationships that the experiments addressed and who produced the research. We subjected the data to multiple statistical measures, including contingency table analysis and correspondence analysis. Results and conclusions: Over the 20 years, the journals published experimental research at a consistent rate. This could indicate that these methods have a stable presence in the field, or a discouraging sign that output is not on the rise despite calls from leading scholars. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (TPC) emerged as a strong producer of experiments, publishing 45% of the sample. TPC was also associated with most recent experiments, assuming this role from Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, which was associated with early experiments. In addition, TPC, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, and Technical Communication correlated with experiments on collaboration, pedagogy, and intercultural communication, respectively. The results also revealed that recent experiments reported significantly more explicit research question/hypotheses and pilot studies, an encouraging sign for the quality of future experiments. Finally, Spyridakis published the most experiments over the past 20 years, and researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Twente were the top affiliates associated with output. The configuration of both of these institutions' programs, which seem to align with a traditional science model, might suggest how the evolution of technical communication programs impacts the type of research that its affiliates produce. Our results are limited by the small, though comprehensive, sample and the exploratory natures of measures like correspondence analysis. Future research could use the proposed framework to investigate the evolution of other research methods in technical communication, strengthening our body of knowledge.

Teaching problem: Students' written assignments show that they tend to list ideas rather than provide evidence-based arguments. This might be because they do not have a framework to base their arguments on. Research question: Does the communication model framework help students to write evidence-based arguments when evaluating the communicative effectiveness in corporate blogs? Situating the case: The ability to engage in argument from evidence is one of the Next Generation Science Standards for scientific and engineering practices. Thus, it is important for engineering students to know how to present evidence-based arguments. The communication model framework was introduced to provide students with a framework to base their arguments on. This framework builds on the genre-based and academic literacies approaches to teaching writing. More companies are now using corporate blogs (an open, participatory, and globally networked social media tool) to engage stakeholders directly across multiple contexts. The framework is useful in analyzing evolving genres like corporate blogs because it is not only structured but also flexible. About the case: This teaching case describes the use of the communication model framework as the basis for students' arguments. The framework was used in a general writing course for engineering students. Working in groups, the students used the framework for their oral practice critique and their critique assignment on a given piece of academic writing or corporate blog. They also had to write a reflection paper individually at the end of the course. Results: Overall, the mixed groups and international students groups made a stronger attempt to apply the framework compared to the Singaporean student groups. The students' educational backgrounds, the group dynamics within the group, and the nature of the discussions affected the level of adoption of the framework in their writing. Conclusions: This teaching case reflects the value of mixed group, face-to-face discussions, and personal reflection in teaching students evidence-based writing, and calls for more research on flexible frameworks as genres evolve.

Research problem: This corpus comparison study examines the occurrences of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> as used in British and New Zealand engineering lectures in order to discover its frequency and functions and to consider its role in professional communication. Research questions: Is <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> as frequent in the academic genre of university lectures as in other genres of spoken English? (1) Does <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> have the same functions in British and New Zealand engineering lectures as found in a previous study at an American university? (2) Does a better understanding of the different ways that <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> is used in lectures have pedagogical implications for professional communication, especially for English as an additional language learners? Literature review: Previous studies show <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> mainly functions as a ‘”minimizer’” (merely, only, simply) in university lectures in America, and functions the same in British and New Zealand university lectures on engineering. <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog Just}$</tex></formula> also functions as part of a metadiscursive frame (let me <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> explain), and stance (the speaker's attitude toward the content communicated: don't <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> copy down what I've done). In response, English as an additional language learners can learn to recognize and distinguish the different functions of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> and use them appropriately. Methodology: The researcher used a corpus linguistics methodology to determine the frequency of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> and a discourse analysis method to see if the functions of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> identified in a previous study of the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English applied to the corpus of British and New Zealand engineering lectures. These lectures are all part of the Engineering Lecture Corpus, which was started at Coventry University and includes AUT University in New Zealand. Results and discussion: The frequency of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> in British and New Zealand engineering lectures was high: it occurred in the top 50 words in the wordlists of both sets of lectures. <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog Just}$</tex></formula> was used in British and New Zealand engineering lectures the same way as in the American university, functioning mostly as a “minimizer,” often to reduce the imposition of what was being said or asked. It occurred much more frequently in the British engineering lectures than the New Zealand ones, often in short stretches of discourse. Its “locative” meaning, used when indicating a precise location, occurred more often in the New Zealand Electrical Engineering lectures and in the British Civil Engineering lectures. A study of the different ways that <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> functions, and the frequency with which it is used in spoken academic English should lead to a better understanding of its function in professional communication. The limitation of the study was the sample size, and the fact that it was an opportunistic sample taken from a limited number of lecturers in a limited number of universities. While adopting the functions used in the American study was a limitation, the additional category of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> used in multiword units was uncovered. Limitations of the unavailablilty of recordings to determine pronunciation differences was also noted, with examples provided to show possible misunderstandings. Future research would examine an expanded data sample, providing better representation of the language of lectures in the UK and New Zealand within and outside the subdisciplines of engineering, and investigating the ways that the pronunciation of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> affects its meaning. Other spoken academic and general corpora, such as the British Academic Spoken English corpus and the spoken components of the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English could be studied for comparison purposes of the frequency and functions of <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\font \frog = w52tim\hbox{\frog just}$</tex></formula> .

This study aims to provide scholars with insight into the task of writing research articles. Research questions: (1) What are the generic structures of research article introductions in three engineering subdisciplines? and (2) What are variations that distinguish the introductions of one subdiscipline from the others? Literature review: Swales's genre analysis method has proved to be an effective textual analysis to identify the structural organization of each section of research articles. Even though there seems to be a pattern in each section, previous genre-based studies also demonstrate that disciplinary variation is discernible. It thus remains to be determined whether research articles of different subdisciplines within a single discipline share the same organizational structure. Methodology: Based on journal impact factors, three datasets of English research article introductions representing three subdisciplines of engineering (civil, software, and biomedical) were compiled, consisting of 180 introductions with 60 from each subdiscipline. Then, the three datasets were analyzed using Swales's genre analysis technique to identify the structural patterns prevalent in the introductions of each subdiscipline. Units of textual analysis called moves and steps were quantified to capture variations among the introductions. Results and discussion: Analysis shows that these introductions generally adhere to a common rhetorical organization across subdisciplines. However, disciplinary variations are also captured, highlighting the unique characteristics and perspectives of each subdiscipline. The findings bear pedagogical implications, allowing English for Specific Purposes practitioners to prepare novice scholars to be able to publish successfully in their fields.

This book is written as a text for a scientific research writing course but could also be used as a reference book to support a research methods course or be a useful companion for a student in the thesis stage of his or her program. In addition, this book would remain as a useful reference for researchers through their careers. The most appropriate place to locate this book as a text for students pursuing a program involving a research project would depend on the division of subject areas into courses in the particular program.

Research problem: The purpose of this study is to examine US engineering students' intercultural competence and its pedagogical implications. Three research questions are addressed: (1) What are engineering students' levels of awareness and sensitivity toward intercultural communication? (2) What are their perceived needs in learning intercultural communication? (3) Given these findings, what are some useful approaches and methods to teach intercultural communication in the engineering communication service class? Literature review: The literature review examines current studies on US engineering students' intercultural competence and establishes the scope of the study: intercultural awareness and sensitivity. The researcher consulted literature in intercultural studies, international education, and engineering education. Methodology: The researcher conducted a mixed method study, using surveys, textual analysis, and interviews. Two-hundred seventy-two engineering undergraduates at a Midwestern public university participated in the study. Participants were recruited from an engineering communication class. Data were collected through survey instruments, written responses to cross-cultural dialogs and critical incidents, and interviews. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. Results and discussion: Participants exhibited vague and passive awareness of intercultural communication, average to high intercultural sensitivity (subject to self-assessment and social desirability bias), and partial acceptance of intercultural communication education. Based on these findings, the researcher suggests a cultural-general approach to teaching intercultural competence in engineering communication service classes. The study is limited to research participants at one institution and two aspects of intercultural competence. Future studies can involve diverse research participants, address more aspects of intercultural competence, and examine the use of cultural-general teaching methods in the classroom.

Research Problem: Studies identify peer review as an effective instructional method to improve student writing. Some teachers, however, avoid peer review, perhaps due to the workload required for assessing and correcting peer reviews. Previous studies have not proposed any method to reduce teacher workload by using an objective means to analyze the effects of peer review. Research Questions: This study assesses the degree of similarity between student essay drafts using normalized compression distance (NCD), a compression-based classification algorithm. How does peer review affect student essays, as measured by the NCD? What were the changes in essay length and holistic scores? How did students respond to peer essays? How did peer review affect students during revision? What were the NCD results? How did holistic scoring correspond to NCD results? Literature Review: Studies of pharmacists and engineers indicate that English language technical communication skills are important. Studies of peer review in language education indicate that peer comments are valuable but cultural differences and lack of confidence may impede making or using comments. Studies of NCD applied to web data, figures, and images indicate useful results. Methodology: This quantitative study used anonymous peer review and compared the results of traditional holistic scoring against a novel NCD measure. The researchers conducted the study with 35 student volunteers at a pharmaceutical university in Tokyo, Japan. The students had at least nine years of previous English instruction and previous peer-review experience. In class, students wrote an essay, anonymously reviewed a peer's essay according to instructions, then revised their own essays based on peer comments. An assessor graded the two drafts using a holistic scoring rubric. The researchers used NCD to quantify the change between drafts. Results and Discussion: Sixty percent of revisions contained more words than the originals. 51% percent of revisions received higher scores, 40% had no change, and 8.5% percent had reduced scores. Eleven percent of reviewers with low English proficiency did not identify obvious errors. Three revised essays had lower grades because the writers did not know how to incorporate peer comments. Anonymous peer review could lead to poor results where students had poor reviewing skills or did not know how to use peer comments. NCD helps teachers identify which revised essays to re-evaluate after peer review by indicating those with large quantities of changes. The study was limited by its small group of participants. Future research will examine longer essays, more participants, varied backgrounds, web delivery of NCD, and finding more factors to indicate the quality of written work to reduce teacher workload.

This paper reports on a 10-year case study at a Chinese university of a faculty team's attempt to develop and disseminate a project-based computer-assisted language learning (CALL) program for professional communication. The discussion focuses on three main challenges (professional/academic values, pedagogical philosophy, and institutional culture) to expand a project-based CALL program at this university. Based on the findings, this paper discusses how the implementation of project-based CALL for professional communication needs to be founded upon a good understanding of China's sociocultural contexts and how it might be tailored in order to be more responsive to the local university context. This paper concludes by suggesting a path that practitioners might take in light of these circumstances and challenges.

In light of what has taken place since their presentation at the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference in 2005, the authors describe additional requirements and merits of matching technical writing students in the US with translation students in Europe in a collaborative assignment. Where the original article dealt with how to set up and organize the collaboration, this tutorial delves into the pedagogical challenges and the process dynamics involved in such an exchange, including mediation, power, and teamwork issues.

This tutorial presents a workshop aimed at developing persuasive writing skills among lay practitioners with limited literacy who are required to write reports for professionals in a social-service delivery context. Drawing on Ong's distinction between the communication patterns of oral and literate culture, the workshop was designed to utilize participants' existing oral communication patterns as the underpinning for developing rhetorical strategies appropriate for their professional audience. The workshop consisted of a four-phase process of iterative questioning: identifying audience, defining project goals, formulating feasible outcomes, and assembling relevant evidence and support.

This tutorial is the outgrowth of a corporate request for a website critique by undergraduate, Net-Generation (Net-Gen) students. Fifty-four sophomores working in teams of four and five in the College of Business at the University of Southern Indiana critiqued the website of Kimball International. The report resulted in high-quality criticism of the technology, a deep response to the affective qualities of the website, and recommendations that were accepted by the corporation. This tutorial offers recommendations for this style project's repetition using pedagogical techniques appropriate to the Net-Gen.

Distributed work is an increasingly common phenomenon in a number of technical and professional settings, and the complexity of this work requires high degrees of knowledge sharing and integration that move beyond assembly-line approaches to collaboration. Since participants in distributed-work settings rely almost exclusively on written and spoken language to mediate their collaborative relationships, professional communication faculty need educational approaches that empower students with language practices designed specifically to support effective teaming in these complex environments. To address this need, we employ discourse analysis and Speech Act Theory to identify these language practices in a case study of two cohorts of distributed, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural student teams. The findings show correlations between language practices and successful collaboration. These correlations have significant implications for teaching and practice.

Technical communication consultants steeped in conventional academic notions of writing pedagogy may encounter different assumptions about the nature of writing and the significance of grammar in writing instruction when they consult with professional engineers. This paper examines historical, theoretical, and practical reasons for these sometimes contradictory beliefs and traces the authors' efforts to reconcile these differences while planning and conducting a writing seminar for an engineering firm. A strong emphasis on grammar and mechanics can lead to numerous benefits, including a stronger sense of shared purpose between consultants and engineers and a point of entry into additional conversations about institutional writing practices and writing environments.

Business case studies have been a standard pedagogical tool in technical communication classrooms. However, the expansion of engineering practice-including the design and implementation of appropriate technology in the developing world-suggests the need to complement such studies. This paper analyzes three business and three humanitarian case studies. It highlights the complexities of audience and context that distinguish the humanitarian case studies, and it argues that incorporating humanitarian cases into technical communication courses would promote higher levels of learning, student engagement, and the global citizenship that will be requisite for all engineers in the twenty-first century.

Technical and professional writing pedagogies have traditionally understood collaborative writing as an aggregate, cooperative venture between writers and subject matter experts. In contrast, this tutorial argues that Web 2.0 technologies offer technical and professional communication pedagogies more advantageous conceptions and practices of collaborative writing. The tutorial analyzes how new media technologies create a different collaborative writing environment and then discusses how these environments help collaborative writing methods create an alternative writing situation. The study concludes by examining the outcomes of student Web 2.0 research projects and by offering technical and professional writing instructors new pedagogical strategies for teaching collaborative writing.

Work is described on a National Science Foundation grant that supports the development, assessment, and dissemination of ldquomicro-insertionrdquo problems designed to integrate ethics into the graduate engineering curriculum. In contrast to traditional modular approaches to ethics pedagogy, micro-insertions introduce ethical issues by means of a ldquolow-doserdquo approach. Following a description of the micro-insertion approach, we outline the workshop structure being used to teach engineering faculty and graduate students how to write micro-insertions for graduate engineering courses, with particular attention to how the grant develops engineering students' (and faculty members') ability to communicate across disciplinary boundaries. We also describe previous and planned methods for assessing the effectiveness of micro-insertions. Finally, we explain the role that technical communication faculty and graduate students are playing as part of the grant team, specifically in developing an Ethics In-Basket that will disseminate micro-insertions developed during the grant.

As is true for engineering communication programs nationwide, at MIT curricular and pedagogical reforms have been driven by changes in the kinds of problems that engineers solve and the associated skill sets that engineers must now have in communication and teamwork. This article presents three case studies from communication-intensive classes at MIT that intend to help students develop the advanced communication skills required of professional engineers today. Highlighting classes in biological engineering, aeronautics/astronautics engineering, and biomedical engineering, we explore the following questions: What does it mean for educational practice if professional communication competencies and tasks are the goals? How can students and technical faculty best create the conditions for students to learn to be skilled team members? How can engineering students move from mere display of data to making skilled visual arguments based on those data? The importance of helping students meet the target competencies of professional practice, of teaching effective teamwork and collaboration, and of teaching students to understand and argue with visual data are recognized as widespread needs, and these case studies attest to the possibilities and challenges in meeting those needs.

To optimize learning to write like engineers, undergraduate engineering students need to develop a conscious awareness of alternative writing practices and their strengths and limitations in different contexts, something that is unlikely to come about either in the workplace alone or in one writing course alone. Needed, then, is an engineering curriculum with writing integrated throughout. What follows is a case study of one attempt to integrate writing throughout the curriculum in a department of civil and environmental engineering. This department's "beyond WI to department-wide" model of writing is still in the early stages; the case study is less a textual account of writing outcomes than it is an account of the sociohistoric institutional conditions that led to the creation of this model and of the reasons for rejecting a model of writing instruction that relies on only two or three writing courses. The model in the case study is contrasted with other models.

Writing, especially when accompanied by feedback and revision, is a powerful enhancer for learning, as the writing-to-learn literature attests. Yet, writing as a vehicle for learning seldom appears in engineering content courses. We relate our experiences with a pilot program in engineering design funded through the National Science Foundation. Specifically, we focus on using Calibrated Peer Review as a platform for formative and summative assessment of integrated writing assignments in targeted courses. Our results show that students improved their skills in elements of engineering design and in writing. Additionally, assessment of the learning outcomes from the targeted courses were used successfully to document accreditation board for engineering and technology's criterion EC3 (g), "ability to communicate effectively," in our latest accreditation cycle.

New forms of computer-mediated, online learning can benefit from new forms of assessment that fit the medium and the pedagogical style of the online environment. This paper investigates students' learning styles and learning strategies in taking online collaborative exams. Applying constructivist and collaborative learning theories, the collaborative examination features students' active participation in various phases of the exam process through small group activities online. Students' learning strategies, including deep learning and collaborative learning, are investigated using a 1 3 field quasi-experiment to compare the team-based collaborative online exam with the traditional in-class exam and with the participatory exam, where students participate in the online exam processes individually. Data analysis using results from 485 students indicates that collaborative examinations significantly reduced surface learning in exam study, enhanced interactions and the sense of an online learning community, and increased perceived learning. The results also suggest learning predispositions were significantly correlated with exam study strategies, and provide indications of their effects on learning strategies.

Not only have historical studies of technical communication increased in quantity and quality over the last 15 years, but they have also entered the mainstream of technical communication research. These studies have focused on practitioners, artifacts, genres, movements, techniques, events, and the profession, as well as relevant methodology and pedagogy. There are still many opportunities for historical research in our discipline, particularly in the areas of chirographic, oral, and nonverbal communication as well as technical communication activities such as illustrating, translating, and editing and the business of technical communication. Researchers now have many online indexes, databases, and archives to assist them in locating and studying primary sources. There is a need, however, for greater coordination among scholars and a better awareness of the areas that have already been studied. Historical studies can serve teachers and practitioners by suggesting ideas, supplying precedents, creating critical distance, and establishing context.

This paper describes the development of the AntConc corpus analysis toolkit, originally designed for use in a technical writing course at Osaka University, Japan, but now adopted in institutions throughout the world as an easy-to-use, freeware, multiplatform alternative to the many commercial concordance programs. First, I will explain how the software was originally tailored to the needs of students in the Osaka writing course and later to a general audience through the requests and feedback from teachers and students around the world. Then, I will give an overview of tools in the most recent version of AntConc and explain their value using examples from the classroom. Finally, I will discuss some of the software's limitations and future developments, and suggest applications in professional communication

This special issue of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION focuses on developing new case studies for use in technical and professional communication courses. The term “case study” used here refers to descriptions of real world events that illustrate particular communication problems through collections of primary documents and secondary materials. While case study pedagogy provides students with many benefits, such as concrete applications of technical communication theory, there are distinct challenges that may prevent instructors from developing case studies, such as collecting primary documents as they become available in the media. The case studies treated in the special issue focus on the following events: the crash of Air Midwest Flight 5481; the accounting scandals of the Enron corporation; the communication crisis at Brookhaven National Laboratory; the leaking of nuclear material at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant; the Texas A&M bonfire collapse; and airline press releases in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center.

This case study describes an incident at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and discusses ways in which the case study can be used to examine ethical communication problems and as a basis for writing analytical reports that compare, justify, and analyze materials and issues in technical writing courses. It relates case elements and assignments to broader course and program objectives, poses sample instructional guidance, and offers examples of student performance. Suggested assessment methods to evaluate student learning are also given.

This article presents findings from an empirical study investigating the transfer of rhetorical knowledge, defined as audience awareness, sense of purpose, organization, use of visuals, professional appearance, and style, between the technical communication and the engineering disciplines. Various data collection methods were used to examine the skills and rhetorical knowledge students learned in a technical communication course and determine whether or not students relied on that knowledge as they completed writing assignments in an engineering course. Also examined was the effect of workplace experiences on shaping students' rhetorical knowledge. This study indicated that students did appear to transfer rhetorical strategies between different contexts, and those strategies were learned in the workplace as well as the classroom.

Results are presented from an assessment of student perceptions of collaborative writing practices before and after taking an upper division professional writing class. While most of the classes introduced students to these writing practices, several did not. The assessment was both quantitative and qualitative. Whether or not they had prior experience in the classroom, all students generally reported that they are likely to seek out opportunities to use both peer review and collaborative writing processes once they enter the workplace. However, students who are exposed to these practices in a classroom setting are more likely to report that they intend to continue these practices in the workplace.

It is commonly accepted that writing instruction should meet the specific needs of writers and that students in scientific and technical fields benefit more by learning to write to match the requirements of their specific fields. A variety of models for writing classes have been proposed to meet these needs, from genre-based approaches to courses targeting specific disciplines to general courses serving a heterogeneous group of students from many disciplines. Although persuasive arguments can be made for discipline-specific writing courses, many writing courses for nonnative writers at U.S. universities operate with two key constraints. First, monetary and curricular limitations mean that students from a variety of disciplines are placed in the same course. Second, these courses are staffed by instructors who, while well-prepared in addressing language needs of nonnative writers, may know very little about the content and conventions of engineering and science. This paper discusses a writing course which works within these constraints and has been developed for graduate students who are early in their program of study. In the course, groups of students carry out an original research project as a vehicle to learn professional writing conventions common to research papers in a variety of scientific and engineering fields. In addition, students analyze written conventions in published articles within their fields to raise awareness of how general conventions are worked out in their individual disciplines. General principles for the course are discussed, and samples of successful research topics are provided.

Traditional in-class writing assignments often fail to engage students effectively. This problem may be compounded when students are forced into group projects, where a student may rightly feel that he or she could complete the entire assignment more effectively alone than the whole group could working together. In an attempt to alleviate these concerns, I assigned my university science writing class-half Professional Writing majors, half science majors and minors-the creation of an interactive, electronic murder mystery game. The students used PowerPoint to create linked slides in which the clues and cause of death were scientific information. While working on this assignment in class, a number of students forgot the time and kept working long after class was over. Several students reported losing track of time and place when working on the game at home.

The study used quantitative and qualitative measures to determine differences in learning outcomes between two sections of an advanced technical writing course taught by the same instructor. The instructor used traditional textbook methods in one and technology-enhanced methods in the other. The findings upheld those of previous studies in that students in the experimental group rated both the course and their learning higher than that of their counterparts in the control group. Although fewer significant differences than expected resulted from the many measures taken, substantive positive differences in the writing submitted by students in the experimental group did occur. In order for such changes in performance to emerge as statistically significant differences, evaluation criteria for technical communication students may need to change.

This article reports on a survey of 162 recent engineering graduates about their writing experiences during co-op. Specifically, the survey obtained data about how much time they spent writing, to what extent they engaged in collaborative writing, what kinds of documents they wrote, and the purposes and audiences for those documents, whether they believed their employers valued writing ability, and what strategies they perceived as most helpful in learning to write like engineers. Data were analyzed in terms of engineering specialty and gender. The findings are presented, along with implications for teaching and future research.

This study examines how students enrolled in two Web-based sections of a technical writing class performed compared to students enrolled in a conventional version of the class. Although no significant difference in student performance was found between the two learning conditions, our data reveal intriguing relationships between students' prior knowledge, attitudes, and learning styles and our Web-based writing environment. One finding that we focus on is that reflective, global learners performed significantly better online than active, sequential learners, whereas there was no difference between them in the conventional class. Our study highlights the complexity of effective teaching and the difficulty of making comparisons between the online and the classroom environments. In particular, we maintain that the transfer of active learning strategies to the Web is not straightforward and that interactivity as a goal of instructional Web site design requires significant elaboration.

From the Publisher: The essays collected in this volume address the full range of pedagogical and programmatic issues specifically facing technical communication teachers and program directors in the computer age. The authors locate computers and computing activities within the richly textured cultural contexts of a technological society, focusing on the technical communication instructional issues that remain most important as old versions of hardware and software are endlessly replaced by new ones.

Beginning Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) students often have difficulty learning the genre of lab report writing. This difficulty can be alleviated through genre theory strategies and research, which writing center consultants, for example, can use to focus on the specific form and content of engineering writing, which then can be taught to students in a writing center environment. Genre theory provides a means (1) for humanities writing center consultants to learn specific characteristics about engineering writing, (2) for interdisciplinary collaboration between writing professionals and engineers to take place, and (3) for students to have increased opportunities to learn the discourse of their field. All of these benefits are enhanced by discipline-specific writing programs that support and facilitate them. In addition, the collaboration provides a stimulating, fluid, creative environment in which to discuss engineering writing, an environment which reflects the changing needs of engineering education as a result of technological advancements. As technology continues to influence engineering education, prompting evolutions in both technical and communication skills and knowledge, genre theory and interdisciplinary collaboration will continue to gain importance as strategies for initiating students into the communication demands of their field. The discussion focuses on the integration of genre theory with writing instruction in the ECE Department at the University of South Carolina. This integration stimulated interaction among ECE faculty, composition and rhetoric faculty and students, and ECE students.

Analytical reports, being one of the most difficult genres to teach in a technical writing course, are best taught through the "open case" method. Open cases take advantage of the fact that students are already situated in a workplace environment, the college campus. Engineering students can use the genre to impose order on this chaotic environment, conducting various forms of research on engineering-related campus issues. A process for developing open case assignments is provided.

When faced with the need to seek employment, technical communicators with expertise in proposal writing may want to extend their job-seeking horizons beyond the for-profit world and also consider nonprofit organizations as potential employers. The skills required of proposal writers and the situations in which they work are similar whether the writer is employed by a for-profit corporation or a nonprofit organization such as a private college or social service charity. In developing proposals, writers employed in either setting use similar proposal formats, rely on good interpersonal skills while working under deadline pressures, and work with teams of experts from a variety of fields. The article concludes with information on careers with nonprofit organizations, including typical salaries, benefits, and job titles.

Businesses need not do much that is expensive, radical, or new to improve their documentation, and a product oriented approach is much more likely to be used in the workplace instead of the writing as a process approach. These are the two findings that emerged from our study of the revision of manuals as described by practising technical communicators. We conducted in depth interviews with 20 technical communicators from six different types of industries to explore and understand their concept and use of the revision process. The study describes the understanding technical communicators have of revision in their corporate cultures and then discusses the need for an improved understanding of product based writing among educators of technical communicators.

The paper argues that virtual communication spaces such as the World Wide Web (WWW) offer unique opportunities for collaboration within technical writing classrooms. Three common types of project scenarios are identified, along with the discourse communities and collaborative relationships that are supported and emphasized by each project scenario. A technical writing assignment is described that emphasizes the benefits of students collaborating within the WWW, an emerging, real world discourse community. In describing this assignment, we redefine collaboration to include activities used by WWW site developers and designers.

There is a tendency to view education on the Internet as simply a more efficient way to access information and to communicate, but the Internet is much more than just another tool. The Internet has the potential to create communities where students participate in robust discourse and rituals of communication, establish their identities, and traverse community boundaries. We believe we need to design on-line courses with sound pedagogical frameworks and with a sense of promoting community values of diversity, connectedness, and civic responsibility. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe a framework that we use to design virtual learning communities. We explain community activities to consider, describe how we used our framework for designing three classes, and pose issues that arose when using this framework. We hope our thoughts will direct discussion toward the creation of innovative learning communities.

The article discusses designing electronic writing classrooms and the various decisions that classroom designers face during this complex task. In particular, it considers four key stages in the design process: establishing a plan, developing a room design, working within budgets, and maintaining a smoothly running computerized classroom. The article provides specific suggestions in these four stages informed by sound instructional goals appropriate to the teaching of technical communication.

The paper describes the implementation of a learning community involving a technical communication course and an accounting course. Students are simultaneously registered in all the courses constituting the learning community. The learning community approach to writing instruction can be viewed as one way to implement writing across the curriculum with the following distinguishing features. First, students are registered simultaneously for both courses; the communication skills taught in one course are simultaneously reinforced in another course. Second, the faculty of the two courses interact extensively to deliver skills (e.g., communication skills) in a coherent manner across the two courses. We describe the development of a theoretical framework for connecting the two courses. This theoretical framework guided implementation decisions such as the choice of communication skills to be covered in the accounting course, the design of assignments, and the design of evaluation criteria. While we focus on the integration of an accounting course with a communication course, the learning community approach and the implementation steps are applicable to other disciplines.