Teaching the IMRaD Genre: Sentence Combining and Pattern Practice Revisited

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Apr 2011

Teaching the IMRaD Genre: Sentence Combining and Pattern Practice Revisited

Joanna Wolfe University of Louisville ; Cynthia Britt University of Louisville ; Kara Poe Alexander Baylor University

Abstract

The authors describe two pedagogical strategies—rhetorical sentence combining and rhetorical pattern practice—that blend once-popular teaching techniques with rhetorical decision making. A literature review identified studies that associated linguistic and rhetorical knowledge with success in engineering writing; this information was used to create exercises teaching technical communication students to write Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRaD) reports. Two pilot studies report promising results: Preliminary findings suggest that students who were taught this method wrote essays that were perceived as significantly higher in quality than those written by students in a control section. At the same time, however, the pilot studies point to some challenges and shortcomings of exercise-oriented pedagogies.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 2011-04-01
DOI: 10.1177/1050651910385785
Open Access: Closed
Topics: technical communication scientific writing voice and style

Citation Context

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