Discovering and Teaching Syntactic Structures in Three Technical Disciplines

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Apr 1983

Discovering and Teaching Syntactic Structures in Three Technical Disciplines

Terri Paul ; Mary Rosner

Abstract

To determine whether there are different technical styles, syntactic structures at three audience levels in the published writing of three disciplines were analyzed. Our analysis discloses that different disciplines rely primarily on different types of subordinate clauses, sentence openers, and sentence types. It also discloses that paragraph length varies with audience level, as do the number of subject sentence openers and the kinds of verb constructions. Next, we compare our findings with standard textbook treatments of style and advocate a more flexible approach to the teaching of technical style, one that accounts for variations in subject matter and audience.

Journal: Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published: 1983-04-01
DOI: 10.2190/hy67-66bp-lc9r-yrd9
Topics: voice and style

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

SMITH (1997)

Intertextual Connections to “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing”

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Childs (1986)

Where Techne Meets Poesis: Some Semiotic Considerations in the Rhetoric of Tech…

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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10.2307/375964

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