After 25 years of practical experience as a technical writer, I turned to teaching. During the first several years I tried a number of texts, but finally abandoned them, preferring to develop my own materials. I also learned to utilize, whenever possible, writing from the students' professional fields, because it was real motivation for them. It seemed to me that most texts were a mishmash of information and examples happened upon (not chosen or written) by the textbook author, and then adapted poorly to the book's purpose.