| This somewhat eccentric list of Web resources
is a work in progress. Please e-mail me any suggestions about
other richly informative sites and let me know if any of these
links is now defunct. |
|
| Sites for technical
communication |
Cain
Project in Engineering and Professional Writing
|
| Sites for business
communication |
Each of these has links to other sites.
|
Kitty Locker's Introduction to the Web
|
www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/english/People/Locker.1/kolhome.htm
|
Zane Quible's guidelines
|
http://www2.bus.okstate.edu/mgmt/QUIBLE/home.htm
|
Business English Online
|
http://eleaston.com/biz/bizhome.html
|
| Being a writer |
HTTP://www1.xlibris.com/
|
| Writing well
|
These sites provide advice about writing,
from organizing information through expressing it in the
appropriate and correct style and format.
|
www.english.udel.edu/wc
http://owl.english.purdue.edu
www.nmsu.edu/techprof/links/writres.html
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing.html
www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/handouts.html
www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr
(a little arch, and about essays, but still helpful)
http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/rhetoric
|
| The Job Hunt |
Many of the sites listed above also include
advice about pursuing your career, writing cover letters,
composing a resume, and the like. In addition
|
http://www.udel.edu/CSC/
http://www2.bus.okstate.edu/mgmt/QUIBLE/job.htm
|
| Peer critiquing |
http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/peercrt1.html
|
| Designing Websites |
This award-winning site offers lots of advice.
|
info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual
|
|
Evaluating Websites
|
www.nmsu.edu/techprof/links/webeval.html
|
| Internet Research |
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
|
| Ethics |
Institute for Business and Professional
Ethics, DePaul University
|
http://condor.depaul.edu/ethics/
|
Institute for the Study of Applied and Professional
Ethics, Dartmouth College
|
www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/ethics-inst/Othersites.html
|
Redhawk, a consulting group (and commercial
site)
|
www.ethicscoach.com
|
|
Journals
|
The Economist
|
www.economist.com
|
Wired
|
www.wired.com
(careful: a long load time if your machine is not very,
very fast!)
|
The Wall Street Journal
|
www.wsj.com
|
| Market research |
A commercial site, but some interesting
information, especially about surveys
|
http://busreslab.com
|
| International
Dimensions |
Nancy Hoft's site. She's a consultant in
international technical communication and includes an excellent
bibliography on her site.
|
www.world-ready.com/biblio.htm
|
| Rhetoric, in
general |
http://eserver.org/rhetoric/
|
|
POWER EDITING:
Verifying the Information Product
A checklist
for writers
Deborah C. Andrews
University of Delaware
Level 3: Effectiveness
- Gain attention by answering the audience’s key question:
What’s the point?
- Show the audience the context, how the subject at hand
affects him or her.
- Establish a controlling idea, a "gatherer,"
matched to the task and the forum.
- Build modules of support for that idea, asking and answering
further questions, making and defending claims, providing
explanations, definitions, examples.
- Distinguish the new from the familiar and start with the
familiar.
Level 2: Efficiency
- Adjust the length and depth of the product to the task
and to your credibility with this audience.
- Streamline and check information: comprehensible, true,
trustworthy, justified.
- Design for access through hierarchy and parallelism.
- Connect the supporting modules by making the moves the
audience expects, either ones you’ve taught them to
expect or ones standard for the genre.
- Signal relationships: forecast statements, headings, connecting
words, repetition, type, color, graphic elements, layout.
- Make smart choices between visual and textual display
(e.g. data in a visual; explanation in text).
- Sustain interest by helping the reader understand and
remember.
Level 1: Expression
- Review all verbs: make them work, keep them precise.
- Adjust the level of language to the audience.
- Conform to conventions of the genre and any applicable
style guide.
- Eliminate expletives (there are, it is), clarify pronoun
references (it/they), avoid stretchers (due to the fact
that).
- Use familiar-to-new order to link sentences and paragraphs:
mind the gap.
- Copyedit for spelling, punctuation, mechanics.
- Sound like you (the best you) or your organization. Brand
the product
|
