Revising instructions for clients of health care facilities provides students with valuable practice in good technical communication techniques: organizing information for maximum accessibility, analyzing the audience's needs, using formatting and graphics to enhance communication, and clarifying sentence structure and diction. Suitable for both individual and team work, the project offers experience in both revising instructions for a lay audience and writing persuasively. It also emphasizes the accountability of technical writers to the users of their documents.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, Paul V.Technical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach. 3rd ed.Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, 1995.
2.
Boyd, Marilyn D.“A Guide to Writing Effective Patient Education Materials.”Nursing Management18.7 (1987): 56-57.
3.
Casper, Rick D.“Teaching Technical Writing: Rethinking Our Approach.”Journal of Technical Writing and Communication25 (1995): 275-283.
4.
Cunningham, Donald H.
, and John H. Mitchell. “Teaching the Writing of Instructions.”Courses, Components and Exercises in Technical Writing. Ed. Dwight W. Stevenson. National Council of Teachers of English, 1981. 136-143.
5.
Dyrud, Marilyn A.“Teaching by Example: Suggestions for Assignment Design.”Business Communication Quarterly59.3 (1996): 67-70.
6.
Ferguson, Janice
. “AIDS and You: A Brochure for the At Risk / Poor Reader.”National Forum of Special Education Journal1.1 (1989-90): 52-58.
7.
Flower, Linda
, John R. Hayes, and Heidi Swarts. “Revising Functional Documents: The Scenario Principle.”New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, Practice. Ed. Paul V. Anderson, R. John Brockmann, and Carolyn R. Miller. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood, 1983. 41-58.
8.
Giles, Timothy D.“The Readability Controversy: A Technical Writing Review.”Journal of Technical Writing and Communication20 (1990): 131-138.
9.
Glasper, Alan
. “Developing Family Information Leaflets.”Nursing Standard 11 Mar. 1992: 24-27.
10.
Harris, Elizabeth
. “A Theoretical Perspective on `How To' Discourse.”New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, Practice. Ed. Paul V. Anderson, R. John Brockmann, and Carolyn R. Miller. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood, 1983. 139-155.
Redish, Janice C.“Reading to Learn to Do.”The Technical Writing Teacher15 (1988): 223-233.
13.
Rude, Carolyn D.“Format in Instruction Manuals: Applications of Existing Research.”Journal of Business and Technical Communication2 (1988): 63-77.
14.
Selzer, Jack
. “What Constitutes a `Readable' Technical Style?”New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, Practice. Ed. Paul V. Anderson, R. John Brockmann, and Carolyn R. Miller. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood, 1983. 71-89.
15.
Taylor, Ann Gill
, J.A. Skelton, and Ree W. Czajkowski. “Do Patients Understand Patient Education Brochures?”Nursing and Health Care3 (1982): 305-310.
16.
Van Hees
, Maartje M. W.“User Instructions for the Elderly: What the Literature Tells Us.”Journal of Technical Writing and Communication26 (1996): 521-536.
