Technical Communication

Paul V. Anderson is Senior Researcher at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina. He was previously Director of the Roger and Joyce L. Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University (Ohio), where he also served as the founding director of the university's programs in technical and scientific communication. To support various individual and collaborative projects, he has received more than $1,000,000 in external grants for research and program development in technical communication. As a researcher and consultant to business and government, Dr. Anderson has conducted workshops and made presentations in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa, as well as across the United States. His publications, which have won awards from the Society for Technical Communication and the National Council of Teachers of English, address such topics as technical communication practice and theory, ethical issues in research and teaching, research methods, pedagogy, and assessment. Dr. Anderson has been selected as a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, and Miami University's Institute of Environmental Science. He has received the Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication from the Society for Technical Communication.

• PART I: INTRODUCTION.1. Communication, Your Career, and This Book.2. Overview of the Reader-Centered Approach: Writing for a Job.PART II: THE READER-CENTERED COMMUNICATION PROCESS.3. Defining Your Communication's Goals.4. Conducting Reader-Centered Research: Gathering, Analyzing, and Thinking Critically About Information.5. Using Six Reader-Centered Research Methods.6. Organizing Reader-Centered Communications.7. Drafting Reader-Centered Communications.8. Using Eight Reader-Centered Patterns for Presenting Information and Ideas9. Persuading Your Readers.10. Developing an Effective, Professional Style.11. Writing Reader-Centered Front and Back Matter.12. Creating Reader-Centered Graphics.13. Creating Eleven Types of Reader-Centered Graphics.14. Designing Reader-Centered Pages and Documents.15. Revising Your Drafts.16. Testing Your Drafts for Usefulness and Persuasiveness.PART III: APPLICATIONS OF THE READER-CENTERED APPROACH.17. Creating Communications with a Team.18. Creating and Delivering Listener-Centered Oral Presentations.19. Managing Client and Service-Learning Projects.20. Creating Reader-Centered Websites and Professional Portfolios.21. Writing Reader-Centered Correspondence: Letters, Memos, and Emails.22. Writing Effectively on Social Media at Work.23. Writing Reader-Centered Proposals.24. Writing Reader-Centered Empirical Research Reports.25. Writing Reader-Centered Feasibility Reports.26. Writing Reader-Centered Progress Reports.27. Writing Reader-Centered Instructions.Appendix A: Documenting Your Sources.Appendix B: Reflecting for Transfer.References.Index.