The Essentials of Technical Communication 5th Edition by Elizabeth Tebeaux, ISBN-13: 978-0197539200

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The Essentials of Technical Communication 5th Edition by Elizabeth Tebeaux, ISBN-13: 978-0197539200

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• Publisher: ‎ Oxford University Press; 5th edition (November 6, 2020)
• Language: ‎ English
• ‎448 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 0197539203
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0197539200

The most accessible, concise, and affordable guide to effective professional communication that ensures your work gets read–not tossed!

In today’s complex workplace, no one wants to read what you write. The Essentials of Technical Communication, Fifth Edition, was developed with this principle in mind. The respected author team continues to provide students with accessible and comprehensive instructions for planning, drafting, and revising technical documents that are clear and concise. Divided into two flexible parts–Principles and Applications–the text lays a strong foundation in the rhetoric principles before examining the principle types of workplace documents with checklists for use in preparing them.

Table of Contents:

Cover Page

Title page

Copyright page

Checklists

Preface

Approach

Organization

Key Features

New to This Edition

Acknowledgments

Part One Principles

1 Characteristics of Writing at Work

Writing at Work Versus Writing at School

Requires acute awareness of security and legal liability.

Requires awareness that documents may be read by unknown readers.

Achieves job goals.

Addresses a variety of readers who have different perspectives.

Requires a variety of written documents.

The Foundations of Effective Writing at Work

The Qualities of Good Technical Writing

Exercises

2 Writing for Your Readers

Understand Your Readers—The Heart of the Planning Process

Keep in mind that business readers want answers now.

Determine your readers and their perspectives.

Determine your purpose.

Understand your role as a writer.

Plan the content.

Anticipate the context in which your writing will be received.

The Basic Parts of the Composing Process

Analyzing the writing situation—purpose, readers, and context.

Choosing/discovering information.

Arranging information.

Drafting.

Revising.

Editing.

Exercises

3 Writing Ethically

Your Professional Obligations

Codes of Conduct and Standards of Practice

Recognizing Unethical Communication

Plagiarism and theft of intellectual property.

Deliberate use of imprecise or ambiguous language.

Manipulation of numerical information.

Use of misleading illustrations.

Promotion of prejudice.

Failure to make information accessible.

Distribution of misinformation.

Writing Collaboratively

The team leader.

Requirements of team leaders.

Requirements of team members.

Managing Unethical Situations

Exercises

4 Achieving a Readable Style

The Paragraph

Examples for study.

Basic Principles of Effective Style

Determine your readers’ knowledge of the subject.

Determine whether a particular style will be expected.

Adjust the style to the readers, the purpose, and the context.

Keys to Building Effective Sentences

Watch sentence length.

Keep subjects and verbs close together.

Avoid pompous language; write to express, not to impress.

Avoid excessive use of is / are verb forms.

Use active voice for clarity.

Word Choice

Squeaky Clean Prose

Exercises

5 Designing Documents

Understanding the Basics of Document Design

Determine which decisions are yours to make.

Choose a design that fits your situation.

Plan your design from the beginning.

Make your design accessible.

Reveal your design to your readers.

Keep your design consistent.

Designing Effective Pages and Screens

Use blank space to frame and group information.

Choose a legible type design.

Space lines of text for easy reading.

Adjust line length to page or screen size.

Use a ragged right margin.

Position words and illustrations in a complementary relationship.

Helping Readers Locate Information

Use frequent headings.

Compose descriptive headings.

Use concrete language.

Use questions, verb phrases, and sentences instead of nouns alone.

Use standard headings if readers expect them.

Make the headings parallel.

Make sure the headings match any list or table of contents in the document.

Design distinctive headings.

Limit the number of heading levels.

Create a pattern for the headings and stick to it.

Match size to importance.

Make your headings accessible.

Put more space above a heading than below it.

Keep each heading with the section it covers.

Consider using numbers with your headings.

Use page numbers and headers or footers.

Number the pages.

Include headers or footers.

Testing Your Design

Exercises

6 Designing Illustrations

Creating Illustrations

Tables.

Bar and column graphs.

Circle graphs.

Line graphs.

Organization charts.

Flow charts.

Project schedule charts.

Diagrams.

Photographs.

Infographics.

Video clips.

Designing Illustrations Ethically

Testing Your Illustrations

Exercises

Part Two Applications

7 E-mails, Texts, Memos, and Letters

E-mail and Text Messages

Memos and Letters

Guidelines for Effective Correspondence

Appropriate Tone in E-mails, Texts, Memos, and Letters

Guidelines for Dealing with Tone

Writing for Social Media

Planning and Writing Correspondence

Exercises

8 Technical Reports

Kinds of Reports

Report Categories—Informal and Formal

Informal Report Headings

Subject line.

Reference.

Action required.

Distribution list.

Parts of an Informal Technical Report

Introduction.

Subject or report topic.

Report purpose.

Background or rationale.

Report development.

Summary.

Discussion.

Conclusion.

Recommendations.

Attachments.

Developing Reports

Elements of Formal Reports

Prefatory elements.

Letter/memo of transmittal.

Title page.

Submission page.

Table of contents.

List of illustrations.

Glossary and list of symbols.

Abstracts and summaries.

Informative abstract.

Descriptive abstract.

Executive summaries.

Discussion, or body of the report.

Parts of the discussion.

Collecting and grouping information.

Strategy for presenting the discussion.

Reports with standard arrangement patterns.

Topical arrangement.

Chronological arrangement.

Persuasive arrangement and development.

Letter Reports

Example Report for Study

Exercises

9 Proposals and Progress Reports

Proposals

The context of proposal development.

Effective argument in proposal development.

Standard sections of proposals.

Summary.

Project description (technical proposal).

Introduction.

Rationale and significance.

Plan of the work.

Scope.

Methods.

Task breakdown.

Problem analysis.

Facilities and equipment.

Personnel (management proposal).

Budget (cost proposal).

Conclusion.

Appendices.

Progress Reports

Structure of progress reports.

Structure by work performed.

Structure by chronological order.

Structure by main project goals.

Online submission of progress reports.

Style and Tone of Proposals and Progress Reports

Exercises

10 Instructions, Procedures, and Policies

Instructions versus Procedures

Critical Role of Instructions and Procedures in the Workplace

Planning Instructions and Procedures

Structure and Organization

Introduction.

Theory governing the procedure or instruction.

Warnings, cautions, hazards, and notes regarding safety or quality.

Conditions under which the task should be performed.

Name of each step.

Online Instructions

Video Instructions

Testing Your Instructions

Exercises

11 Oral Reports

Understanding the Speaking–Writing Relationship

Analyzing the Audience

Determining the Goal of Your Presentation

Choosing and Shaping Content

Analyzing the Context

Choosing the Organization

Introduction.

Body.

Conclusion.

Choosing an Appropriate Speaking Style

Designing the Slides to Enhance Your Purpose and Your Meaning

Questions for Planning Your Presentation

Audience.

Purpose.

Context.

Content.

Illustrations.

Style.

Speaking to International Audiences

Designing Each Segment

Choose an interesting title.

Develop your presentation around three main divisions.

Focus the introduction.

Organize the body.

Fortify the conclusion.

Choosing an Effective Delivery Style

Techniques to Enhance Audience Comprehension

Designing and Presenting the Poster Presentation

Designing and Presenting the Scripted Presentation

Organizing the scripted presentation.

Writing the script.

Practicing the presentation.

Exercises

12 Résumés and Job Applications

The Correspondence of the Job Search

Prepare your application for AI screening.

Review your social media profile.

Letter of application.

The beginning.

The body.

The ending.

The complete letter.

The résumé.

Chronological résumés.

Functional résumés.

Follow-up letters.

No answer.

After an interview.

After being refused a job.

Accepting or refusing a job.

Your Social Media Profile

Interviewing

The interview.

Negotiation.

Before and after the interview.

Exercises

Appendix A Brief Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Usage

ab Abbreviations

apos Apostrophes

acro Acronyms

brackets Brackets

cap Capitalization

colon Colon

c Comma

dm Dangling Modifier

dash Dash

ell Ellipsis

exc Exclamation Point

frag Fragment

hyphen Hyphen

ital Italicization

mm Misplaced Modifier

np/ag Noun–Pronoun Agreement

num Numbers

paral Parallelism

paren Parentheses

pron Pronoun

quot Quotation Marks

run-on Run-On Sentence

semi Semicolon

sv/ag Subject–Verb Agreement

ww Wrong Word

Appendix B Using Sources of Information

The APA System

Book:

Collection:

Essay or article in a book:

Article in a professional journal:

Article in a magazine:

Article in a newspaper, anonymous:

Government publication:

Article in an online news source:

Page of a website:

Online multimedia source:

Posting to e-mail distribution list:

Posting to a blog or bulletin board:

Tweet:

The Chicago System

Notes:

Book:

Collection:

Essay or article in a book:

Article in a professional journal:

Article in a magazine:

Article in a newspaper, anonymous:

Government publication:

Article in an online news source:

Page of a website:

Online multimedia source:

Posting to e-mail distribution list:

Posting to a blog or bulletin board:

Tweet:

The IEEE System

Book:

Collection:

Essay or article in a book:

Article in a professional journal:

Article in a monthly publication:

Article in a daily newspaper:

Government publication:

Article in an online news source:

Page of a website:

Online multimedia source:

Posting to an e-mail distribution list:

Posting to a blog or bulletin board:

Tweet:

Appendix C Report for Study and Analysis

Index

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Elizabeth Tebeaux is Professor Emerita of English at Texas A&M University and has taught technical and practices technical writing for close to forty years.

Sam Dragga is Professor Emeritus of English at Texas Tech University. From 2016 to 2020, he served as editor of the quarterly research journal of the Society for Technical Communication.

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