A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication incorporates useful and specific strategies for writers, to enable them to create aesthetically appealing and usable technical documentation. These strategies have been developed and tested on a thousand students from a number of different disciplines over twelve years and three institutions. The second edition adds a chapter on business communication, reworks the discussion on technical style, and expands the information on visual communication and ethics into free-standing chapters. The text is accompanied by a passcode-protected website containing materials for instructors (PowerPoint lectures, lesson plans, sample student work, and helpful links).
A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication incorporates useful and specific strategies for writers to create aesthetically appealing and usable technical documentation. These strategies have been developed and tested on a thousand students from a number of different disciplines over twelve years and three institutions. The second edition adds a chapter on business communication, reworks the discussion on technical style, and expands the information on visual communication and ethics into free-standing chapters. Particular attention is paid throughout to the needs of Canadian students.
This compact but complete guide shows that less is more—with fewer extraneous details getting in the way of students trying to learn on the run, it allows them to focus on the most important principles of effective technical communication. The Concise Guide takes a rhetorical approach to technical communication; instead of setting up a list of rules that should be applied uniformly to all writing situations, it introduces students to the bigger picture of how the words they write can affect the people intended to read them. Assignments and exercises are integrated throughout to reinforce and test knowledge.
Straightforward, practical, and focused on realistic examples, Business and Professional Writing: A Basic Guide for Americans is an introduction to the fundamentals of professional writing. The book emphasizes clarity, conciseness, and plain language. Guidelines and templates for business correspondence, formal and informal reports, brochures and press releases, and oral presentations are included. Exercises guide readers through the process of creating and revising each genre, and helpful tips, reminders, and suggested resources beyond the book are provided throughout.
Business and professional communication takes place in a dynamic, ever-changing environment. How can we best help students prepare to communicate in such a challenging environment? The pedagogies of the twentieth century—lectures, quizzes, and exams—have not kept up to these new demands for student engagement. Business Communication: Rhetorical Situations supports more interactive and collaborative pedagogies to motivate students. Each chapter has two or three cases that challenge students to apply the business communication concepts they are learning to a specific set of circumstances. These cases are drawn from real-life communication situations and invite students to think through a communication situation and take action. After each case, challenges and exercises provide more opportunities for students to analyze and reflect on business documents and practice the skills discussed in the case themselves. Throughout, rhetorical concepts such as audience, genre, and purpose are central and collaboration and creativity are encouraged.
Web Site Design is Communication Design is written for practitioners, trainers, and students of Communication, Business, Information Science and Media Design. This book is based on a series of case studies of the web site design processes in smaller and larger organizations, including Amazon and Microsoft. It offers a well-researched, reflective and thorough analysis of the activities undertaken, in combination with practical, real-life experiences of web site designers and producers. It pays attention to the often complicated organizational context that web designers and producers have to work in, while they serve both bosses and target groups to their best intents. The importance of careful evaluation is stressed throughout the book and the in concluding checklists, which guide the practitioner through the design process, from initial idea through site maintenance and re-design.
This concise guidebook offers a rhetorical framework for writing and analyzing content for social media and the web. In the age of disinformation and hyper-targeted digital advertising, writers and teachers of writing must be prepared to delve into the digital world with a critical and strategic perspective. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to writing scenarios, with insights from classical and contemporary rhetoric, the philosophy of technology, and digital media theory. Special emphases are also placed on preparing for writing, marketing, and communications careers in the digital space, and on ethical issues related to digital and social media.
Content is king... and the new kingmaker... and your message needs to align with your model and metrics and other mumbo jumbo, right? Whether you're slogging through theory or buzzwords, there's no denying content strategy is coming of age. But what's in it for you? And if you're not a content strategist, why should you care? Because even if content strategy isn't your job, content's probably your problem—and probably more than you think. You or your business has a message you want to deliver, right? You can deliver that message through various channels and content types, from Tweets to testimonials and photo galleries galore, and your audience has just as many ways of engaging with it. So many ways, so much content... so where's the problem? That is the problem. And you can measure it in time, creativity, money, lost opportunity, and the sobs you hear equally from creative directors, project managers, and search engine marketing specialists. The solution is content strategy, and this book offers real-world examples and approaches you can adopt, no matter your role on the team. Put content strategy to work for you by gathering this book into your little hands and gobbling up never-before seen case studies from teams at Johns Hopkins Medicine, MINI, Icebreaker, and more. Content Strategy at Work is a book for designers, information architects, copywriters, project managers, and anyone who works with visual or verbal content. It discusses how you can communicate and forge a plan that will enable you, your company, or your client get that message across and foster better user experiences. - Presents a content strategy framework and ways to implement in both in-house marketing departments and consultancies - Includes case studies, interviews, and lessons learned from retail, apparel, network television, business-to-business, automotive, non-profit, and higher ed brands - Details practical sales techniques to sell content strategy and use content strategy processes to sell other services and larger projects
Practical, authoritative, and the first comprehensive guide tomanaging every phase of your publication project. The only bookdevoted exclusively to technical publication project management,Managing Your Documentation Projects arms you with provenstrategies and techniques for producing high-quality, extremelyusable documentation, while cutting cost and time-to-market. Dr.JoAnn T. Hackos, a top documentation design and project managementconsultant to major corporations, including IBM andHewlett-Packard, shares with you the fruit of her more than 15years of experience in the field. She gives you: * Clear-cut, rational guidelines to managing every phase of theproject from planning and development, through production,distribution, and project evaluation * Scores of usable templates, checklists, summaries, andforms * Dozens of real-life case studies and scenarios taken from theauthor's extensive experience at top corporations * Techniques applicable to virtually all fields ofdocumentation Managing Your Documentation Projects was designed to function as acomprehensive guide for new managers and a daily tool of survivalfor veterans. It is also an invaluable resource for technicalwriters, editors, graphic designers, consultants, and anyone calledupon to produce high-quality technical documentation on time andwithin budget. JOANN T. HACKOS, PhD, is President of ComtechServices, Inc., an information/design firm in Denver, Colorado andSan Jose, California. She is also president of JoAnn Hackos &Associates, Inc., a strategic planning and management consultingfirm. In 1993, she served as president of the Society for TechnicalCommunication (STC) and is a frequent conference keynote speaker onsuch topics as quality and usability of products and services, theimportance of meeting the needs of the customer, and projectmanagement.
Create and maintain a successful social media strategy for your business Today, a large number of companies still don't have a strategic approach to social media. Others fail to calculate how effective they are at social media, one of the critical components of implementing any social media strategy. When companies start spending time and money on their social media efforts, they need to create an internal plan that everyone can understand. Maximize Your Social offers a clear vision of what businesses need to do to create—and execute upon—their social media for business road map. Explains the evolution of social media and the absolute necessity for creating a social media strategy Outlines preparation for, mechanics of, and maintenance of a successful social media strategy Author Neal Schaffer was named a Forbes Top 30 Social Media Power Influencer, is the creator of the AdAge Top 100 Global Marketing Blog, Windmill Networking, and a global social media speaker Maximize Your Social will guide you to mastery of social media marketing strategies, saving you from spending a chunk of your budget on a social media consultant. Follow Neal Schaffer's advice, and you'll be able to do it yourself—and do it right.
