These readings and resources are selected to stimulate class discussion and to further our understanding of course topics. My selection of a link is not necessarily an endorsement of the author's work.
Covington, Barksdale, Egan-Warren, Larsen, & Trunso, "Communication in the Workplace: What Can NC State Students Expect?"
Writing Processes
Definitions of Technical Writing
Porter, "Forum Analysis"
CARS Checklist for Research Source Evaluation
Harris, "Evaluating Internet Research Sources"
Kittle, "Reading Practices as Revision Strategies: The Gossipy Reading Model"
Lank, “Making 1040s a Bit Less Taxing”
Petersen, "Writing for a Web Audience"
Morris, "The ABCs of Building a Website: Amateur Web Sites--The Top Ten Signs"
Nielsen, "F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content"
Genre Conventions: Advice & Samples
Correspondence
Just Follow Law: CC&BCC (YouTube)
The Writing Center, U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Business Letters"
Zuidema, "What a Memo Is and How to Write One"
Purdue University Online Writing Lab, "Memo Writing"
Engineering Communication Center @ the U of Toronto, "The Memo"
Epstein, "Be Polite, E-Polite"
Miller, "10 Ways to Be Useful on Twitter"
FAITC, Centre for Intercultural Learning
Citrin, "The Art of the Perfect Voicemail"
Application materials
Du, "Job Candidates Getting Tripped Up By Facebook"
Finder, "For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume"
Zupek, "Job Search No Place for Emoticons and Texting"
Aspan, "How Sticky is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free"
Descriptions
Jerz, "Writing a Mechanism Description"
EBSTC, "Paper Clip"
Jerz, "Writing a Process Description"
How Stuff Works
Oriel, "Guide to Specification Writing for U.S. Government Engineers"
PowerPoint
Alley, "Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides" [+ ppt criticism]
Alley, templates for presentation slides (a.k.a. PowerPoint)
Norvig, "The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation"
Declaration of Independence, PowerPoint draft
Scientific Reports and Posters
The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Scientific Reports"
Virginia Tech, "Design of Scientific Posters"
The Ohio State University, "15 Simple Steps to Developing Posters Using PowerPoint"
Style Study
Semicolons with conjunctive adverbs
Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing
Brouwer, "No Spunk: A Guide to British Grammar"
Phrasal Verbs Dictionary
Tools for Managing Sources
Dordt Library Reference Materials
Doc Scribe's Guides to Research Style (AMA, APA, ASA, CBE, CMS, MLA, EOS)
Google Docs
Zotero--collect, manage, & cite research sources (Mozilla Firefox only)
Create a Graph
Web Cite
Web Design Aids
- Colors: Color Scheme Generator 2 helps you choose colors for your sites.
- Copyright & Fair Use: Consult Stanford Copyright & Fair Use for information about how you may use others' work.
- Dordt College policies: "World Wide Web Policy and Guidelines"
- Fonts: dafont.com offers freely downloadable fonts; check individual fonts for restrictions.
- Image manipulation: GIMP is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring; it enables everything from paint to photo editing to animation.
- Licensing: Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."
- Photos: Flickr: Creative Commons links to photos availble for use under alternatives to full copyright.
- Photo editing: Picnik is free and requires no downloads.
- PDFs: Free PDF maker available at Pdf995 downloads
- Search engine optimization: In "Hotwiring Your Search Engine," Stone gives background and explains the ethical issues.
- Usability: For the latest in usability results, search the archives of Nielsen's bi-weekly column, Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability
- Web Authoring Inspiration: Resources collected by student web authors
- Web Page Design for Designers: A jumplist menu that links to additional tools and resources for web designers.
Web Portfolio Samples for Analysis (not necessarily models)
Samples as compliled on Kairosnews
Penn State eportfolio gallery
Boggio (Dordt)
Carlile (Michigan State)
Fasca (BSJ, Ohio U)
Den Boer (Dordt)
Maksimova (Iowa State)
Slon (BA & LLB, U of Witwatersrand, South Africa)
Spoon (Buena Vista)
Treadwell (Michigan State)
Not a portfolio, but an interesting way of presenting an article: Arola & Ball, "From 'They Call Me Doctor?' to Tenure"
