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Switching terminology from from "report" to "techdoc": If you go all the way back to Houp and Pearsall (1970s vintage), you read that reports are supposed to be neutral, objective—the scientific research report being the model. But technical information shows up in other genres such as proposals, feasibility reports, and business plans. The term "technical document," or "techdoc," is more all-encompassing.
Big push towards STEM examples. Few technical-writing instructiors at Austin Community College (Austin, Texas) still use this textbook; the program has only a thin veneer of the technical left. This development frees Online Technical Writing Textbook to import more hard science and technology!
Academic support. Instructors will find AI prompts to evaluate writing projects, example requirements for writing projects, brainstorming scenarios for writing projects. Chapter reading quizzes are also available.
Translations of chapters. You'll notice the flags of different countries in the sidebars of many chapters. These include Arabic, Filipino, Hindi, Hungarian, Spanish, and Swahili. Readers associated with these countries and languages often access this textbook. See the Visitor Register for usage data.
Infographics everywhere! Thanks to Google NotebookLM, you can see interesting infographics for many of the chapters.
New document types: Currently, I am adding the literature review and the engineering design report. About a year ago, I added handbooks, data reports, guides, and white papers.
Lots of new examples, and updated examples: topics including lithium mining, advances in cardiac devices, global warming and sea-level rise, artificial intelligence, global warming and increased storm activity, communication among whales, dreams: hard science research, El Niño and la Niña, quantum technology: threat to computer passwords, hurricane-ready architecture, solar storms, polar vortex, green roofs and urban cooling, mind-controlled devices, agriculture in outer space, cryogenics: whole body preservation, potential of solar-powered automobiles, space elevators, autonomous self-driving vehicles: safety concerns, terraforming Mars....
AI prompts for technical writing projects. Toward the bottom of most assignment-oriented chapters, you will see sets of AI prompts that can be used by faculty and students alike.
Responsiveness. You''ll not notice the hardest work on this textbook—enabling responsiveness. Browsers on desktop, tablet, and mobile device can now view chapters formatted accordingly.
New background color. And the background color is now ivory. Like it? A bit too much yellow for me.
I would appreciate your thoughts, reactions, criticism regarding this chapter: response—David McMurrey
