01627nas a2200181 4500008004100000245012200041210006900163300001000232490000600242520099300248653002201241653001701263653002101280653002801301653002201329100002201351856007201373 2014 eng d00aExplicitly Teaching Five Technical Genres to English First-Language Adults in a Multi-Major Technical Writing Course0 aExplicitly Teaching Five Technical Genres to English FirstLangua a29-590 v63 a
In this paper, I report the effects of explicitly teaching five technical genres to English first-language students enrolled in a multi-major technical writing course. Previous experimental research has demonstrated the efficacy of explicitly teaching academic writing to English first-language adults, but no comparable study on technical writing exists. I used a mixed-method approach to examine these effects, including a control-group quasi-experimental design and a qualitative analysis to more fully describe the 534 texts produced by 316 student writers. Results indicated the genre participants constructed texts demonstrating a significantly greater awareness to audience, purpose, structure, design, style, and editing than participants taught through more traditional approaches. Within the technical genres, participants demonstrated greater awareness to audience, purpose, and editing in the job materials text type than with correspondence or procedures text types.
10aexplicit teaching10agenre theory10aquasi-experiment10atechnical communication10atechnical writing1 aBoettger, Ryan, K uhttp://www.jowr.org/articles/vol6_1/JoWR_2014_vol6_nr1_Boettger.pdf