The following collection of links is organized into topics that we will discuss in class throughout the semester, in roughly the order we will address them. Categories include:
- Job and Grad School Application Materials
- Copyright, Plagiarism, Remix
- Slide Presentation Tips
- Writing and Designing for the Web
- Proposals
- Instruction Sets and Personas
- Other Collections of Tech Writing Resources
It’s long! So scroll down to explore the full list…and feel free to add other helpful links you find by using the comments feature.
Job and Grad School Application Materials
1. Penn State Career Services: Resumes and Cover Letters
2. Article on Developing a Letter of Application (by TECHWR-L)
4. PSU Engineering Career Resources: Cover Letters
5. “Why Are Manhole Covers Round? The 10 Toughest Interview Questions” from Forbes Magazine
6. Personal Statements–Resources (from Penn State Career Services)
7. Go for the Goals in Your Statement of Purpose (from Accepted.com)
8. Writing Your Medical School Personal Statement (from Princeton Review)
Copyright, Plagiarism, Remix
1. Can I Use that Picture? The Terms, Laws, and Ethics for Using Copyrighted Images
3. Media Commons at Penn State–resources on copyright and fair use.
4. Flickr’s advanced image search: a search engine that allows you to find Creative Commons images that you can use freely (select Creative Commons and images you can adapt toward the bottom of the page). When you use images from here, make sure you attribute them (link to the page).
5. NPR Discussion: The Basics of Trademark Law (as distinguished from copyright)
6. Lawrence Lessig’s “Remix” For The Hybrid Economy [NPR Radio Interview: 37 min 51 sec; 12/22/08]
7. Lawrence Lessig’s TED Talk: “Laws that Choke Creativity”
8. “Music in Political Campaigns 101,” from NPR’s Morning Edition, 2-29-12: Many musicians have taken politicians to court throughout the years for using their copyrighted songs without permission.
Slide Presentation Tips
Scientific Presentations: The Assertion-Evidence Approach (Micheal Alley)
Proper Use of PowerPoint, from Penn State’s John A. Dutton e-Education Institute, Department of Geography
Slide presentation of Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule
PowerPoint Kills, a slide adaptation of Edward Tufte’s critique of PowerPoint
Why Edward Tufte is Wrong, e-Slide
Writing and Designing for the Web
1. Writing for the Web: Guidelines for MIT Libraries
2. Jakob Nielsen: The Guru of Webpage Usability
3. 20 Tips for Writing for the Web
Proposals
Markel’s chapter, ” Writing Proposals”, mentions proposals written in response to government RFPs (requests for proposals). The chapter discusses not only the types and contexts of different proposals, but also the “deliverables” of proposals, and how those deliverables often have to be tracked through a series of progress reports. Here’s an example of a grant proposal I wrote and tracked for Pennsylvania Certified Organic (PCO), which was funded by USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education arm: “Focus on Organic Dairy: An Integrated Program for Pennsylvania Producers”.
Instruction Sets and Personas
1. Fabulous instruction set from WikiHow: “How to Email a Professor“
2. New Yorker–Humorous Instruction Set
3. Using Personas to Create User Documentation (including Instruction Sets)
- Cooper article
- Collected Cooper blog posts
- Washington Post article: “In Retail, Profiling for a Profit”
- “Create Personas to Bridge the Gap with Target Audiences”