OBJECTIVE To assess students' opinion regarding the application of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Survey Methodology courses in medical research. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the opinion of the third and fourth year students regarding the relevance of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Survey Methodology courses, which are taught in the first two years, to medical res...

In constructivist second language (L2) learning environments, particularly in relatively teacher-remote situations such as those involving Learning Management Systems (LMS), task performance freedom can be an obstacle to the achievement of specific educational objectives. This paper presents an example of task narrowing achieved by Cmap interface related task design. The relations represented b...

Because food and poultry industries are demanding an improvement in written communication skills among graduates, research paper writing should be an integral part of a senior undergraduate class. However, scientific writing assignments are often treated as secondary to developing the technical skills of the students. Scientific research paper writing has been emphasized in an undergraduate cou...

T his column examines emerging technologies of interest to technical communicators to help them identify those that are worthy of further investigation. It is intended neither as an endorsement of any technology or product, nor as a recommendation to purchase. The opinions expressed by the column editors are their own and do not represent the views of the Society for Technical Communication. Al...

This column examines emerging technologies of interest to technical communicators to help them identify those that are worthy of further investigation. It is intended neither as an endorsement of any technology or product, nor as a recommendation to purchase. The opinions expressed by the column editors and author are their own and do not represent the views of the Society for Technical Communi...

The Technical Working Group on Nuclear Power Plant Control and Instrumentation (TWGNPPCI) of IAEA has been active in providing guidance for the I&C field in the form of technical documents and reports. This year the writing of a new TECDOC to address the challenges in the implementing and licensing digital I&C in nuclear power plants was initiated. This paper reports on discussions within this ...

The clinical case report is a popular genre in medical writing. While authors and editors have debated the justification for the clinical case report, few have attempted to examine the long history of this genre in medical literature. By reviewing selected literature and presenting and discussing excerpts of clinical case reports from Egyptian antiquity to the 20th century, we illustrate the pr...

We have recently added a strong writing component to one of our freshman courses in electrical engineering. The students prepared two kinds of reports—memoranda and formal engineering project reports. Our instructional objectives were to execute well these two forms: to write with a professional tone, and to make good choices about which technical material to include. To meet these objectives, ...

A description is given of the CAPTEAP system that generates English proficiency tests (EPTs) automatically. Because the work is targeted at non-native, graduate students who need to develop technical writing skills, CAPTEAP tests the student's ability to understand and produce technical writing in English, also helping him/her develop the schemata for the academic discourse. For this reason the...