TECHNICAL WRITING: A GUIDE FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

The authors are lecturers of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) at the faculties of Telecommunications, Engineering and Nautical Studies, respectively. They have a wide experience teaching technical communication and have carried out research within the field of English for academic and specific purposes. This book is intended to be a practical and clear guide to engineering students who need to familiarize themselves with the characteristics of technical writing in order to become efficient writers in their future technical professions. To this purpose, it includes authentic texts and reference materials from different degrees (general engineering, telecommunications, computing, civil engineering, etc.) and fosters extensive writing practice through a rich variety of tasks. Besides, this guide develops active learning methods adapted to the European Higher Education Area framework. The book follows three approaches (process, product and genre), the process approach being the central one to which the other two are subsumed. This is reflected in the organization of the contents, which have been basically divided into three main parts. The first is a thorough introduction to technical communication. The second includes three practical chapters that fully develop the main stages of the writing process (pre-writing, writing and post-writing) and the third offers a useful handbook.